Whitehouse Leads Senate Democrats’ Investigation into EPA’s Decision to Disregard Health Impacts in Air Pollution Standards

Senators warn the agency’s move risks families’ health and could sacrifice more than $40 billion in public health gains to cut costs for polluters

Washington, D.C.– Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW), led 31 Senators in launching an investigation into the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) decision to cease counting health benefits when conducting cost-benefit analysis for Clean Air Act rules that limit dangerous pollutants.  The decision was announced in a recent rulemaking concerning power plant regulations and reveals EPA’s intention to apply this policy to fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) and ozone, two of the most harmful air pollutants.

“EPA’s new policy is irrational. Even where health benefits are ‘uncertain’, what is certain is that they are not zero.  It will lead to perverse outcomes in which EPA will reject actions that would impose relatively minor costs on polluting industries while resulting in massive benefits to public health – including in saved lives. It is contrary to Congress’s intent and directive as spelled out in the Clean Air Act.  It is legally flawed.  The only beneficiaries will be polluting industries, many of which are among President Trump’s largest donors,” wrote the Senators.

The decision is based on EPA’s claim that calculating benefits for PM_2.5 and ozone is too “uncertain,” yet the agency has long been able to quantify both the costs and benefits of human health effects in Clean Air Act standards.  For decades, EPA and other federal agencies have conducted robust cost-benefit analyses under Executive Order 12866, comparing monetized health benefits with compliance costs as a foundational part of rulemaking.  Both pollutants covered by the new rulemaking are well-documented drivers of serious health harms.

By factoring in only the costs to industry—and not the costs to human life—the Trump EPA risks Americans’ health and could cost billions in higher health care spending.  Should EPA apply this policy when reconsidering the current nationwide PM2.5 standards, the agency risks costing Americans “between $22 and $46 billion in avoided morbidities and premature deaths in the year 2032,” the Senators wrote.  “The total compliance cost to industry, meanwhile, [would] be $590 million—between one and two one-hundredths of the estimated health benefit value.”  The Senators pointed out that “EPA has frequently overestimated cost to industry when promulgating regulations in the past,” but even if the $590 million estimate is correct, “the expense of forgoing the $22 to $46 billion benefit would burden Americans across the country in lives lost, more frequent and severe illnesses, missed school days and lost labor productivity, [while] the $590 million in savings would go mostly into the pockets of a small group of Trump’s fossil fuel donors.”

The Senators emphasize that the shift contradicts EPA’s core obligation to protect health, the Clean Air Act’s directive to “protect and enhance the quality of the Nation’s air resources so as to promote the public health and welfare,” and commitments Administrator Zeldin himself made during his confirmation hearing, where he testified that, “the goal, the end state of all the conversations that we might have, any regulations that might get passed, any laws that might get passed by Congress” is to “have the cleanest, healthiest air, [and] drinking water.”   Administrator Zeldin’s action now flies in the face of his earlier testimony.

“That EPA may no longer monetize health benefits when setting new clean air standards does not mean that those health benefits don’t exist—it just means that [EPA] will ignore them and reject safer standards, in favor of protecting corporate interests,” concluded the Senators.

This change also paves the way to looser controls on other pollutants, including coal-burning power plants. 

In addition to Ranking Member Whitehouse, the letter was signed by Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Senators Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Angus King, Jr. (I-ME), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Ed Markey (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Patty Murray (D-WA), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Jack Reed (D-RI), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Peter Welch (D-VT), Ron Wyden (D-OR).

Ranking Member Whitehouse and Leader Schumer previously led 30 of their Senate colleagues in opposition to EPA’s rollback of power plant pollution standards, and led the entire caucus in opposing the EPA’s proposed rollback of the 2009 greenhouse gas endangerment finding. The endangerment finding repeal was finalized on February 12, 2026, in what Whitehouse and Schumer called a “shameful abdication” of the agency’s duty to protect the American people, and one that will “harm Americans’ health, homes, and economic well-being.”

The Senators are requesting documents and information related to this decision, including draft and final analyses, cost-benefit modeling, scientific justifications, communications with industry representatives, and any White House involvement, by February 24, 2026.

Full text of the letter to Administrator Zeldin is available HERE.