The Environmental Protection Agency plans to reverse a longstanding policy that calculated the health benefits of reducing air pollution.
The agency has referred to "estimates of avoided asthma attacks and premature deaths to justify clean-air rules" for decades, and that is now set to end under the Trump administration, according to a New York Times report.
The Times reportedly obtained internal agency emails and documents indicating that the EPA will no longer factor the "gains from the health benefits caused by curbing two of the most widespread deadly air pollutants, fine particulate matter and ozone, when regulating industry."
"It’s a seismic shift that runs counter to the E.P.A.’s mission statement, which says the agency’s core responsibility is to protect human health and the environment, environmental law experts said," The Times reported.
On social media, users responded to the major policy change.
"This reads like an Onion Headline of something a Republican would do," user Conor Rogers wrote on X.
"Capitalism at work once again!" Tech and culture journalist Taylor Lorenz wrote on X.
"Not The Onion," author David Fenton wrote on X.
"Less than ideal," climate analyst Will Nichols wrote on X.
"Making America healthy again?" Activist and president of Leaders We Deserve David Hogg wrote on X.
"This admin literally doesn’t care if you live or die, as long as their billionaire buddies do okay," Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) wrote on X.
"Your zip code is more determining of your health than your genetic code. Pollution isn’t racist, but policies are," anesthesiologist Ebony Jade Hilton, MD, wrote on X.
"Corruption costs lives, by the way," Tiffany Muller, president of End Citizens United, wrote on X.
"Beyond parody," journalist and editor-in-chief of Zeteo Mehdi Hasan wrote on X.