EPA cites COVID-19 as reason to suspend regulation of polluters
The Trump administration introduced this week a sweeping relaxation of environmental laws and fines during the coronavirus pandemic. According to new guidelines from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), companies will largely be exempt from consequences for and make it difficult to assess the resulting environmental damage. More air pollution not only leads to a warmer climate, but it can also cause major respiratory issues, among other health problems — potentially putting the communities who live near these facilities at an increased risk for contracting COVID-19.
"This is an open license to pollute. Plain and simple," Gina McCarthy, president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council and former EPA Administrator, said in a press release. "The administration should be giving its all toward making our country healthier right now. Instead, it is taking advantage of an unprecedented public health crisis to do favors for polluters that threaten public health. We can all appreciate the need for additional caution and flexibility in a time of crisis, but this brazen directive is an abdication of the EPA's responsibility to protect our health."
Several environmental organizations put out statements opposing the new guidelines.
"At a time when communities across the country are desperately trying to clean up polluted waters and one-third of wildlife species are at a heightened risk of extinction, this misguided rule places our drinking water, our wildlife and our nation's way of life further at risk," said Collin O'Mara, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, in a statement.
"As the country focuses on protecting public health and safety from COVID-19, Donald Trump and Andrew Wheeler are exploiting this pandemic to make toxic pollution legal," said Michael Brune, Executive Director of environmental organization the Sierra Club, in a statement. "This illegal and reckless action will not go unchecked."
Wheeler defended the move on Twitter Friday, saying the EPA is working to protect public health and the environment "while providing a small degree of flexibility during these extraordinary times."
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