WASHINGTON – Following recent moves by the Trump administration’s Environmental Protect Agency (EPA) to cease counting health benefits when conducting cost-benefit analysis for Clean Air Act rules and to repeal the endangerment finding that underpins the EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) has joined dozens of his colleagues in pushing back and demanding answers.  

“This administration continues to make it clear that they care more about lining the pockets of oil executives and fossil fuel billionaires than they do about the health and wellbeing of Americans,” said Senator Gallego. “Not only will these decisions cost Americans their health and in some cases their lives, but they will also increase health care spending, cause energy bills to skyrocket, and make transportation more expensive. That’s why I’m demanding answers.”  

In a letter to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, Senator Gallego and his colleagues raised concerns that by changing the cost-benefit analysis to factor in only the costs to industry—and not the costs to human life—the EPA risks Americans’ health and could cost billions in higher health care spending. Should EPA apply this policy when reconsidering the current nationwide PM2.5 standards, the agency risks costing Americans, “between $22 and $46 billion in avoided morbidities and premature deaths in the year 2032,” the Senators wrote. “The total compliance cost to industry, meanwhile, [would] be $590 million … the expense of forgoing the $22 to $46 billion benefit would burden Americans across the country in lives lost, more frequent and severe illnesses, missed school days and lost labor productivity, [while] the $590 million in savings would go mostly into the pockets of a small group of Trump’s fossil fuel donors.”

Senator Gallego and his colleagues are also launching an investigation into the EPA’s decision to release the endangerment finding, raising concerns that the administration did not engage in a transparent notice-and-comment rulemaking and moved to finalize the rescission before completing its required regulatory review. “When an agency signals that the outcome of a proceeding is preordained, public participation becomes performative rather than meaningful, undermining the legitimacy of the rulemaking process and violating basic principles of administrative law … Presidential policy preferences do not give EPA carte blanche to bypass statutory mandates to engage in good faith with sound science and public input in favor of predetermined outcomes,” wrote the Senators.

Senator Gallego is a leader in energy policy, serving as the Ranking Member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s Energy Subcommittee. Last year, he released his energy plan “Fostering American Energy Innovation and Affordability.”