Sustainability Weekly
Fridays are for…
Springtime, the New EPA, Net-Zero Cement, and more!
by Alli DiGiacomo
Happy Friday and first official full day of Spring! This season means longer days than nights and warmer weather! Today is also National Flower Day, meant to celebrate the joy flowers bring to our lives, but also the role they play in pollination and our entire ecosystem, as well as their culinary and medicinal purposes.
Today also marks International Day of Forests, declared officially by the United Nations. “The lungs of the Earth,” as Roosevelt called them, forests not only are carbon sinks and natural aqueducts, but they also provide us with raw materials, nurture our soil and prevent soil erosion, stabilize the climate, and are home to millions of species important for our ecosystems. The world needs forests and we should protect them.
“To be without trees would, in the most literal way, to be without our roots.” - Richard Mabey
Keep reading for sustainability news…
T H I S W E E K ’ S T O P S T O R I E S
UNDERSTANDING THE NEW EPA
Since the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was established by Richard Nixon in 1970, its purpose has always been “to protect human health and the environment.” The Trump administration, led by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, has now said that the new purpose of the EPA will be to “lower the cost of buying a car, heating a home, and running a business.” The EPA is responsible for carrying out the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, among other laws that were enacted with bipartisan majorities at a time when America’s skies were filled with smog and America’s rivers were catching fire.
Trump and Zeldin have announced an aggressive rollback of environmental protections, including almost every safety standard on power plants, trucks, factories. They have already frozen funding for climate programs and threatened criminal prosecution. They have dismissed scientists, and reduced federal support for clean energy transitions. The U.S. is historically the largest emitter of CO2, and has faced worsening climate disasters, with 2024 marking the hottest year on record. These rollbacks directly conflict with the Department of Health’s goals, led by RFK Jr., and will endanger millions of Americans. It is worth noting that some of these rollbacks do not immediately carry the force of law, as the EPA must go through a formal process of public comments and justifications for these changes. Read a summary below:
Key Policy Rollbacks:
Carbon Emissions from Power Plants: The EPA intends to eliminate restrictions requiring coal-burning plants and new gas plants to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2039. They also plan to reconsider mandatory greenhouse gas reporting for large oil and gas operations
Vehicle Emissions Standards: Plans to weaken tailpipe pollution standards, which currently aim to ensure that a majority of new cars and light trucks sold by 2032 are electric or hybrid. This will lead to “significantly more toxic air pollution from vehicle exhaust, exacerbating the risks of asthma, lung disease, and heart attacks.”
Mercury and Chemical Standards: The agency will ease restrictions on mercury emissions from coal plants, despite mercury’s links to neurological damage in children. Zeldin also announced his intention to roll back regulations to protect workers from chemical disasters. The Trump administration dropped a lawsuit that sought to cut toxic emissions in ‘Cancer Alley’ in Louisiana.
Soot and Air Pollution Rules: The EPA plans to remove limits on fine particulate pollution from smokestacks, which have been linked to respiratory issues and premature deaths. This will undo the existing pollution standards that save lives and prevent health conditions such as asthma, lung disease, heart attacks, and cancer.
Water Protection Rollbacks: The agency will dismantle the "good neighbor rule," which requires states to mitigate water pollution that travels across state lines, as well as protections for wetlands. Zeldin also announced his intention to block state labels that warn consumers of pesticide cancer risks, and cut cut plans for stricter regulations on PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals.”
Elimination of Environmental Justice Efforts: The EPA will no longer prioritize enforcement actions aimed at protecting low-income and minority communities from pollution exposure. All the EPA’s Environmental Justice offices will be closed.
Climate Cost Calculations Removed: The agency will stop considering the societal costs of climate-related disasters—such as wildfires, hurricanes, and droughts—when making environmental policy decisions.
Attack on Climate Science and Greenhouse Gas Regulation:
Perhaps the most significant move is the administration’s effort to overturn the EPA’s 2009 endangerment finding, which legally established that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health. This finding helps allow the agency to regulate emissions from industries, power plants, and vehicles. Reversing it would make it nearly impossible for future administrations to impose climate pollution regulations, and would require discrediting decades of climate science. The EPA also plans to eliminate the department that conducts the essential research that informs environmental policy.
Political and Industry Reactions:
Support from Fossil Fuel and Business Interests: Industry groups, including the oil, gas, and auto lobbies, praised the rollbacks, calling them common sense deregulation. Trump’s EPA released a list of people and organizations praising the agency’s recent actions—which include several proposals to deregulate the chemical industry. Not one environmental or public health group appeared on the list. There were, however, 10 fossil fuel industry trade groups, and 23 members of Congress who have cumulatively taken over $11 million in campaign donations from the oil and gas sector over their career lifetimes.
Strong Opposition from Environmental Advocates: Critics, including former EPA administrators and climate organizations, unsurprisingly condemned the moves, warning of increased pollution, worsening health conditions, and escalating climate disasters. Not to mention the cost in dollars. Amanda Leland, executive director of Environmental Defense Fund, said “those seeking to make America healthier should be deeply concerned.”
Democratic Backlash: Lawmakers accused Zeldin of abandoning the EPA’s core mission, with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse calling it “the day Trump’s Big Oil megadonors paid for.”
CANADA IS BUILDING THE WORLDS FIRST FULL-SIZED, ZERO-CARBON CEMENT PLANT
Alberta, Canada, is set to build the world's first full-scale zero-carbon cement plant, thanks to a $275 million deal between the Canadian government and Heidelberg Materials. The facility will be fitted with a carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) system that will trap one million tonnes of CO2 per year. This is equivalent to taking over 300,000 cars off the road. Using ammonia-based carbon scrubbing, the plant will capture 95% of its emissions and store them deep underground while also generating surplus electricity to go back into Alberta’s grid. The plant will be operating in about 3 years. This is good news because cement production is a major source of emissions (7-8% of global emissions), making decarbonizing the industry crucial for climate goals. Heidelberg is already in talks with developers eager to use zero-carbon concrete for projects like data centers and commercial buildings. The company is also working on a similar plant in Norway as part of the country's Longship project. CCUS is a game-changer for industries like cement, where electrification isn’t fully an option. If successful, this project could lay the groundwork for future projects that reduce emissions and meet net-zero commitments in Canada and potentially around the world.
THE RACE TO SAVE U.S. CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENTAL DATA
Since the beginning of the current administration, thousands of climate and environmental data sets have been removed or altered, making it harder for researchers and policymakers to track risks, and causing concerns about transparency and accessibility. Around 2,000 records vanished from Data.gov alone. Geographer Eric Nost and his team at the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI) saw this coming, so they started backing up key data before it disappeared. In an interview with e360, they describe how they are focusing on 60 especially vulnerable data sets, including tools like the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool and EJScreen, which were used to track who is most at risk from climate change and pollution, but were taken down soon after Trump’s inauguration. Currently major climate data from NASA and NOAA remain due to congressional mandates, but some resources, like EPA grant records, seem to be gone entirely. Legal challenges are emerging, with groups such as doctors and farmers suing agencies to restore essential information. Beyond data loss, the administration has gutted environmental justice policies and restricted access to FEMA disaster data for people outside of the U.S. Nost warns this is more than just website changes—it’s censorship. He encourages people to advocate for transparency, support groups like EDGI, and use tools like the Wayback Machine to help preserve public data. “When you start taking down this information, changing how issues are described and doing so in misleading ways,” Nost says, “really, what it is, is censorship and propaganda.”
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Conservationists and fishing industry groups in South Africa just agreed to implement no-fishing zones around six major breeding colonies of critically endangered African penguins.
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