--- title: The EPA Is Giving Polluters a Free Pass description: The U.S. averages one chemical spill, fire, or explosion every three days. Zeldin’s attacks almost guarantee an increase. canonical: https://time.com/7337852/epa-rollbacks-regulation-zeldin-cancer/ author: Cynthia Palmer article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2025-12-09T11:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-11T00:37:47.832Z article:section: Ideas og:title: The EPA Is Giving Polluters a Free Pass og:description: I lost my friend to cancer. EPA rollbacks make more losses inevitable. og:url: https://time.com/7337852/epa-rollbacks-regulation-zeldin-cancer/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3bff9784537a56c3/6998cc14a97fc04337a74eb8/zeldin-epa.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: US-POLITICS-TRUMP-CABINET og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The EPA Is Giving Polluters a Free Pass twitter:description: I lost my friend to cancer. EPA rollbacks make more losses inevitable. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3bff9784537a56c3/6998cc14a97fc04337a74eb8/zeldin-epa.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  IDEAS Time ideas # I Lost My Friend to Cancer. EPA Rollbacks Make More Losses Inevitable > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=147c1710-f1d6-4725-9d2f-5ec17d6c3ba7&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1) by [Cynthia Palmer](https://time.com/author/cynthia-palmer/) ## Cynthia Palmer Cynthia Palmer is a senior analyst for petrochemicals at Moms Clean Air Force. Dec 9, 2025 11:00 AM UTC  EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin listens as President Donald Trump holds a cabinet meeting in the White House on Aug. 26, 2025. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin listens as President Donald Trump holds a cabinet meeting in the White House on Aug. 26, 2025. Mandel Ngan—AFP via Getty Images by [Cynthia Palmer](https://time.com/author/cynthia-palmer/) ## Cynthia Palmer Cynthia Palmer is a senior analyst for petrochemicals at Moms Clean Air Force. Dec 9, 2025 11:00 AM UTC I met my best friend, [Ursula Guidry](https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/sfgate/name/ursula-guidry-obituary?id=25010090), in college: a gorgeous, bighearted pre-med student who grew up in Houston near four chemical manufacturing facilities. She became my bridesmaid, and I was hers. Ursula’s mom died when she was a kid, and her dad relocated to Port Arthur where their home overlooked a petroleum storage facility and was near five chemical plants, some just a mile away. Ursula died from cancer when her children were in preschool. We’ll never know if her death was pure “bad luck,” or whether it had something to do with growing up amidst plastics-manufacturing facilities. What we know for certain is that the toxic chemicals emitted by those facilities can ravage the human body. It’s against that backdrop that I watch Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin work feverishly to dismantle the safeguards protecting people from toxic chemical exposures. He’s [exempting](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/07/regulatory-relief-for-certain-stationary-sources-to-promote-american-chemical-manufacturing-security/) the [biggest corporate polluters](https://www.edf.org/maps/epa-pollution-pass/) from [restrictions](https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/trump-epa-announces-reconsideration-air-rules-regulating-american-energy-manufacturing) on airborne [mercury](https://cen.acs.org/policy/EPA-aims-roll-back-greenhouse/103/web/2025/06), [formaldehyde](https://www.epa.gov/assessing-and-managing-chemicals-under-tsca/risk-evaluation-formaldehyde), and other carcinogens, and has [signaled plans](https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-announces-reconsideration-risk-management-plan-boost-safety-competitiveness) to gut the rules protecting communities from chemical disasters, giving giant corporate polluters a free pass to release toxic chemicals and climate-heating gases. This is happening alongside efforts to [phase out the Federal Emergency Management Agency](https://www.npr.org/2025/06/26/nx-s1-5430469/faq-fema-elimination), which provides assistance to communities facing catastrophic emergencies, and to zero-out the budget for the [Chemical Safety Board](https://www.momscleanairforce.org/save-chemical-safety-board/), an independent federal agency that [investigates the root causes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z7h5BOZ2Hk) of chemical disasters and makes recommendations to prevent them from reoccurring.  Ursula Guidry gives a toast at the author's wedding. Courtesy of Cynthia Palmer Zeldin also is proposing to [revoke](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/08/01/2025-14572/reconsideration-of-2009-endangerment-finding-and-greenhouse-gas-vehicle-standards) the [Endangerment Finding](https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2021-05/documents/federal%5Fregister-epa-hq-oar-2009-0171-dec.15-09.pdf), a 2009 scientific determination that the emission of [climate-heating gases](https://www.ipcc.ch/) is harming public health and welfare. Stripping the EPA of the legal basis for controlling climate pollution would put floods, fires, and hurricanes on steroids at the same time that Zeldin dismantles protections against chemical disasters. This is an explosive combination in communitieslike Ursula’s that are burdened with petrochemical infrastructure, and along the thousands of miles of chemical transportation routes. Chemical disasters last for years or decades, and can end in cancers and other serious illnesses. These moves would usher in a future of chemical [leaks, explosions, and fires](https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/272393/WHO-CED-PHE-EPE-18.03-eng.pdf), [melting pipelines](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9136967/), and other chemical disasters. [Toxic emissions](https://earthjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/ssm%5Fcaa%5F111%5Fpetition%5Fto%5Fepa%5F9%5F13%5F22.pdf) begin before extreme weather even arrives. When storms are on the horizon, [petrochemical facilities release](https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023GH000938) massive amounts of flammable and explosive fossil gases [into surrounding communities](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047272722000032?via%3Dihub). In the case of Hurricane Harvey, for example, petrochemical companies smothered Texas communities with [thousands of extra tons](https://environmentalintegrity.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Hurricane-Harvey-Report-Final.pdf) of benzene, sulfur dioxide, and other harmful pollutants. It takes only tiny amounts of these super-toxic chemicals to trigger life-altering and sometimes life-ending conditions.  Ursula Guidry (left) and Cynthia Palmer (right) were best friends before Ursula died from cancer in 2007. Courtesy of Cynthia Palmer The [U.S. averages](https://www.spilltracker.org/) one chemical spill, fire, or explosion every three days, but Zeldin’s attacks almost guarantee an increase. Extreme weather can damage petrochemical equipment and storage vessels, and topple chemical storage tanks, as occurred in [Hurricanes Rita and Katrina](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234139064%5FPerformance%5Fof%5FStorage%5FTanks%5Fin%5FOil%5FFacilities%5FDamaged%5Fby%5FHurricanes%5FKatrina%5Fand%5FRita). Some chemical disasters result from power outages, for example at the [Arkema Chemical Plant](https://www.csb.gov/arkema-inc-chemical-plant-fire-/) in Crosby, Texas, where more than three feet of flood waters damaged the refrigeration systems keeping toxic chemicals from decomposing and igniting. My friend Alex Gordon describes playing in the floodwaters with her little brother during the storm. Later, he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma, and she’s left wondering if their toxic waterpark-in-the-streets had something to do with his getting sick. Every part of the petrochemical supply chain puts communities at risk, including the nation’s millions of miles of [pipelines](https://www.environmentalhealthproject.org/post/the-health-and-safety-risks-of-pipelines). In Satartia, Miss., a [pipeline carrying carbon dioxide](https://www.phmsa.dot.gov/sites/phmsa.dot.gov/files/2022-05/Failure%20Investigation%20Report%20-%20Denbury%20Gulf%20Coast%20Pipeline.pdf) used in oil drilling ruptured from heavy rains and floods, [spewing carbon dioxide](https://www.npr.org/2023/05/21/1172679786/carbon-capture-carbon-dioxide-pipeline) for hours. The carbon dioxide displaced oxygen in the air, so car engines stopped running and people could not escape. Dozens [were hospitalized](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gassing-satartia-mississippi-co2-pipeline%5Fn%5F60ddea9fe4b0ddef8b0ddc8f). Acute CO**2** emissions cause heart malfunction and [death by asphyxiation](https://earthjustice.org/article/a-leaking-co2-pipeline-can-cause-suffocation-within-a-minute-the-government-needs-to-regulate-them-fast). Extreme flooding can also submerge Superfund toxic waste dumps. The clay, earth, concrete or sand coverings are no match for the increasingly powerful weather events. At the [San Jacinto Waste Pits](https://insideclimatenews.org/news/24092020/climate-change-epa-superfund-sites-hurricanes-floods-fires-sea-level-rise/), for example, the protective concrete cap was smashed by 16 feet of flood waters, sending astronomical amounts of dioxins into the river. [Nearly 1 in 4 Americans](https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2023-08/FY22%20Population%20Estimates%20Superfund%20Final.pdf) live within three miles of a Superfund site. Zeldin’s plans are a gift to the fossil fuel and petrochemical corporations. For the rest of us, they are an explosive and hostile attack on our children, our families, and our best friends. [TIME Ideas](https://www.time.com/ideas) hosts the world's leading voices, providing commentary on events in news, society, and culture. We welcome outside contributions. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/7337852/epa-rollbacks-regulation-zeldin-cancer/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/7337852/epa-rollbacks-regulation-zeldin-cancer/"},"headline":"I Lost My Friend to Cancer. EPA Rollbacks Make More Losses Inevitable","datePublished":"2025-12-09T11:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-11T00:37:47.832Z","description":"The U.S. averages one chemical spill, fire, or explosion every three days. 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