"Make America Healthy Again" Is Dead

There is nothing RFK Jr. can do at the Department of Health to make up for what’s happening at the EPA.

By Emily Atkin, Heated

Part of me wants to be snarky about this. Because I knew it was going to happen. It felt obvious to me.

But I can’t entirely blame individuals for believing well-funded, widely-disseminated, professionally-crafted bullshit. So I’m going to say this with the most grace and sympathy toward my Robert F. Kennedy Jr.-admiring readers as I possibly can: There is nothing Kennedy can do at the Department of Health that will make up for what Donald Trump is doing at the Environmental Protection Agency. Nothing.

If fully realized, the Trump administration’s recent actions at the EPA will result in skyrocketing rates of chronic disease and cancer in America—particularly in babies and pregnant people, populations particularly vulnerable to fossil fuel pollution. This is not only my opinion, but that of several major medical groups, including the American Lung Association and the American Public Health Association.

Here’s a short summary of what EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin did just last week, via the New York Times—and it’s really just the tip of the iceberg:

In a barrage of pronouncements on Wednesday, the Trump administration said it would repeal dozens of the nation’s most significant environmental regulations, including limits on pollution from tailpipes and smokestacks, protections for wetlands, and the legal basis that allows it to regulate the greenhouse gases that are heating the planet. …

Mr. Zeldin said the E.P.A. would unwind [31] protections against air and water pollution. It would overturn limits on soot from smokestacks that have been linked to respiratory problems in humans and premature deaths as well as restrictions on emissions of mercury, a neurotoxin. It would get rid of the “good neighbor rule” that requires states to address their own pollution when it’s carried by winds into neighboring states. And it would eliminate enforcement efforts that prioritize the protection of poor and minority communities.

In addition, Zeldin said the mission of the EPA would fundamentally change. No longer would the agency’s purpose be “to protect human health and the environment,” as its been since Richard Nixon established the EPA in 1970. Instead, Zeldin said the EPA’s purpose would be to “lower the cost of buying a car, heating a home, and running a business.”