The Environmental Protection Agency, responsible for safeguarding the environment, faces potential major changes that could affect the quality of the air we breathe and the water we drink.
Recently, the EPA announced plans for what the administrator described as the most extensive deregulation effort in U.S. history. This initiative involves revisiting established environmental and climate regulations.
Local and state initiatives in Chicago aimed at addressing air and water pollution may face substantial challenges as the EPA considers significant regulatory revisions.
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Hundreds of grants to environmental nonprofits are now at risk of being canceled, all while the state of Illinois has been engaged in a court battle over $1 billion in federal funding awarded to the Illinois EPA, earmarked for clean water projects.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced on Wednesday the 31 actions he’s planning to take, “driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion.”
Zeldin said the changes will “drive down the cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the U.S. and more.”
Among the established regulations that the EPA is considering undoing are rules on American power plants, the oil and gas industry, greenhouse gas emissions reporting, wastewater rules, and air quality standards.
Environmental advocates say the moves would undo decades of combatting pollution nationwide.
“I don’t think anybody voted for more toxic lead, or more forever chemicals in their drinking water, or to be having more kids having asthma or lead poisoning,” said Erik Olson, Senior Director for Health at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). “Nobody wants that. But that’s going to be the result if a lot of these rollbacks go forward.”
Olson said the new efforts by the EPA to roll back emission regulations on vehicles, coal, oil and gas production could have devastating health consequences for Americans.
“There aren’t going to be the cops on the beat to protect against air pollution and water pollution and contaminated tap water and hazardous waste dumping,” Olson explained.
The proposed EPA deregulation initiatives still have to go through a rule making process before taking effect.
But many EPA employees fear they may lose their jobs in the coming days or weeks with President Donald Trump asking for a 65 percent reduction in staff.
Also at risk are Biden-era rules to remove forever chemicals from drinking water and hazardous lead pipes in Chicago and around the country.
Chicago has more lead water pipes than anywhere else in the country; a significant problem that will take years to fix.
Officials with the Chicago Department of Water Management (DWM) told the I-Team that only 10% of its lead-service line replacement funding comes from federal sources, but most of the federal funding it receives is funneled through the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency.
Megan Vidis, a spokesperson for the DWM, said to date, the city has “not been notified of any freeze or revocation of federal funding for water infrastructure work.”
But the Illinois EPA has been in its own fight with the federal government over more than a billion-dollars in funding ever since President Trump took office.
According to court filings reviewed by the I-Team, in the weeks after President Trump was sworn in, Illinois EPA officials said the agency’s allocated federal funding decreased from $1 billion to zero in a matter of days.
That funding has since been restored, and last week, a U.S. District Court judge in Rhode Island granted a preliminary injunction against the Trump Administration over its decision to freeze funding for essential federal agency grants, loans and other assistance programs, such as EPA funding.
A spokesperson for the Illinois EPA told the I-Team that, “All of Illinois EPA’s federal funding continues to be available in the federal payment system at this time and we have not had issues accessing it since the preliminary injunction was granted.”
The spokesperson added that the, “Illinois EPA has not received any formal direction or guidance directly from the U.S. EPA and Illinois has no intention of ending our commitment to protecting the environment and the health of our residents in the implementation of our programs.”
But that court ruling has no impact on hundreds of grants relied upon by local environmental non-profits, like the Alliance for the Great Lakes based in Chicago, that could be frozen or cut all together.
Joel Brammeier is the President and CEO of Alliance for the Great Lakes.
“One of the programs that’s gotten caught up in the cuts, or indefinite deferrals is something called the ‘Great Lakes Environmental Justice grant program,'” Brammeier explained. “This is a program that’s designed to bring restoration projects to places where restoration has been few and far between over the years.”
If proposed program cuts or funding freezes are halted by litigation in court, state and city environmental advocates fear another bad scenario: Congress fully removing funding that had been previously allocated.
Gina Ramirez grew up on the Southeast Side of Chicago, and said she’s seen how much progress the city has made in past decades on air and water pollution.
Now, Ramirez is the Midwest Director of Environmental Health for the NRDC. Ramirez said she worries that the burden of protecting the public from pollution will fall on already strained community nonprofit groups.
“Streamlining the process to check for lead in your water, that might not happen anymore,” Ramirez said. “So, again, it’s on community groups that are already burned out.”
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