EPA rolls back pollution protections: Legal, climate, regulation and health experts share insights

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EPA rolls back pollution protections: Legal, climate, regulation and health experts share insights

Decision 'will work directly against society's best interests'

EVANSTON, Ill. - As the Trump administration removes pollution limits on U.S. power plants, Northwestern University environmental law, climate, business, air quality and lung health experts are available to discuss various aspects of the most recent move in the sweeping effort to dismantle climate and clean air protections.

Daniel Horton is a professor of Earth, environment and planetary sciences at Northwestern's Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, where he directs the Climate Change Research Group. His research explores how emissions from burning fossil fuel affect human-caused climate change, extreme weather and human health and mortality rates. To contact Horton, email [email protected] or reach out to Amanda Morris at [email protected].

Quote from Professor Horton:

"The impacts and dangers of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in Earth's atmosphere have been well understood for decades. On an almost daily basis, we are reminded of those dangers when media reports detail extreme meteorological events that were made more likely and/or more intense because of our past greenhouse gas emissions. Any effort to reduce the progress society has made on limiting greenhouse gas emissions will work directly against society's best interests."

David Dana is the Kirkland & Ellis Professor of Law at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, where he directs the Program on Sustainability and Food and Animal Law. He is a leading scholar in the fields of environmental law, property, land use and professional responsibility. Dana can discuss the legal and regulatory implications of the EPA decision. To set up an interview with Dana, contact Shanice Harris at [email protected].

Quote from Professor Dana:

"By the administration's logic, no legal or regulatory limits on carbon dioxide pollution could ever be justified, as no single source accounts for a large percentage of emissions. That logic leads to legal and regulatory abdication of any responsibility for addressing climate change, which is inconsistent with the Supreme Court's decision in Massachusetts v. EPA. Whether the current Court is willing to in effect or explicitly overturn that decision remains an open question."

Matthew Roling is a clinical assistant professor and the inaugural executive director of the Abrams Climate Academy at Kellogg School of Management. His professional practice is situated at the intersection of business, policy and our environment. Roling can speak about business regulations and the Trump administration's relationship with industry. To set up an interview with Roling, contact Shanice Harris at [email protected].

Quote from Professor Roling:

"The EPA's erasure of pollution limits for power plants is the latest Trump administration handout to an industry that can no longer compete with clean energy on its own. Solar, wind and batteries are now the cheapest sources of new power. This is being framed as deregulation, but it's just a bewildering and tragic subsidy for oil and gas companies that will be paid for by the rest of us in the form of higher energy bills and dirtier air."

Robert A. Weinstock is a clinical professor of law at Pritzker Law, where he directs the Environmental Advocacy Center. His areas of interest include environmental justice advocacy on behalf of community organizations in Chicago, complex environmental citizen-suit enforcement litigation and work in state utilities commission proceedings on energy issues. His center submitted comments to the EPA opposing this move last summer. Weinstock can discuss the decision's implications on environmental justice. To set up an interview with Weinstock, contact Shanice Harris at [email protected].

Quote from Professor Weinstock:

"By allowing power plants to emit more greenhouse gases, the EPA's rolled-back rule will increase the risks to Chicago residents of exposure to extreme heat, flooding and air pollution. These climate-driven threats are especially harmful in majority Black and Latinx neighborhoods in the south and west sides of Chicago with lower incomes."

Dr. Scott Budinger (pronounced "Bud-ing-gher") is chief of pulmonary and critical care medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a Northwestern Medicine physician. He available to discuss the well-established relationship between exposure to particulate-matter air pollution and increased morbidity and mortality, particularly from cardiovascular disease, and how air pollution-induced inflammation in the lungs can increase the tendency of blood to clot, contributing to heart attacks and strokes. To schedule an interview with Dr. Budinger, email Kristin Samuelson at [email protected].

Quotes from Dr. Budinger:

"Coal-fired power plants and other fossil-fuel power plants are important sources of particulate-matter air pollution. How important they are depends very much on where you live. In some communities, power plants can be a major local source of particulate matter. What is undisputed in the scientific literature is the relationship between exposure to particulate-matter air pollution and adverse health outcomes. Large studies in the United States and around the world have consistently shown that as particulate-matter exposure increases, so do morbidity and mortality. Much of that increased risk is cardiovascular, including heart attacks and strokes.

"We and others have worked to understand why inhaling particles into the lungs can increase the risk of a heart attack or stroke. What we found is that particulate matter causes inflammation in the lung, and signals generated by that inflammation enter the circulation system and increase the tendency of the blood to clot. That provides a biological mechanism linking air pollution exposure to cardiovascular events. We demonstrated this pathway experimentally, and important elements of it have subsequently been supported in human studies, including intervention studies in highly polluted environments showing that filtering particulate matter reduces inflammatory and pro-thrombotic responses."