Photo by AP/Joshua Bickel
BY SETH BORENSTEIN, M.K. WILDEMAN, MELINA WALLING, JOSHUA A. BICKEL, AND MATTHEW DALY
Updated 7:03 PM EDT, June 5, 2025
When the head of the Environmental Protection Agency announced a wide-ranging rollback of environmental regulations, he said it would put a “dagger through the heart of climate-change religion” and introduce a “Golden Age” for the American economy.
What Lee Zeldin didn’t mention: how ending the rules could have devastating consequences to human health.
The EPA-targeted rules could prevent an estimated 30,000 deaths and save $275 billion each year they are in effect, according to an Associated Press examination that included the agency’s own prior assessments as well as a wide range of other research.