EPA deregulation puts schoolchildren at risk in petrochemical zones

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is walking back pollution enforcement, leaving children in heavily industrialized areas like Louisiana’s Cancer Alley more exposed to toxic air and water.

Terry L. Jones reports for Floodlight.

In short:

• EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced a rollback of federal regulations meant to protect communities near industrial sites, ending the agency’s focus on areas “already highly burdened with pollution impacts.”
• Children face heightened health risks from pollution due to faster breathing and developing lungs; many attend schools located within a mile of chemical plants, especially in low-income, majority-Black neighborhoods.
• Affected residents and advocates say the deregulation erases years of environmental justice progress and undermines federal obligations to safeguard public health.

Key quote:

“That is not an exaggeration; we feel like we are suffocating without the cover and the oversight of the EPA. Without that, what can we really do? How can we really save ourselves? How can we really save our communities?”

— Kaitlyn Joshua, community advocate in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley

Why this matters:

In a stark departure from recent precedent, the EPA under President Trump is stepping back from its commitment to environmental justice, a move with sweeping implications for vulnerable communities already burdened by pollution. Children living in the shadows of petrochemical plants — many attending school just a few hundred yards from flaring stacks or chemical tanks — face elevated risks of asthma, cancer, and developmental challenges. These neighborhoods have little power to hold industry accountable. Now, with the dismantling of rules aimed at curbing these emissions, decades of advocacy and incremental progress risk being unraveled, with the communities most in need of protection once again being asked to bear the heaviest cost.

Learn more:

• Opinion: America, this is what environmental justice is — and what we all stand to lose
• Opinion: I live in Flint, Michigan. Shuttering environmental justice at EPA hurts communities like mine.
• nvironmentalists are struggling, but their struggle isn’t unique to the Trump administration
• Trump administration plans to drop lawsuit over Louisiana petrochemical plant