Industry sent their wish list to the new administration. What’s in it will make people sick.

The following is a guest post by the Center to End Corporate Harm.

The National Association of Manufacturers and the American Chemistry Council – the chemical industry’s trade group – sent a 21-page letter outlining what they want from the new administration. They were joined by coal, cleaning, manufacturing, trucking, and dozens of other industry organizations and trade groups. They are asking to eliminate a long list of major environmental, health and safety regulations.

Highlights from their wish list includes for the new administration to:

#1: “Streamline” the Clean Water Act and “modernize” the Clean Air Act, two of the most successful environmental health laws in history. (What they’re really asking for here are changes so they can more easily violate both laws).

#2: “Negotiate” a plastics treaty that “supports” the plastics supply chain and “consumer education to address plastic pollution.” (Thereby they can increase plastics production and place the burden of plastic pollution on consumers rather than industry.)

#3: “Reconsider and relax” national air quality standards and “replace” EPA’s power plant rule that tries to curb coal and gas production and reduce harmful emissions (so they can spew more particulate matter and bring back coal).

#4: “Reverse” new air emissions reporting requirements (so they don’t have to let communities know how much pollution they are putting in the air).

#5: “Reverse course” on new rules to protect people from PFAS in drinking water. (PFAS are highly toxic chemicals linked to cancer, pregnancy complications, suppression of the immune system, and decreased birth weight.)

#6: “Reevaluate” EPA’s rule to phase out ethylene oxide, a highly toxic carcinogen used in medical devices for which there are already safer alternatives.

#7: Push back on how EPA conducts chemical risk evaluations under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), which industry calls “unnecessary regulation” of harmful chemicals, and speed up TSCA new chemical reviews, which would allow harmful chemicals like PFAS to more easily enter the consumer market.

#8: “Pause” the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s new “heat standard,” which was established to protect Agricultural, construction, and other workers who labor outdoors from harm during extreme heat.

#9: “Reverse” Consumer Product Safety Commission rules designed to protect consumers from harmful chemical exposures through products like toys and other household items.

#10: Reconsider EPA’s 2024 TSCA risk evaluation of 1,4 dioxane, which found that consumer products containing 1,4-dioxane present a risk to people’s health and that workers who handle the chemical are not always protected by proper PPE (personal protective equipment).

And much more. You can read the full letter here.

The main takeaway is that when EPA and other regulatory agencies do their jobs to protect health, industry pushes back. They sue, lobby, and mislead. They say they want EPA to use the “best available science,” but what they really mean is “listen to industry science,” which, of course, often downplays the harms of their products, ignores the ways people are exposed, and disregards how their products undermine health.

Now, the chemical industry has an administration, EPA leadership, and a majority in Congress that have shown every indication of doing their bidding. Exposing people to more harmful chemicals in our air, water, food, and at home and at work will not make people healthier. It will make people sicker and that doesn’t make America great.

Goldberg, R.F., Vandenberg, L.N. The science of spin: targeted strategies to manufacture doubt with detrimental effects on environmental and public health. Environ Health 20, 33 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12940-021-00723-0

White J, et al. Corporate manipulation of research: Strategies are similar across five industries. Stan L & Pol’y Rev. 2010; 28(1): 1–2

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About the author

Susan Lamontagne is a communications consultant to PRHE and also leads the Public Interest Media Group which specializes in communications to drive policy change that protects health and the environment.