Make the EPA measure the effect on people’s health again

The EPA is quietly erasing the foundations of its public-health mandate. For decades, the EPA measured pollution rules by two things: what they cost industry, and how much sickness and death they prevent. Those prevented harms weren’t side notes—they were the foundation of clean-air policy. Again and again, the agency’s own analyses showed that cleaner air didn’t just protect health—it saved money, by a lot. Now that ledger is being erased. Under new internal guidance, the EPA will stop assigning a dollar value to lives saved and illnesses avoided when setting limits on major air pollutants like fine particulate matter and ozone. Industry compliance costs stay visible. The health gains disappear from the bottom line. On paper, it’s framed as a technical adjustment. In reality, it’s a structural rigging of the outcome. If you count only what polluters spend, and not what families gain from fewer funerals, fewer ER visits, fewer kids missing school because they can’t breathe, every rule suddenly looks “too expensive.” The conclusion is baked in before the analysis even begins. This isn’t a one-off. It fits a pattern. Over the past years, Trump’s administration has repeatedly weakened or rolled back environmental rules by narrowing what counts as a benefit. Climate harms minimized. Health impacts treated as uncertain. Long-term consequences pushed out of view. Each move framed as “reform,” each one leaving more damage behind. Air pollution isn’t theoretical. Fine particles lodge deep in the lungs and enter the bloodstream. They increase the risk of heart attacks, strokes, respiratory disease, and early death. Cutting them saves lives. That link isn’t controversial—it’s been established across decades of research and reflected in the EPA’s own past work. Which is exactly why those numbers mattered. When the EPA previously tallied the benefits of clean-air rules, the overwhelming majority came from reduced mortality. That’s what justified strong standards. That’s what made the case airtight. Remove that column, and protections that once looked like clear wins can be dismissed as economic burdens. And the burden doesn’t vanish. It just shifts. From corporate margins to people who live near highways, power plants, refineries—communities already carrying more than their share of pollution. The agency will still say it “considers” health impacts. But when those impacts aren’t counted—when they don’t move the numbers that decide whether a rule survives—they stop shaping outcomes in any meaningful way. This is how dismantling happens now. Not always with loud announcements or sweeping legislation, but with quiet changes to spreadsheets and assumptions. With decisions about what gets counted, and what can be ignored. In a moment when leadership is already destabilizing institutions meant to protect people—at home and abroad—this change lands with brutal clarity. This is how protections are dismantled now: not by saying people don’t matter, but by designing systems where their suffering never makes it into the math. Once the harm disappears from the ledger, dismantling the rule looks responsible. The damage comes later, off paper, borne by people who were never asked. Please stop this we can’t have effect on people be ignored.