Maine’s air pollution will likely get worse if the Trump administration enacts a massive rollback of environmental regulations, according to public health and conservation advocates.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin plans more than 30 actions to reconsider rules including those that limit pollution from power plants, automobiles and the oil and gas industry. The agenda further targets protections aimed at lowering greenhouse gas emissions driving up global temperatures.
Zeldin said the historic actions would improve the economy.
"We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the U.S. and more," Zeldin said in a press release.
But opponents argue that unwinding regulations will inflict higher costs by harming the environment and public health.
"The bottom line is that rolling back air pollution protections is going to make people sick," said Laura Kate Bender, Assistant Vice President of Nationwide Healthy Air for the American Lung Association.
"It is going to make kids sick, it is going to mean more asthma attacks, it is going to affect everyone but the young and old are at even greater risk," Kate Bender said.
Maine and other New England states could be particularly vulnerable to looser air pollution standards. Prevailing winds carry air pollutants such as ozone and mercury generated by fossil fuel power plants and other industries located in states to the west into the region. The dynamic has led some to call Maine the nation's tailpipe.
State agencies don't have the power to regulate interstate air pollution, said Pete Didisheim, senior director of advocacy at the Natural Resources Council of Maine. Dismantling federal regulations that have substantially improved air quality over the decades is a hand out to the fossil fuel industry at the expense of the environment and human health, Didisheim added.
"If these go into effect, it absolutely will result in an increase in air pollution and mercury pollution to the state compared to what it would have been if these rules stayed in place," he said.
While the EPA's plans are received with hostility from some corners, they are embraced by the fossil fuel industry.
The American Petroleum Institute said the Trump administration was advancing many of the priorities in the trade group's policy wish list.
"As this regulatory process moves forward, we are committed to working with Administrator Zeldin to on commonsense policies that advance American energy dominance," the group said in a press release.
