The Environmental Protection Agency has stopped counting the value of lives saved when setting key air pollution standards, according to internal documents and a new rule posted by the agency, marking a dramatic shift in how federal regulators weigh the costs and benefits of environmental protections. Instead of accounting for the public health gains of limiting dangerous air pollutants, the agency will now focus solely on the financial costs to industry, a change critics say effectively assigns a value of zero to human life.
The policy applies to fine particulate matter, known as PM2.5, and ozone, two pollutants long associated with asthma, heart disease, lifelong respiratory harm, and premature death. For decades, the EPA relied on cost benefit analysis that included monetized estimates of avoided deaths, reduced illness, and fewer lost workdays to justify clean air rules. Under the new approach, those benefits will no longer be monetized.
An internal email from an EPA supervisor, reported by the New York Times, stated that “to rectify this error, the EPA is no longer monetizing benefits from PM2.5 and ozone.” The agency also confirmed the shift publicly. EPA spokesperson Carolyn Holran said, “Not monetizing does not equal not considering or not valuing the human health impact.”
Critics argue that distinction collapses in practice. Without assigning a monetary value to prevented deaths and illnesses, public health benefits effectively disappear from the formal accounting process that determines whether pollution rules are strengthened, weakened, or repealed.
The EPA’s decision represents a sharp reversal from recent regulatory practice. In 2024, the agency tightened PM2.5 standards to historically low levels, estimating that the rule would prevent up to 4,500 premature deaths and 290,000 lost workdays in 2032 alone. The agency calculated that the rule would generate as much as $77 in human health benefits for every $1 spent by industry to comply.
Under the new framework, similar benefits will no longer appear on the balance sheet. Instead, regulators will weigh only the costs faced by businesses such as coal burning power plants, oil refineries, steel mills, and other major polluters. Internal communications reviewed by the Times indicate that the shift will make it far easier to repeal or weaken pollution rules by eliminating the primary justification for keeping them in place.
The agency has justified the change by pointing to “uncertainties” associated with monetized health impacts. Critics note that cost estimates for industry are also uncertain, raising questions about why uncertainty is being invoked to discard public health protections while leaving business cost calculations intact.
Research underscores the stakes. A study published in 2023 found that PM2.5 pollution from coal fired power plants alone killed approximately 460,000 people in the United States between 1999 and 2020. More broadly, PM2.5 and ozone are estimated to cause tens of thousands of premature deaths every year.
“This policy will cause more deaths of vulnerable Americans, like infants and the elderly,” said Claudia Persico, a professor at American University’s School of Public Affairs. “Also, it appears to be a violation of the Clean Air Act. This is incredibly foolish.”
Legal experts echoed those concerns, warning that ignoring public health benefits undermines the statutory purpose of the EPA. Richard Revesz, faculty director at the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law, told the Times, “The idea that EPA would not consider the public health benefits of its regulations is anathema to the very mission of EPA.” Revesz added, “If you’re only considering the costs to industry and you’re ignoring the benefits, then you can’t justify any regulations that protect public health, which is the very reason that EPA was set up.”
Environmental advocates say the policy shift is not an isolated decision but part of a broader pattern under the Trump administration of sidelining science and public health in favor of polluting industries. The Environmental Protection Network said in a statement that “EPA’s reported decision to ignore prevented deaths is part of a pattern of ignoring or downplaying health effects in the rulemaking process, including in its rulemaking on effluent guidelines for coal-fired power plants and its recent Waters of the United States rulemaking.”
Leadership at the agency has drawn scrutiny as well. Aaron Szabo, head of the EPA’s air and radiation office, previously worked as a lobbyist for the oil and chemical industries. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, a former Republican congressman from New York with a 14 percent lifetime rating from the League of Conservation Voters, has boasted about canceling around $20 billion in Biden era green grants.
Sierra Club policy director Patrick Drupp called the change a “complete betrayal of the EPA’s mission.”
“Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency is saying the quiet part out loud with this new announcement: They have no interest in actually protecting American lives and keeping our communities healthy and safe from toxic pollutants,” Drupp said. “The only thing [EPA administrator] Lee Zeldin wants to protect are the profits of fossil fuel companies. So much for making America healthy.”
Consumer advocates warned the policy could face legal challenges. Katie Tracy, senior regulatory policy advocate at Public Citizen, said, “EPA should strengthen how it values human life and health, not pretend it doesn’t matter.” She added, “By refusing to monetize the benefits of cleaner air, the agency is effectively saying that preventing asthma attacks, heart disease, and early deaths have no dollar value at all.”
The rollback fits within a sweeping agenda during Trump’s second term. The EPA has moved to repeal or replace stronger carbon emissions limits for fossil fueled power plants, rescinded fuel efficiency and emissions standards for cars and light trucks, revoked California’s authority to enforce stricter vehicle rules, and signaled plans to overturn the agency’s finding that greenhouse gases are a public health hazard. The agency has also weakened water and wetland protections, rolled back limits on so called forever chemicals in drinking water, slashed environmental justice programs, reduced enforcement actions, dismantled scientific advisory panels, and removed references to human caused climate change from its website.
According to a 2024 analysis by the Environmental Protection Network, Trump administration rollbacks could cause nearly 200,000 deaths in the United States by 2050.
“EPA’s current leadership has abandoned EPA’s mission to protect human health and safety,” said EPN senior adviser Jeremy Symons. “Human lives don’t count. Childhood asthma doesn’t count. It is a shameful abdication of EPA’s responsibility to protect Americans from harm. Under this administration, the Environmental Protection Agency is now the Environmental Pollution Agency, helping polluters at the expense of human health.”
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