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TRUMP’S EPA COULD LIMIT ITS OWN ABILITY TO USE NEW SCIENCE TO
STRENGTHEN AIR POLLUTION RULES  
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Lisa Song
January 7, 2026
ProPublica
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_ In government records that have flown under the radar, the EPA is
questioning its legal authority to revise pollution rules more than
once when new science shows unacceptable health risks. _

, Photo illustration by Alex Bandoni/ProPublica.

 

Ethylene oxide was once considered an unremarkable pollutant. The
colorless gas seeped from relatively few industrial facilities and
commanded little public attention. 

All that changed in 2016, when the Environmental Protection Agency
completed a study [[link removed]] that
found the chemical is 30 times more carcinogenic than previously
thought.

The agency then spent years updating regulations that protect millions
of people who are most exposed to the compound. In 2024, the EPA
approved stricter rules that require commercial sterilizers for
medical equipment and large chemical plants to slash emissions of
ethylene oxide, which causes lymphoma and breast cancer.

It was doing what the EPA has done countless times: revising rules
based on new scientific knowledge.

Now, its ability to do that for many air pollutants is under threat. 

In government records that have flown under the radar, President
Donald Trump’s EPA said it is reconsidering whether the agency had
the legal authority to update those rules. 

Chemical companies and their trade organizations have argued that the
EPA cannot reevaluate hazardous air pollution rules to account for
newly discovered harms if it has revised them once already.

It doesn’t matter if decades have passed or new information has
emerged. 

If the EPA agrees, environmentalists fear that the decision could have
wide implications, significantly curbing the EPA’s ability to limit
nearly 200 pollutants from thousands of industrial plants. The next
time new science reveals that a chemical is much more toxic, or that
the amount of pollution released from a factory had been
underestimated and would cause legally unacceptable health risks, the
agency would not be able to react.

“It’s a poor reflection on this administration’s claim that they
are actually interested in clean air,” said Ana Baptista, a
professor of environmental policy and sustainability management at The
New School. “By saying we’re no longer going to consider science,
it’s abdicating your mission.”

The EPA didn’t address ProPublica’s questions about the ethylene
oxide reevaluation or its broader implications. Instead, the agency
pointed to a March press release about how it was reconsidering
multiple air pollution rules
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issued by President Joe Biden’s administration, including the ones
for chemical plants and commercial sterilizers. “EPA is committed to
using the gold standard of science during these reviews,” a
spokesperson said in an email. “Since day one, EPA has been clear
that providing clean air, water, and land for all Americans is a top
priority.” 

The EPA’s reconsideration focuses on the Clean Air Act, the
country’s most powerful air quality law, which regulates hazardous
air pollutants for different types of industrial operations. There’s
a specific rule for oil refineries, for instance, and another for
steel mills. Within eight years after each rule is published, the EPA
is required to conduct an assessment, called a residual risk review,
to decide if an update is necessary. 

These assessments use detailed data on the quantity of emissions
coming from each facility, the toxicity of each chemical and other
information on how the chemicals are released and dispersed in the
air. The combined data reveals how the emissions put local residents
at risk of cancer, respiratory diseases, reproductive harm and other
health problems. 

If the EPA determines the overall risks exceed what’s allowed under
the law, the agency must tighten the rules.

The Clean Air Act doesn’t say whether the EPA is required to conduct
additional residual risk reviews after the first one. Nor does it
specifically prohibit the agency from doing so.

As far back as 2006, the EPA under President George W. Bush asserted
that the agency had the right
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to revisit and revise the rules based on risk. 

The issue became newly relevant in 2021, when the EPA’s Office of
Inspector General cited the new conclusions about the toxicity of
ethylene oxide. The office estimated that nearly half a million
Americans were exposed to unacceptable cancer risks from industrial
emissions by chemical plants, commercial sterilizers and other
facilities pumping out ethylene oxide.

In its report, the inspector general’s office advised the agency
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to “exercise its discretionary authority to conduct new residual
risk reviews” as needed when “new data or information indicates an
air pollutant is more toxic than previously determined.” (The
inspector general was a Trump appointee.)

The EPA had already conducted the first, mandatory risk reviews for
large chemical plants and commercial sterilizers in the early 2000s.
In response to the inspector general report, the agency launched
additional reviews using the updated science on ethylene oxide.
Ultimately, the EPA determined the health risks were unacceptable and
revised the rules to lower them. The agency asserted that the Clean
Air Act
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“does not limit our discretion or authority to conduct another risk
review should we consider that such review is warranted.” 

According to the EPA’s estimates, the new regulations for chemical
plants under the 2024 revised rule would cut the number of nearby
residents who are exposed to unacceptable cancer risks from 90,000 to
3,000. 

But the chemical industry opposed the stricter rules. Industry
representatives disagreed with the EPA’s new assessment of ethylene
oxide, contending that it overestimated the risk the chemical posed,
and argued the agency didn’t have the authority to conduct those
risk reviews. In a 2023 letter, the American Chemistry Council said
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Agency has erred in conducting a new risk review,” as “the plain
text” of the Clean Air Act “indicates that EPA actually lacks this
authority.”

Similarly, the Louisiana Chemical Association submitted public
comments on the chemical plant rule
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stating the “EPA has no statutory authority to conduct a second risk
review” and that doing so was “arbitrary and capricious.”

David Cresson, president and CEO of the association, told ProPublica
that the trade group supports “protecting the public’s health
through regulatory frameworks that are lawful, while remaining based
in sound science.” 

Brendan Bradley, a spokesperson for the American Chemistry Council,
said the organization had no further comment on the issue.

After Trump was inaugurated, one of his appointees to the EPA let the
industry know the agency was conducting a “reconsideration” of the
two rules focused on ethylene oxide emissions. Last spring, Principal
Deputy Assistant Administrator Abigale Tardif, a former oil and gas
lobbyist, hinted at how the EPA might challenge those rules.

In letters addressed to trade groups representing commercial
sterilizers
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and chemical plants
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Tardif said the agency was reconsidering multiple issues related to
the rules, including the “EPA’s authority and decision to
undertake a second residual risk review” under the Clean Air Act, as
well as “the analysis and determinations made in that review, and
the resulting risk standards.”

Tardif didn’t respond to requests for comment. 

The agency also filed a regulatory notice
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about its plans to revise the 2024 chemical plant rule. Citing the
part of the Clean Air Act that deals with the updated rule
assessments, the notice said the EPA had “identified items for
reconsideration around its CAA section 112(f)(2) residual risk review
authority.” 

While the stricter ethylene oxide rules are technically still in
effect, the Trump administration has exempted
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chemical plants
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and sterilizer facilities
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from following them as the agency works through a formal process that
is widely expected to result in watered-down standards.

If the Trump EPA does decide it lacks the legal authority to conduct
multiple risk reviews, the agency might still have the authority to
strengthen hazardous air pollution rules by using a separate part of
the Clean Air Act, said Abel Russ, a senior attorney at the
Environmental Integrity Project, an advocacy group. That section of
the act allows the EPA to update a rule if agency scientists conclude
that better pollution-control technology is affordable and available.
But limiting the agency’s ability to conduct residual risk reviews
would be a serious blow to the act, Russ said, “kneecapping” the
agency’s authority over these toxic pollutants. 

Environmental groups will almost certainly sue if the EPA concludes it
does not have the legal authority to revise hazardous air pollution
rules more than once based on risk. Russ called industry’s comments
absurd and said they don’t account for the reality that our
knowledge of industrial pollution is changing all the time. 

As ProPublica reported in October, the agency recently received clear
evidence that many industrial facilities are leaking far more
pollution
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than the companies that own them previously reported. In 2023,
researchers who conducted their own air monitoring in the industrial
corridor of Louisiana known as Cancer Alley found much higher
concentrations of ethylene oxide than expected
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half the areas they sampled, the local cancer risk from ethylene oxide
would be unacceptable if residents were exposed to these
concentrations over a lifetime.

If the EPA decides it lacks the legal authority to conduct multiple
risk reviews, it would find itself in the position of not being able
to take action even if the agency confirmed similar results.

“The whole premise of risk assessment is that it’s based on the
best available science,” said Kimberly Terrell, a research scientist
at the Environmental Integrity Project. As our knowledge grows,
researchers tend to find that chemicals are linked to additional
health effects, she added, so blocking these updates “pretty much
ensures” the EPA is underestimating the risks.

_Lisa Song reports on the EPA and related agencies that oversee the
environment, climate change and science._

* EPA Regulations
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* Trump
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* Undermining
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