Toxic Betrayal
Julia Conley for Common Dreams
“MAHA is a mandate, not a marketing campaign,” the advocates
told EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, calling for an end to
both corporate-friendly loopholes in regulations and the “revolving door” that
saw chemical lobbyists hired by the agency tasked with regulating the industry.
But on Monday, the government watchdog Public Citizen revealed
that 20 out of 21 environmental chemicals that the White House pledged to
address in its May 2025 “MAHA Report” have been subject to less, not more,
regulation under the Trump administration.
For nine of the chemicals, including the carcinogenic
herbicide atrazine,
mercury,
and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)—often
called forever chemicals—President Donald Trump and his
top officials have loosened public health
regulations.
For 10 of them, the administration has taken none of the
action promised in the MAHA Report, and in the case of the cancer-causing
herbicide glyphosate,
Trump issued an executive order not only endorsing the use of the chemical but mandating
its production—a year after Bayer,
the parent company of the chemical firm that uses glyphosate in popular
weedkiller Roundup,
donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural campaign.
Public Citizen found just one substance, microplastics, for
which the administration has “taken any step toward regulation, and at best it
was a baby step”—announcing in April that microplastics may be considered for
regulation in the future and that the government would study measuring and
removing them from the human body.
The report identifies the lifted limits on forever chemicals, loosened regulations on air pollution, and action on glyphosate as “among the most egregious betrayals” of the MAHA movement that helped elect Trump.
“These examples show how the Trump administration’s retreat
on chemicals in the environment is failing to keep Americans healthy,” reads
the report.
Despite the warning from MAHA leaders earlier this year,
Public Citizen research director Peter Whoriskey wrote, the administration’s
conduct has shown that “MAHA is worse than an empty slogan. It’s a sham.”
Nearly two years into Trump’s second term in office—despite
the fact that MAHA leader Robert F. Kennedy
Jr. is the president’s secretary of health and human services—key
regulatory posts have been filled by former industry lobbyists and officials,
such as David Fotouhi, who as the deputy administrator of the EPA is the
agency’s second-highest official.
During his legal career, Fotouhi defended the company
International Paper when it was sued for contaminating the environment with
forever chemicals.
Eight out of 10 top leadership roles at the Office of
Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention and the Office of Air and Radiation
are filled by “officials, lawyers, and lobbyists who previously worked for
chemical oil, chemical, and agriculture companies,”
reads the report.
“For years, Kennedy, like other leaders in the MAHA
movement, accused federal regulators of being controlled by corporate lobbyists
and failing to protect Americans from dangerous industrial and agricultural
chemicals. Accordingly, they campaigned to curtail corporate influence at the
EPA and other federal agencies,” wrote Whoriskey.
But with Kennedy at his side, “the Trump administration has
not only accommodated industry demands but appointed industry lobbyists and
other officials to senior positions in the EPA.”
The report also takes aim at persistent claims by Trump
administration officials, including in the MAHA Report, that they will use
“gold standard science”
to evaluate environmental dangers.
The White House has made that all but impossible by
disbanding the Office of Research and Development, which has conducted research
on the impact of chemicals on humans, the report says.
The government’s top air pollution research facility in
Chapel Hill, North Carolina, was also shut down, while all the members of the
EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee and the Clean Air Act Advisory
Committee were ousted.
“The MAHA Report reminded the American public of the dangers of toxic chemicals in our air and water,” said Whoriskey in a statement. “It was described as a ‘call to action.’ But then the Trump administration either did nothing—or gave industry permission to pollute more.”