“Everybody Pollutes Again:” Thanks to Huizenga and Zeldin We Are Paying More for Dirtier Air and Water
tags
Kalamazoo, Mich. – As Michigan finishes observing PFAS Awareness Week, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin is in West Michigan campaigning today with Representative Bill Huizenga, so Climate Power is setting the record straight on how their policies have hurt Michiganders.
Climate Power Michigan Director Tom Lenard issued the following statement:
“The EPA now stands for ‘Everybody Pollutes Again’ thanks to the Trump administration and Bill Huizenga. They have forced dirty, expensive coal plants to stay open, gutted rules that protected our air and water, and bowed to the oil and gas industry bankrolling their campaigns. We are all paying the price for their disastrous policies with higher costs and increased medical bills.”
Bill Huizenga has:
- Repeatedly voted against funding to prevent PFAS and toxic chemical pollution in water, and against legislation to prevent PFAS discharges into waterways.
- Taken hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign donations throughout his career from the oil and gas industry and utility companies.
- Voted in favor of the Republican budget bill, which repealed clean energy investments and was projected to increase Michiganders’ energy costs by $320 per year, and cause a loss of 4.4 GW of energy generation.
- Supported the Trump administration’s mandate to keep the Campbell coal plant open, despite keeping the plant open costing ratepayers $615,000 each day, and causing nearly $900 million in health-related impacts each year.
Trump and Republicans in Congress, like Bill Huizenga, have increased pollution and hurt public health across Michigan:
- Under Zeldin, Trump’s EPA repealed the endangerment finding, which obligated the federal government to protect communities from harmful air pollution that can cause life-threatening illnesses, including asthma and lung cancer.
- Trump’s EPA weakened limits on toxic “forever chemicals” (PFAS) pollution, allowing more dangerous pollutants into the air and water. PFAS have been linked to a range of health problems, including cancer.
- Coal ash, which is stored in sites at risk of spilling into rivers and lakes, contains chemicals such as arsenic, selenium, lead, mercury, and boron that are known to cause cancer, neurological damage, and heart problems.
- Michigan hosts at least 22 inactive coal ash landfills and legacy ponds at 12 coal plants or landfill sites. The EPA determined that coal ash at most of these sites has contaminated groundwater since at least 2014. Michigan utilities are not required to report unregulated dumps, so the exact number is unknown.
- As of September 2025, coal ash was stored at 18 power plant sites in Michigan. All but one of the Michigan plants that have conducted groundwater monitoring had contamination above federal safe drinking water standards.
- Michigan utilities operate 30 regulated coal ash ponds and landfills containing more than 79 million cubic yards of toxic waste at 15 coal plants. Coal ash at nearly every dumpsite has caused significant groundwater contamination, and only one Michigan plant has established a cleanup plan.
- Michigan is home to three of the top 100 most polluting power plants nationwide, and a 2023 study found that coal-fired power plants caused 23,000 excess deaths in the state from 1999 to 2020.
- In 2025, three Michigan coal power plants, JH Campbell, Belle River, and Monroe, reportedtoxic mercury emissions. From 2024 to 2025, Michigan’s mercury pollution increased by more than 30%.
- In 2025, the J.H. Campbell plant reported the highest level of mercury pollution in the state. The plant was one of the state’s top polluters and was estimated to cause 66 deaths per year. In 2025, the plant reported a 13% increase in mercury pollution from 2024.
- Trump’s EPA reversed more than 40 years of precedent by no longer accounting for the value of health and lives saved when setting standards for toxic air pollution.
###