U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
agency
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is the federal regulatory agency responsible for protecting human health and the environment by developing and enforcing environmental regulations. It sets standards for air and water quality and oversees cleanup of contaminated sites. Under Administrator Lee Zeldin, the agency moved rapidly in 2025 to rescind environmental rules and reduce enforcement activity.
Entries involving this actor (3)
EPA methane chief secretly authored oil industry's case against the rules he now rewrites
ProPublica revealed on April 1, 2026 that Aaron Szabo, the EPA assistant administrator leading the rollback of federal methane-emissions rules, was the unnamed author of the oil industry's January 2022 comment letter against those same rules, written while he was a registered lobbyist for an industry member. Now overseeing the rewrite at EPA, Szabo has solicited input and specific regulatory language from the industry groups that stand to benefit.
EPA illegally terminates $2.8B Environmental and Climate Justice Block Grant Program
The Environmental Protection Agency, under Administrator Lee Zeldin and acting on Trump executive orders issued January 20, 2025, terminated the Environmental and Climate Justice Block Grant Program — a $2.8 billion program established by the Inflation Reduction Act to fund pollution reduction and climate readiness in underserved communities — and directed grantees to close their projects. On June 12, 2026, U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel (D. South Carolina) ruled the termination "illegal" and voided the action, finding the EPA violated the Inflation Reduction Act. Gergel declined to issue a permanent injunction requiring reinstatement, noting that rehiring the fired program staff appeared "impractical," leaving hundreds of community projects in limbo.
Trump exempts 180+ facilities from Clean Air Act air-toxics rules via an EPA email inbox
Across 2025, President Trump signed seven proclamations invoking Clean Air Act Section 112(i)(4) — a provision unused in the statute's 55-year history — to grant more than 180 industrial facilities in 38 states and Puerto Rico a two-year exemption from federal hazardous-air-pollutant standards. A May 2026 ProPublica investigation found that facilities qualified by emailing an EPA-run inbox, with no rigorous application and no meaningful role for the agency's air-quality experts. The statute permits such exemptions only where compliance technology is "not available" and the exemption is "in the national security interests of the United States."