Will Trump’s weaker air standards put your health at risk?

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The Trump administration’s efforts to roll back the air quality standard for a major pollutant could add to health risks in environmentally overburdened communities like Detroit, U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Detroit) and environmental health advocates said on a Tuesday press call.

Under President Joe Biden, the Environmental Protection Agency lowered the annual air quality standard for fine particulate matter, or PM 2.5, from 12 micrograms per cubic meter to 9. In November, President Donald Trump’s EPA asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to vacate the Biden rule by Feb. 7.

Detroit could be impacted if the administration’s rollback is successful, experts said. In Michigan, Wayne and Kalamazoo counties would be designated nonattainment under the Biden-era federal air quality standard, which could lead to stricter pollution controls, expanded air quality monitoring, and permitting changes. The American Lung Association gave Detroit an ‘F’ rating for air quality in its 2025 State of the Air Report.

PM 2.5 can damage the heart, lungs, and brain, increasing the risk of heart conditions, COPD, stroke, dementia, and asthmatic symptoms, Kindra Weid, a registered nurse and board member for the nonprofit Michigan Clinicians for Climate Action, said on Tuesday.

“The science has not changed, but the politics have,” she said, explaining the reasoning behind the Trump administration’s attempted rollback.

In a March announcement, the EPA said the Biden-era PM2.5 standards were an obstacle to issuing permits to polluters.

“Under President Trump, we will ensure air quality standards for particulate matter are protective of human health and the environment while we unleash the golden age of American prosperity,” said EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin.

An EPA spokesperson told Planet Detroit in a statement that the agency continues to prioritize environmental protection in Michigan, with actions that include removing PCB-contaminated property in Detroit and finalizing Michigan’s Regional Haze State Implementation Plan.

The administration’s framing of the rollback as a cost-saving measure for businesses ignores health care costs, as well as missed school and work days, Weid said.

“As a nurse, I can tell you that the cost will be more disease and death in an already stressed and failing health care system,” she said.

The EPA announced earlier this month that it would stop calculating the number of deaths prevented and the health cost savings from regulating PM2.5 and ozone pollution. The agency will continue to calculate the costs of regulations to industry.

In 2024, the EPA estimated that stronger PM2.5 protections would prevent 4,500 premature deaths, 290,000 lost workdays, and $46 billion in public health costs in 2032 alone.

Biden-era rules already a compromise, Tlaib says

Rep. Rashida Tlaib said Tuesday that Trump’s EPA is abandoning its public health mandate and sacrificing Michigan communities for corporate greed.

“I know, as a girl that grew up in southwest Detroit, how incredibly dehumanizing it felt that nobody cared about me breathing clean air,” she said.

The Biden-era PM 2.5 standards were already a compromise with industry and didn’t go far enough to protect communities, Tlaib said.

The World Health Organization’s target for annual PM2.5 is 5 micrograms per cubic meter, 4 points below the Biden-era regulation.

“It’s really important to know we’re already at the bare minimum, where we’re still in survivor-mode in Wayne County,” Tlaib said, calling attention to the many industries impacting communities. She pointed to the south end of Dearborn, where several schools and parks are located near air pollution sources.

Michigan companies have also sought or received exemptions from complying with Clean Air Act rules from the Trump administration, according to a map released by the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund. This includes DTE Energy’s EES Coke Battery on Zug Island in River Rouge.

Tlaib said state regulators could do more to rein in pollution, including denying pollution permits and fully funding oversight and enforcement.

“We have yet to see any denial of any permits, even after evidence of public health impact,” she said.

EGLE spokesperson Josef Greenberg told Planet Detroit in a statement that EGLE Air Quality Division staff regularly require facilities to change permit applications to protect public health and the division has denied permit applications in some instances.

In 2024, EGLE’s Air Quality Division approved 297 permits to install and denied 2 applications, according to AQD’s 2024 Year in Review.
          

 “AQD would not issue a permit to a facility without limits and restrictions in place to protect public health and AQD’s confidence the facility would be able to comply with those limits and restrictions,” Greenberg said.

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