US EPA rollbacks

© Sergii Romaniuk | Dreamstime.com

By Stacy Gittleman

Ohio’s Cuyahoga River, which flows into Lake Erie, was so polluted with toxic chemicals dumped from nearby industrial plants that it caught on fire in 1969. Shortly thereafter, the oil-fouled Rouge River in Detroit also caught fire. Those events prompted the creation of one of the nation’s greatest federal institutions — the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Decades of bipartisan policies and regulations were passed, giving Americans certainty that the water they drank and swam in and the air they breathed would be cleaner than in previous generations and protected for generations to come.

Now, the Trump administration is in full swing of dismantling key policies of the EPA. It has put the gears of environmental policy in reverse, stepped on the carbon-emitting gas pedal, and is accelerating the nation backward at warp speed to the alarm of environmental experts and public health officials.

The rollbacks and deregulations occurring are too numerous to document, from deregulating the responsibility of greenhouse gas-belching industries to track emissions, incentivizing and ordering coal-fired electric power plants to stay open, easing restrictions for polluting industries and neutering or eliminating government reporting on environmental conditions. The EPA and the Trump administration rationalize that these deregulations are necessary to usher in “The Great American Comeback” for American businesses, industries and manufacturing.

This drastic U-turn — from generating decades of policies and funding to encourage the research and development of cleaner energy and products that slow the acceleration of climate change to unraveling it all in less than a year — is causing chaos and disruption in industries and businesses across the board.

Michigan’s vital automotive industry was already well on the way to long-term strategic plans with greener practices, such as developing automobiles that run on cleaner energy like electricity, batteries or hydrogen fuel cells. Energy companies building their wind and solar portfolios to supply the grid with electricity have witnessed the elimination of funding for wind and solar research and development incentives.

From a funding and personnel standpoint, environmental watchdogs lament that the EPA has been gutted. Decades of policy precedents to preserve and improve our air, land and water at the EPA are on the chopping block. This includes setting emission limits for legacy polluters and encouraging the continuation of the use of coal, gas and oil to produce electricity.

The Environmental Data and Governance Initiative, a group of volunteer academics, reported that beginning in September, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin fired one out of every three full-time employees at the agency. The cuts were facilitated by executive orders such as the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and circumvented any discussion in Congress as to how these cuts and layoffs would impact the environment, public health and government transparency.

In May, Zeldin’s budget proposal for the fiscal year beginning in October 2025 included cutting 1,274 full-time-equivalent employee positions from a total of 14,130 in the year ending September 30, 2025. That is a nine percent reduction.

In July, the EPA announced it had already cut 3,707 of 16,155 employees, 23 percent of its personnel. Conservatively, the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative estimates that the agency’s workforce has now been cut by one quarter. This does not include anticipated cuts to two-thirds of the EPA’s researchers.

Ultimately, by January 2026, the workforce at the EPA will be whittled down to under 10,000.

To accelerate the “Great American Comeback” for industry and manufacturing, the EPA in September scrapped its requirements for thousands of coal-burning power plants, oil refineries and steel mills to report the amount of greenhouse gases they release into the air. This data collection has been a key tool for tracking carbon dioxide, methane and other climate-changing gases since 2010 through the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program. According to the EPA, the compliance savings to businesses from this deregulation would amount to $2.4 billion over the next decade. In another move related to the mercury-emitting coal industry, the EPA also defended its decision to repeal the Biden Administration’s 2024 Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) technology review.

In a statement emailed to Downtown regarding the EPA’s decisions to repeal several longstanding policies, the agency said the proposed repeal of the 2024 MATS Amendments would save $1.2 billion in regulatory costs over a decade, or about $120 million a year. The EPA maintains that the original 2012 MATS requirement will remain in effect.

“The 2012 MATS rule for coal plants provided an ample margin of safety to protect public health, which we retained in the Trump EPA’s proposal,” stated the EPA. “The 2012 MATS has driven sharp reductions in harmful air toxic pollutants from coal- and oil-fired power plants.”

Backing up this statement, the EPA said that industry-reported emissions show that 2021 mercury emissions from coal-fired plants were 90 percent lower than pre-MATS levels. Since 2010, emissions that caused harmful acid rain that plagued the nation in the 1970s and 1980s have been reduced by over 96 percent, and emissions of the non-mercury metals — including nickel, arsenic and lead — have been reduced by more than 81 percent.

Oil and gas pipeline industries are not excused from reporting emissions. Those were mandated by Congress under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. However, the EPA is proposing to allow these facilities to postpone reporting until 2034, and Congressional Republicans have delayed related methane fee requirements until the same year.

Of all the rollbacks of regulations, environmental and healthcare professionals are most concerned about the EPA’s proposal to completely rescind the landmark 2009 Endangerment Finding. They describe this policy as the keystone for establishing and creating greenhouse gas emissions regulations to stave off climate change and protect public health.

The 2009 Endangerment Finding originated from a 2007 landmark Supreme Court Ruling, Massachusetts v. EPA, which solidified the EPA’s authority under Section 202 of the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from the automotive industry that threaten public health and welfare.

It was drafted during the George H. Bush administration and codified into law in the Barack Obama administration.

According to the Institute of Policy Integrity at the NYU School of Law, the EPA crafted the policy from a vast body of peer-reviewed science and thousands of public comments proving that greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles harm public health.

Since its enactment in 2010, it has catalyzed the creation of many standards for greenhouse gas emissions reduction for vehicles ranging from sedans all the way through industrial trucks and heavy-duty vehicles.  

By eliminating this landmark policy, the Trump administration has proposed to slash 15 years of environmental progress in one fell swoop.

The Trump administration’s proposal to overturn the Endangerment Finding also coincides with broad cancellations of research grants that would have studied the health effects of heat and air pollution. It defies a June 2025 EPA analysis, which found that the proposed repeal of carbon dioxide limits would result in a public health cost of $130 billion. That figure includes premature deaths, lost workdays and hospitalizations for things like lung and heart diseases or asthma caused by exposure to power plant pollution.

Standing before executives at a big truck manufacturing plant in Indiana, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin in July proposed “the most comprehensive rolling back of environmental emissions stringencies in American history” as he proposed to unravel the 2009 Endangerment Finding because he claimed it was a gross distortion of Section 202 of the Clean Air Act.

“We want to hear from the American public to finalize a regulation that not only proposes to rescind the Endangerment Finding, but all greenhouse gas emissions regulations that followed it on light, medium and heavy-duty vehicles,” Zeldin said. “The EPA (of the past) made many mental leaps in its creative interpretation of Section 202 of the Clean Air Act. That resulted in trillions of dollars of regulations (on vehicles and stationary sources of gas emissions).”

Remarks at this press conference drew the ire of healthcare, policy and environmental officials who argue that the reversals are not based on science or law but about giving kickbacks to the fossil fuel and big trucking industries, which financed Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.

The EPA gave its reasons for wanting to rescind the 2009 Endangerment Finding: “The Endangerment Finding is the legal prerequisite used by the Obama and Biden Administrations to regulate emissions from new motor vehicles and new motor vehicle engines. Absent this finding, EPA would lack statutory authority under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act (CAA) to prescribe standards for greenhouse gas emissions.”

The EPA maintained that since the 2009 Endangerment Finding was issued, “The American people and auto manufacturing have suffered from significant uncertainties and massive costs related to general regulations of greenhouse gases from vehicles and trucks.”

By rolling back the 2009 Endangerment Finding, the EPA said it is proposing to provide much-needed certainty and regulatory relief, so companies can plan appropriately, and the American people can have affordable choices when deciding to buy a car.

“The Endangerment Finding only relates to greenhouse emissions from motor vehicles and does not relate to any traditional air pollution, and those standards would remain in effect if this decision is finalized,” stated the EPA

“Additionally, regulations from the previous administration imposed massive costs on coal, oil, and gas-fired power plants, raising the cost of living for American families, imperiling the reliability of our electric grid, and limiting American energy prosperity,” stated the EPA. “While accomplishing EPA’s core mission of protecting human health and the environment, the Trump EPA is committed to fulfilling President Trump’s promise to unleash American energy, lower costs for Americans, revitalize the American auto industry, restore the rule of law, and give power back to states to make their own decisions.”

Pulmonologists across the country are sounding off and raising the alarm bells at the proposed reversal of policies designed to keep the air cleaner and slow climate change.

Dr. Alexander Rabin, a pulmonologist and professor at the University of Michigan, shifted his focus to climate change and air quality advocacy after noticing impacts on lung health during the Trump administration’s environmental policy changes. His work now centers on promoting clean air policies.

“I work mainly with veterans who receive care from the Veterans Administration,” Rabin said in an interview with Downtown as he drove from Ann Arbor to Troy on his way to give a talk to a group of occupational health doctors. “With no exaggeration, I am hearing complaints about breathing issues from all my patients, and my colleagues across the country are hearing it too. Especially the ones who have long-standing diseases such as COPD. They experience elevated breathing issues all summer. They tell me they cannot breathe because the air and the smoke are so bad.”

Rabin does as best he can to advise patients when breathing conditions get tough: watch out for air quality alerts, invest in indoor air filtration systems and limit outdoor activity.

“The clinical realities of today are very worrisome,” Rabin said. “The Trump administration is taking a sledgehammer to virtually all the important air quality regulations that have been put in place over the last 50 years, since the EPA came into being, and that includes the Clean Air Act. The call to rescind the 2009 Endangerment Finding is the one that really sends a chill down my spine.”

Out on the West Coast, Erika Maria Mosesón is a pulmonologist in Portland, Oregon. She serves on the American Environmental Health Policy Committee of the International Thoracic Society, comprised of 30,000 respiratory health professionals across the globe. She also produces the podcast Air Health Our Health, where she discusses her observations on how air quality events impact those suffering from chronic lung diseases such as asthma and COPD, and young children.

As a clinician, she makes rounds in hospital intensive care units and sees an uptick in patient loads during wildfire smoke and heat dome events. Mosesón said that rollbacks in environmental emissions standards, coupled with the Trump administration’s cutbacks in healthcare spending for the most vulnerable populations are “suicidal” in terms of the outlook for public health.

“Most people want themselves and their kids to be healthy and breathe clean air, though they may disagree from a policy standpoint on how we get there,” said the mother of three. “But the approach this administration is taking regarding emissions is ‘we don’t want to measure it, and we don’t want to acknowledge it, and we don’t want to study it.”

In addition to the proposal for rolling back the 2009 Endangerment finding, Mosesón is concerned about the possibility of rolling back the National Ambient Air Quality Standards rule.

In February 2024, the EPA strengthened the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Particulate Matter to protect millions of Americans from harmful and costly health impacts, such as heart attacks and premature death. But in March, Zeldin announced the EPA is revisiting the Biden PM2.5 National Ambient Air Quality Standards to ease barriers for industrial permitting.

Mosesón explained: “PM 2.5 particulate matter is this tiny air pollutant that is a fraction of the width of a human hair. It is the main particulate that comes from wildfire smoke. It is dangerous to inhale because it is so tiny that it can slip through cell walls, enter the bloodstream, and cause the potential for disease in every organ as it circulates through the body. It can cause cardiovascular disease, strokes, and harm to growing children who are growing up in areas notoriously polluted. We were making such headway with EPA policies, and now we are at risk of losing all that.”

She continued: “Wildfire smoke events can be perceived as one-off finite events, but they are becoming more commonplace. So, if you lift restrictions on pollution emitters on top of the increase of wildfire smoke events, you are going to have the public breathing unhealthy air all the time.”

Ultimately, Mosesón said healthcare professionals must speak up about what they are observing in their patients and how their health is being affected by the environment. “I think as a general rule, doctors are scientists and feel they cannot speak to an issue unless they are thoroughly knowledgeable in all the nuances of a topic. But everyone, especially healthcare professionals, should be speaking up and telling the government that we can all benefit from safer, cleaner air and water.”

Despite all the cuts, the EPA describes its strategy as one of streamlining the agency to maintain levels of sustaining the environment while easing restrictions and regulations to make it easier to create paths of prosperity for the manufacturing and energy sectors of the economy.

In the statement emailed to Downtown, the EPA said that the EPA under the Trump administration is working to advance its core mission of protecting human health and the environment while “Powering the Great American Comeback” initiative.

“This includes ensuring that ALL American has access to clean air, water, and land regardless of regardless of race, gender, creed, or background,” read the statement. “Likewise, EPA is bound by laws established by Congress — not what some would like the law to say — including the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act.”

Mike Shriberg is director of the University of Michigan Water Center at the university’s School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS). Reflecting on the period since Trump was inaugurated for the second time, he said the EPA cuts have decimated the ability of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Great Lakes Environmental Lab (GREL) to efficiently monitor the Great Lakes for contaminants such as harmful algal blooms that impact the health of the water for drinking, fishing and recreational purposes. In the most acute example, a harmful algal bloom in Lake Erie in 2014 left 500,000 residents of the city of Toledo without clean tap water for two weeks.

Since 1974, GREL has conducted vital chemical, physical and biological research on the Great Lakes. It provides data on the state of the Great Lakes to water managers and policy makers for the eight Great Lakes states. With collected data, lab researchers develop computer models to predict conditions such as waves, water levels, currents, ice cover, oil spills, and harmful algal bloom movement. All this information is made available to the public and policymakers to prepare for events such as storms and changes in water quality.

The federal cuts have stripped away much of the lab’s research and forecasting abilities, Shriberg lamented.

“Up until recently, I spent half of my time working at the NOAA lab, as it funded many programs and research on the Great Lakes,” explained Shriberg. “Now, we have a third fewer people working there than we did in January. And this is before even more cuts and more staff reductions, which we know are coming.”

Shriberg said because of Trump’s cuts to the lab, the Great Lakes and, therefore, the communities that rely on them as a resource,are less healthy and safe. For example, there are fewer employees to physically get out in the water and forecast harmful algal blooms or, when they occur, check on their severity.

With Trump’s cuts, Shriberg said NOAA’s capacity to monitor the waters of the Great Lakes for harmful algal blooms is stymied by 80 percent.

While there is satellite technology being developed and deployed to monitor and track harmful algal blooms from space, as Downtown reported in 2024, Shriberg said scientists still need to physically go out on the waters to take samples of the water, observe the characteristics of harmful algal blooms, and collect data from sensor-rigged buoys far from shore. Before the Trump administration, NOAA’s GREL lab maintained, tracked, and collected data from 17 buoys in Lake Erie to monitor the waters for harmful algal blooms. Now they only have the budget to run three.

“These cuts, therefore, are a direct threat to drinking water quality,” Shriberg said. “The Trump administration has degraded (the EPA’s) programs and policies and reduced the staff of the people responsible for protecting the Great Lakes so severely that the Great Lakes and the communities that live near them are more vulnerable today than they were at the beginning of the year.”

With fewer staff, GREL has less data at its fingertips to model and prepare for dangerous floods and storms, which are becoming more common with climate change.

“Locally, we have lost some of our capacity to model where a rainstorm will hit and where localized flooding will occur,” cautioned Shriberg. “Arguably, the biggest impact of climate change in this region is the sudden heavy rain and flash flooding incidents we have recently experienced. Our modeling data is receiving less attention. That means we are less likely to know when and where a major flood will hit.”

Shriberg added that the Trump administration has also burdened the remaining researchers with red tape and bureaucracy. All spending over $100,000 — a small amount for an agency such as NOAA — needs multiple sign-offs at every political level up to the Secretary of Commerce’s office. There is also added red tape and threats to longstanding international agreements, such as the Great Lakes Compact. Ultimately, all of these drawbacks will result in less safe and dirtier water in the Great Lakes, Shriberg said.

If there is one silver lining for the Great Lakes, Shriberg said, it is that Trump reversed his decision to restore already congressionally allocated funding to prevent the spread of invasive species such as the sea lamprey and the Asian Carp from encroaching into Lake Michigan. This was due to immense bipartisan political pressure.

“The two instances of restoring funding to the Great Lakes Fisheries Commission and the Army Corps of Engineers to control the invasive carp and sea lamprey from invading the Great Lakes are some of the rare circumstances I know about where the Trump administration came under fire from both sides of the aisle,” Shriberg said. “This money was already appropriated by Congress, so by law, the Trump administration was legally required to let those dollars be used. But the law has not stopped the Trump administration from the many other cuts he has done. Many of the other cuts have been carried out not through congressional approval but through executive orders.” At the campus level, Shriberg said that SEAS this year has weathered cuts in federal research grants, and the school had to pull back on internships, research fellowships and projects.

The news on funding changes from day to day, making it next to impossible to provide students with research or field work opportunities. As it stands now, the education of their students is being funded mainly through their tuition dollars, Shriberg said.

“Our students are still receiving an excellent education on campus and in the classroom,” Shriberg said. “It’s just that there is a significant decrease in opportunities for students to get research experience out in the field.”

Other strides in drinking water safety being reversed under the Trump administration include placing limits on forever chemicals, or PFAS, most commonly found in the nation’s drinking water supplies.

In April 2024, the Biden administration’s EPA, for the first time in 26 years, added new rules and regulations setting threshold limits on the six most detected forever chemicals. This ruling was modeled after Michigan’s state laws.

But in May 2025, the EPA planned to dismantle some of these advances in PFAS monitoring and measuring. It will weaken some part-per-trillion (ppt) thresholds of some of the most commonly present forever chemicals while maintaining standards set by the Biden Administration for two other common ones.

According to published reports, limits on three types of PFAS, including what are known as GenX substances found in North Carolina, will be scrapped and reconsidered by the agency, as well as a limit on a mixture of several types of PFAS.

The Biden administration’s rule also set standards for the two common types of PFAS, referred to as PFOA and PFOS, at 4 parts per trillion, effectively the lowest level at which they can be reliably detected. The EPA will keep those standards but give utilities two extra years — until 2031 — to comply.

Still, Michigan has set the bar for having the country’s toughest limits on forever chemicals in drinking water. It has set the most stringent maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) at 8 parts per trillion (ppt) for PFOA and 16 ppt for PFOS, the two most commonly present forever chemicals.

Oakland County Water Resources Commissioner Jim Nash assured that his water managers continue to use standards set by the state.

“The 22 community water systems operated by Oakland County Water Resources comply with all applicable state and federal rules,” Nash said. “My office regularly monitors and tests for PFAS contamination. Regardless of federal regulations, these monitoring programs will continue.”

In response to questions about relaxing PFAS standards at the federal level, the EPA wrote to Downtown: “The EPA is tackling PFAS from all our program offices, advancing research and testing, stopping PFAS from getting into drinking water systems, holding polluters accountable, and more. This is just a fraction of the work the agency is doing on PFAS during President Trump’s second term to ensure Americans have the cleanest air, land, and water.”

Up in Traverse City, the non-profit organization For the Love of Water (FLOW) has long focused its resources on fighting Enbridge’s Line 5 Project to transport oil from Canada to the United States in a tunnel that will run on the bottom of the Straits of Mackinaw. Right now, the case for the Michigan Public Service’s permit for Line 5 is under review by the Michigan Supreme Court.

Though the Line 5 issue is unrelated to the many cuts the Trump administration has made to environmental protection, FLOW Executive Director Liz Kirkwood is extremely concerned about other permits that are being issued that ignore the potential for environmental disasters and harm along the shores of the Great Lakes. FLOW is also working with state government officials to pass regulations for proper septic tank maintenance that threaten the health of inner lakes and tributaries, as well as the Great Lakes.

In June, FLOW filed a petition for review with the EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board that challenged the approval of underground injection control permits that would allow for the deep injection of millions of gallons of briny wastewater into wells in Osceola and Mecosta Counties. The organization, along with local advocates and residents, argued that the permitting fails to adequately protect the only groundwater resource for rural communities.

But among the grim outlook, Kirkwood said there are some silver linings.

“The good news is that our state government and judiciary are still leaning into enforcement, and that’s what is happening with the Line 5 tunnel permit challenge,” Kirkwood explained. “FLOW’s legal challenge is related to the Michigan Public Service Commission and the Court of Appeals’ failure to recognize that the agencies in Michigan have a separate and independent substantive duty to apply Michigan’s Environmental Protection Act in their permitting process.”

She continued: “The state agencies are asking two important questions. First: Is a proposed action going to harm, impair, or pollute the natural resource that is about to be changed, be it a wetland or a body of water? The second question is, are there any viable alternatives to a proposed action? This analysis is critical for agencies entrusted by the public to protect our natural resources, who are evaluating proposals from businesses to find the best path forward while protecting those natural resources.”

One natural resource Kirkwood is particularly concerned about, by relaxing permit standards are wetlands. These marshy areas that hug our shorelines of the Great and inner lakes protect water infrastructure, provide habitat for native species, protect from flooding, and filter contaminants out of surface waters.

In March of 2025, the EPA rolled back federal protections that will lead to more pollution in the Great Lakes, critics contend.

“Rolling back wetlands protection lacks common sense,” Kirkwood said. “We know that the economic benefits related to wetland preservation include shoreline erosion and flooding.”

Kirkwood said that FLOW is keeping its eye on the ramifications of the EPA’s rolling back the “Waters of the United States” rule. The EPA argued that it rolled back this ruling according to its interpretation of the 2023 Supreme Court decision on Sackett v. EPA, which ruled that “EPA’s authority extends only to wetlands with a continuous surface connection to the rivers, lakes, and streams that are protected as navigable waters.”

By doing this, environmentalists agree that the EPA has stripped away federal protections for areas prone to occasional flooding and therefore endangered ecosystems that provide habitat for wildlife, filter out pollutants, and mitigate stormwater.

“Fortunately, Michigan has the Michigan Wetlands Act,” assured Kirkwood. “After the Sackett decision came down, we know that Michigan and other states, such as Wisconsin, have some good state laws. But other states like Indiana and Ohio lack local regulations are are much more vulnerable to wetlands degradation and loss, which can come in at billions of dollars.”

In addition to erasing regulations, the Trump administration has eliminated incentives for consumer and industrial markets to adopt greener practices and create and develop energy sources and products to stave off climate change.

Bentley Johnson, federal government affairs director for the Michigan League of Conservation Voters, said his organization was concerned by moves made in the first Trump administration, but they pale in comparison with Trump 2.0.

Among his organization’s biggest concerns are easing restrictions on greenhouse gas air emissions and incentives to create cleaner vehicles within the automotive industry, as well as an about-face on phasing out the use of coal to fuel the electricity grid.

Johnson understands the importance of consistent and steady environmental policy for the automotive industry and the ramifications for Michigan’s economy. Johnson said pivoting in policies on fuel economy and creating future fleets of greener vehicles independent of fossil fuels is harmful for the environment and long-term business planning.

“Over the decades, the EPA has gone through multiple rounds of emissions and fuel economy standards for vehicles,” Johnson said. “That certainty provides the automakers with the rules of how they will strategize for the next five or 10 years in designing the best products to meet standards that would have improved air quality and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We know that the overwhelming consensus of the scientific body of evidence is that fossil fuels are causing climate change.”

Johnson said that the Michigan League of Conservation Voters has heard from small and large businesses connected to the automotive industry that uncertainty in policy harms their bottom line.

“This whiplash effect in policy changes between administrations makes it difficult for businesses to plan, secure supply chains, and develop long-term strategies,” Johnson said. “The Trump administration is creating chaos and recklessness, and confusion. All it does is help enrich the fossil fuel friends whom Trump promised to hand out tax cuts to the ultra-wealthy, those who contributed to his reelection campaign.

Johnson also touched upon all the green-energy incentives that went away for both consumers and energy makers under what he describes as Trump’s “Big Ugly Bill,” which was passed in July and went into effect in October.

For example, Johnson said costs on electric vehicles will now rise by $7,500 after the incentive EV tax credit ended, and the average cost of a used EV is about to go up by $4,500.

Pulling back consumer incentives to make greener choices in their next vehicle purchase is only the tip of a melting iceberg of money once allocated for green grants to fight and adapt to climate change.

On October 1, the White House canceled $8 billion in federal funding for green projects. Most of these projects were axed in 16 states where Trump lost the 2024 election.

In February 2025, the Trump administration rescinded or froze $21 billion for previously approved Michigan clean energy projects. This includes $400 million for consumer energy rebates, weatherization assistance for Michigan homes, $102 million to fortify the state’s electric grid against intensifying storms, and $500 million for battery manufacturing for electric vehicles. For energy producers, the Trump administration froze or rescinded $20 billion in loans or loan guarantees for clean energy projects by Consumers Energy and DTE Energy. This includes the delay of a $1.5 billion loan guarantee for reopening the Palisades nuclear plant.

Michigan was on its way to replacing fossil fuels, especially coal, with renewable energy to supply its electricity demand. As reported in Downtown in 2021, the state’s renewable energy portfolio increased from 10 percent in 2015 to 15 percent in 2021. Consumers Energy in 2021 announced plans to increase its use of renewable energy to 35 percent by 2025, and 47 percent by 2030. DTE continued to build renewable energy facilities and planned to reduce carbon emissions by 50 percent by 2030, and 80 percent by 2040.

Consumers Energy’s J.H. Campbell coal-fired electric plant in West Olive was first slated for closure in May of this year and remains open via a series of presidential executive orders. Trump issued them as an emergency directive under the Department of Energy; the Trump administration ordered the plant to remain open until at least mid-November. Trump reasoned the executive order was a necessary decision to keep up with electricity demand in the heat of the summer, along with the onset of a more robust manufacturing sector and the exponential growth of artificial intelligence.

The administration in September also announced it is going to open 13.1 million acres of public lands for increased coal mining.

“Campbell was the last coal-fired electric plant Consumers had to retire, and the Trump administration forced it to stay open,” Johnson said. “It is old, outdated, and costly for the taxpayers to run to the tune of one million dollars per day. The (energy) market has made coal a thing of the past. Consumers already had plans to replace Campbell’s capacity with other sources of energy, like natural gas. But at the last minute, Trump’s Department of Energy said, ‘Nope. We are forcing you to stay open.’”

Now, Johnson explained, Consumers Energy is scrambling to buy coal through a supply chain that is highly costly to the taxpayer. This rate is too much for Michigan rate payers to shoulder by themselves, so now the cost to buy coal is spread across 10 other states, he said.

Amidst this dirty laundry list of rollbacks, deregulations, and defunding of decades of environmental progress, one has to ask: Is all of this legal?

The litigation against the Trump administration’s draconian cuts against the environment is playing out in multi-state lawsuits led by state attorneys general, including Mihigan’s Dana Nessel, and raising public awareness by environmental watchdog and policy groups.

In May, Nessel joined a coalition of 18 attorneys general against the Trump administration over what they describe as an unlawful attempt to freeze the development of wind energy. She also joined another multistate lawsuit opposing the possible rescinding of the 2009 Endangerment Finding.

In August, Nessel testified before the EPA and warned that rescinding the 2009 Endangerment Finding would exacerbate the ravages of climate change on the state’s economy, natural resources, and the health of its residents even further.

According to Nessel, Michigan is already experiencing increasingly severe drought conditions that impact the state’s $104 billion agricultural industry. This includes the state’s famed cherry crop, which in 2024 saw a harvest loss of 75 percent due to rain, pests and harsh swings in temperature.

She also remarked on how climate change is eating into Michigan’s cold winters, impacting a $3 billion tourism industry built on skiing, snowboarding, and snowmobiling, and other cold-weather sports.

“I strenuously oppose the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s unlawful and ill-conceived proposal to rescind its 2009 greenhouse gas endangerment finding,” Nessel said in her testimony. “In 2009, the EPA determined that greenhouse gas pollutants present a very clear and immediate danger to our environment, economy, and the world. This finding was supported by years of due diligence to evaluate the scientific consensus. This proposed rulemaking suggests we allow the federal government to ignore its own scientific determinations and abdicate its legal duty to act. This simply cannot stand.”

Michigan’s Democratic delegation in Congress is also fighting the EPA’s dismantling of longstanding policy.

In a statement emailed to Downtown, Rep. Debbie Dingell (MI-06) said the 2009 Endangerment Finding is fundamental to our environmental and public health protections. She crafted a letter to Zeldin, signed by the Michigan Democratic Congressional delegation, and submitted it to the EPA’s public comment section.

Writing to Downtown, she stated: “The 2009 Endangerment Finding is the foundation for legal enforcement of limits on the greenhouse gases that pose a danger to our climate and wellbeing.”

She continued: “Michiganders are already witnessing the impacts of climate change in worsening weather events that include extreme heat, devastating floods, an increase in tornadoes, and dangerous wildfire smoke. Michiganders are also dealing with toxic hazards such as the Gelman dioxane plume in Washtenaw County and other industrial pollutants that have yet to be cleaned up.”

Dingell said if the Endangerment Finding is repealed, the very basis of the country’s most important environmental protections will be stripped away, giving polluters a free pass at the expense of our communities.

Dingell added. “I cannot state strongly enough how important it is to maintain the Endangerment Finding and uphold the EPA’s duty to protect Americans’ health and wellbeing.”

The pains from federal cuts to the EPA have trickled down to the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE).

On October 7, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed a long-awaited budget for fiscal year 2026 with several cuts to environmental funding. Whitmer did, however, soften the blow to the sharpest cuts to EGLE. While an earlier State House proposal suggested a 19 percent cut to EGLE, Whitmer reduced those cuts to seven percent.

The Department of Natural Resources will have fewer resources for fishery stocking and maintenance. Michiganders will see reduced hours and services at state parks and museums. According to State Rep. Noah Arbit (D-West Bloomfield), his constituents say the cuts come at a cost to monitoring the waters of inland lakes for safe practices and training in boating, fishing, and swimming. Because of the lack of federal dollars, there is just $1.3 million to distribute among all county sheriff departments for marine safety patrols. This could impact response time for marine emergencies.

“In the past, there have been grants that fuse state and federal funds to make sure people out enjoying the lakes are safe,” Arbit said. “The feds completely eviscerated that funding. While our wealthiest counties, like here in Oakland County, will be okay individually providing resources for a while, eventually, all the counties are going to feel the cuts.”

From a regulatory standpoint, Arbit said that last year, a Democrat-controlled state House repealed a law put in place by Republicans that stipulated that no state law would be more stringent than a federal law.

“We repealed this law and can now make laws and regulations that are stricter than federal ones,” Arbit said. “One area where this may be beneficial is on the topic of forever chemicals in our drinking water. I am hearing from my constituents a lot of concern about PFAS levels in the drinking water, something which the Trump administration no longer seems to be interested in regulating. On top of that, we still have some municipalities that still encounter lead in their drinking water. The EPA is now delaying the distribution of allocated funding to communities to remove lead service lines.”

Overall, Arbit believes protecting the environment through robust regulation should remain a bipartisan issue.

It is a shame that environmental issues and protection have become a hyperpartisan issue,” Arbit said. “Clean drinking water free of forever chemicals should matter to both Democrats and Republicans. It is egregious that the Trump administration, Republicans in Congress, and the state House Republicans have decided that the environment is a Democratic issue. It is an egregious way to, you know, go about policymaking and leaves so many constituents, both Democratic and Republican, in the lurch.”

The Chicago-based Environmental Law and Policy Center (ELPC) has kept a sharp eye on the rollbacks and is keeping legal pressure on the Administration through issuing public comments on several rollbacks and filing lawsuits.

In July, the ELPC teamed with 11 health, environmental, and community groups and filed a lawsuit that challenged the Trump administration’s delay of the 2024 methane standards for the oil and gas industry — standards that keep dangerous pollution out of our air and reduce wasted energy from oil and gas leaks.

In October, ELPC attorney Max Lopez testified at an EPA hearing against the EPA’s proposal to excuse industrial polluters from reporting on their emission rates of greenhouse gases and urged the agency to abandon its plans to scrap the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program.

Lopez said the program is vital not only to collect data on emissions coming from industrial sites but also a key resource for public utility commissions for making decisions, especially helpful in staying within the boundaries of state law climate initiatives and long-term planning to stabilize the electric grid. Lopez stated that removing the mandate to report on greenhouse gases would make it more difficult for public utility commissions to make informed decisions for consumers.

Lopez added that without this reporting, states, regulators, and communities lose a critical tool for holding polluters accountable.

Callie Sharp, an associate attorney with ELPC, said such rollbacks will further degrade the quality of the Great Lakes with consequences such as continued extreme heat, erratic weather patterns that could lead to crop and fisheries destruction, and the loss of lives and property.

Sharp said the EPA’s current stance on the 2009 Endangerment Finding, for example, is in clear violation of the Clean Air Act, which is one of the overarching laws at the root of decades of protection policies and regulations. She also warned that the Trump administration could use the rescission of the Endangerment Finding to repeal other types of greenhouse gas emission regulations.

“EPA’s main argument in their proposal to rescind the Endangerment finding is essentially an attempt to redefine what an air pollutant is under the Clean Air Act,” Sharp said. “This argument does not hold up with the language of the statute and contradicts Supreme Court precedents that date back decades. The EPA has one job, and that’s to protect the environment and public health. The agency’s core responsibility is to the public and is to the environment, but reversing the endangerment finding is really betraying that mission and jeopardizing America’s future by prioritizing the deregulation of industry.”