In announcing the revocation of a scientific determination that climate change poses a danger to public health, the Trump administration is drawing new warnings that the rollback will fall hardest on communities with less ability to avoid pollution and recover from its effects. Public health experts said the change is likely to increase health harms tied to air pollution and climate-driven disasters, particularly for communities of color. The concern is not limited to theoretical risk, advocates point to real patterns of elevated pollution exposure and disease in places surrounded by fossil fuel and petrochemical infrastructure.
The revocation overturns a finding the federal government made in 2009, when it targeted carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as a public health danger because of climate change and tightened pollution regulation as a result. Experts said the finding’s removal threatens to loosen guardrails that helped reduce pollution in some communities. They added that the expected harm would be amplified where people already live near industrial sources emitting pollutants that are linked to higher rates of illness and premature death.
Louisiana’s St. John the Baptist Parish, outside New Orleans, has long been described as part of a high-pollution stretch known as “Cancer Alley.” A resident, Gary C. Watson Jr., said the toll has become routine in his community, where he described funerals as frequent and where at least five relatives have died from cancer, according to his account. Watson said he was born and raised in the parish, which he characterized as a majority Black community, and he pointed to how cancer has affected families across generations.
Watson’s warning, delivered alongside Rise St. James Louisiana, was focused on what he expects to follow from the revocation. He said, “Not having these protections, it’s only going to make things worse,” arguing that the rollback would worsen health conditions for residents living near industrial pollution. He also said the endangerment finding’s revocation could lead to emissions increases that would intensify the risk from hurricanes affecting the state.
Experts said the revocation’s effects would likely extend beyond Louisiana because it would change how the federal government treats climate as a public health threat. Researchers and advocates described how poor and minority communities are typically more vulnerable to pollution and climate-driven floods, hurricanes, and extreme heat because they often have fewer resources to protect themselves and to recover when disasters strike. Matthew Tejada, senior vice president for environmental health at the Natural Resources Defense Council and a former deputy with the EPA’s office for environmental justice, said the overburdened communities that are typically communities of color, Indigenous communities, and low-income communities will face the greatest risks from the federal action.
Other experts and advocates described how local exposure patterns interact with health disparities. Hilda Berganza, a climate program manager with the Hispanic Access Foundation, said communities that she described as “the front lines” will feel the impacts the most, and she said the Latino population in particular could experience greater harm because of where she said Latinos live and work. Armando Carpio, a pastor in Los Angeles, said he has seen vulnerability firsthand among construction workers and others who work outside, including children with asthma and elders with dementia, which he linked to pollution exposure.
The Associated Press reported that experts said it is difficult to quantify exactly how much more harm could occur, but they expected the increases tied to climate impacts and pollution to be significant. Sacoby Wilson, a University of Maryland professor and executive director of the Center for Engagement, Environmental Justice and Health INpowering Communities, said the rollback could lead to “statistically significant increases in excess morbidity and mortality when it comes to climate impacts and health impacts associated with co-pollutants” in communities of color.
The concerns also reflect findings cited in the reporting about how marginalized groups are more likely to live near energy infrastructure and face greater projected health burdens. The reporting described a study published in November finding that more than 46 million people in the U.S. live within a mile of at least one type of energy supply infrastructure such as oil wells, power plants, or refineries, and that “persistently marginalized” racial and ethnic groups were more likely to live near multiple such sites. It also referenced an EPA estimate in a 2021 report that with a 2-degree Celsius rise in global warming, Black people were projected to be 40% more likely to live in places with the highest rise in deaths because of extreme heat, and that Latinos were projected to be 43% more likely to live where labor hour losses were expected to be highest because of heat.
Separately, Julia Silver, a senior research analyst at the University of California, Los Angeles’ Latino Policy and Politics Institute, said her research found Latino communities had more days of extreme heat annually than non-Latino white neighborhoods, and she said those communities had poorer air quality at about double the rate, with twice as many asthma-related emergency room visits. Silver said the risk of a federal rollback like the one at issue is “really human health and well-being in these marginalized groups,” according to the reporting.
In New Orleans, Beverly Wright, founding director of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, said the expansion of industrial facilities has already contributed to the disappearance of at least four Black communities in Cancer Alley. Wright said the policy move is steering communities “in the wrong direction” and increasing risk, according to the reporting.
Legal challenges have followed the revocation. The Associated Press reported that on Wednesday, a coalition of health and environmental groups sued the EPA over the revocation, arguing it is unlawful and harmful. The case and the expert concerns together underline a central question about how federal pollution and climate regulations will be handled after the endangerment finding was overturned.