Some Republican legislators in Alabama have approved legislation that would narrow how far state regulators can go in setting pollution and toxic-chemical standards above what federal rules require. The bill arrives as President Donald Trump’s administration pushes to roll back environmental rules on power plants, water and greenhouse gases, according to the AP account.
Under the measure approved by the Alabama Legislature, state agencies generally would be prevented from setting restrictions on pollutants and hazardous substances that exceed those set by the federal government. In areas where no federal standard exists, the bill would allow new state rules only if the state could show a “direct causal link” between exposure to harmful emissions and “manifest bodily harm” to humans.
Supporters said the Alabama approach would anchor pollution policy in “sound science” and prevent regulatory overreach. Republican Sen. Donnie Chesteen, the bill’s sponsor, told a legislative committee that the legislation is a “pro-business” effort, and he argued that it would help the state compete for businesses by defining the standards companies would face.
During debate, Republican Rep. Troy Stubbs also defended the bill as protecting Alabama from government regulation that could become burdensome. Stubbs disputed the measure would weaken existing rules, saying current Alabama regulations would remain in place.
Environmental groups and Democrats said the bill would make it harder to respond to health and environmental risks from pollutants. Sarah Stokes, a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, said the legislation creates an “impossible hurdle” for state regulations and that “increased risk of disease” would not be enough to demonstrate harm to humans. Stokes also characterized the proposal as harmful to public health, saying: “It’s a blank check to businesses. We’re basically sacrificing human health for businesses,” adding that “That doesn’t seem like the best calculation for our citizens.”
The bill also would bar state agencies from using the EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System, which characterizes health hazards of chemicals found in the environment, as the default basis for water-quality standards. A lobbying group for the chemical industry has criticized the system as overly burdensome and scientifically flawed, while critics argued that reducing reliance on the EPA’s system would limit how state agencies justify protective water-quality rules.
Democrats in the Alabama Legislature spoke against the bill for about two hours before GOP lawmakers voted to end debate and move to a vote, according to the report. Democratic Rep. Chris England said Alabama residents would become “test subjects,” and Rep. Neil Rafferty called the bill’s definition of “sound science” an effort to “gut our ability to use it to drive science-based and data-driven policy.”
Cara Horowitz, an environmental law professor and executive director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA School of Law, said the legislation would prevent state agencies from making “independent decisions about how much to protect public health from things like water pollution, air pollution, and toxics.” Horowitz added that Alabama could adopt its own pollution standard only under a narrow kind of evidence and could not rely on studies showing a correlation between pollution exposure and increased risk of disease.
The bill is the latest effort to limit state-level environmental regulation, the report says, pointing to similar measures elsewhere. Indiana Gov. Mike Braun signed an executive order in 2025 saying Indiana could not adopt new environmental rules stricter than federal ones unless state law or the governor deemed it necessary, and Tennessee lawmakers passed legislation requiring any state rules more stringent than federal standards to be based on links to “manifest bodily harm in humans.” A similar bill has been introduced in Utah, according to the AP account.
The Alabama House of Representatives voted 88-34 for the bill. The measure now goes to Republican Gov. Kay Ivey, and the AP story said a spokeswoman for Ivey did not have an immediate comment on the bill.