HARTFORD, CT – Standing on the banks of a swollen Connecticut River, government officials and environmental advocates vowed to fight what they described as an “assault” on the environment as the Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) takes the first steps toward rolling back dozens of environmental regulations.

“Last week, EPA announced that they are intending to reconsider existing regulations, including a 2009 finding by EPA that greenhouse gases are a danger to air quality and public health,” said Katie Dykes, commissioner of the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP). “And the reconsideration of that 2009 endangerment finding, as well as these other significant anticipated regulatory rollbacks, would create the basis for really undoing a significant amount of environmental and public health progress in addressing air pollution and other pollutants that have harmed or are harming our kids and families.”

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced last week that the agency had begun the formal process of reconsidering the EPA’s 2009 Endangerment Finding under the Obama administration. In the finding, the EPA stated that six greenhouse gases in the atmosphere – carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride – threaten the public health of current and future generations. While this finding imposed no new regulations itself, it set the stage for the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide emissions in vehicles and other areas.

Another major regulation the EPA is reconsidering is the Good Neighbor policy, which gives the EPA the authority to require states to implement plans and procedures to prevent their pollution from crossing borders and endangering the health and safety of “downwind” states. Connecticut is particularly invested in the policy, as it has received a great deal of its pollution from “upwind” states in the Midwest.

In total, the EPA is reconsidering 31 regulations.

Dykes said that according to the EPA’s modeling, as much as 96% of air pollution impacting Connecticut on high ozone days originate from outside the state.

“Connecticut already suffers from some of the worst air quality in the eastern United States,” she said. “For nearly 50 years, Connecticut has experienced ozone levels that exceed the National Ambient Air Quality Standards, that the EPA set and has periodically strengthened at a level to protect public health. And exceeding this level puts the health of our residents at risk, especially the health of children, the elderly, and individuals with respiratory issues. Air quality in Connecticut exceeded the federal health based standards for ozone – otherwise a major contributor to smog – on 23 days in 2024, putting these vulnerable populations at risk.”

Three Connecticut cities made it onto the EPA’s list of the 100 most challenging cities to live in with asthma. Hartford was number 36 on the list, New Haven 53, and Bridgeport 58.

Ruth Canovi, director of advocacy for the American Lung Association, stated that her organization stands in “strong opposition” to the moves by the EPA.

“EPA’s mission is to protect human health and the environment,” she said. “The agency’s plans to get rid of clean air rules will do the exact opposite. In collaboration with leading health organizations, doctors, nurses, and people impacted by lung disease, we have pushed hard to get life-saving safeguards across the finish line at EPA over the past couple of years. But now all that progress is under dire threat. EPA’s announcement last week that they plan to roll back, reconsider, or undermine dozens of life-saving programs is an assault on public health. People in Connecticut will be sicker. Kids with asthma will have a harder time breathing. Parents will miss more days of work caring for their children.”

Charles Rothenberger, climate and energy attorney with Save the Sound, highlighted the potential human costs of the EPA’s decision.

“While the purported goal of the announced deregulatory purge is to lower the cost of living, the result will actually be to devalue human life and increase adverse health outcomes and mortality across the country,” he said. 

Rothenberger said that maintaining current regulations would prevent up to 4,500 premature deaths, 800,000 cases of asthma, and 290,000 lost work days. 

“Those lives and those benefits, lost,” he said. “When it comes to the endangerment finding that the commissioner spoke about, this really does fly in the face of both the commonsense logic and the scientific basis supporting that endangerment finding regarding our greenhouse gas emissions.”

While the tone of the day focused on the potential losses that could result from the EPA action, Lorie Brown, executive director of the Connecticut League of Conservation Voters, said that the situation was not hopeless. 

“We also have power at the state level,” she said. “Our state leaders and especially our state laws are critical right now. They’re the firewall to prevent deterioration of our environmental protections by the Trump administration. Right now there are efforts at the Connecticut state legislature that can strengthen our own laws. We need to support these efforts and help our legislators pass strong legislation to reduce pollution as well as the state laws to protect our waters and keep toxic chemicals out of our environment. These issues are right now being debated and decided at the Connecticut General Assembly.” 

US Sen. Richard Blumenthal said that he and his allies in government and advocacy would fight these changes through the EPA’s regulatory process and in the courts if necessary, but also warned that the Trump administration had other tools at its disposal.

“What [President Trump] is unable to do directly, he will try to do indirectly,” he said. “In fact, they’re already doing it by cutting the staff of the EPA by 65 percent. That’s right, 65 percent. That’s what he has announced. They’ve already eliminated 400 probationary positions, and they are terminating hundreds of grants that come to Connecticut – among other states – and enable research facilities and seaports and the University of Connecticut to do environmental research that helps Connecticut and the whole country.”

Gov. Ned Lamont recounted some of the environmental successes that the region has seen.

“You remember acid rain? Oh my God, remember the needles are gonna be falling off the pine trees and the leaves coming off of the trees. You know, we’ve turned the corner on that. We’ve made such an enormous difference as a region. We shut down our last coal-fired plant here in Connecticut, but I can’t control what they do in West Virginia and Ohio and other places where they’re beginning to rebuild a lot of these facilities.”

Lamont said that like COVID-19, pollution knows no state borders, which makes it all the more important for people to stand up and make sure their voices are heard.

“We can’t go back,” he said.