Trump is Giving Corporate Polluters Another Blank Check to Pollute While Iowans Pay the Price With Their Health

IOWA – After taking the most pro-pollution action in modern history when he repealed the endangerment finding, Trump is reportedly going even further today by allowing coal and gas plants to pump unlimited carbon pollution into our air. With this rollback, Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is handing a favor to corporate polluters while Iowans pay the price with higher medical bills and more trips to the hospital. 

Trump’s actions to gut pollution protections — rubberstamped by Republicans in Congress — are making Iowans sicker at the same time they have increased health care costs and paved the way for massive profits for their oil and gas donors. On top of that, his effort to prop up dirty, expensive coal power could actually raise energy costs at a time when Iowa families are already struggling to keep the lights on.

Former Senior Advisor to the EPA Administrator Zealan Hoover issued the following statement: “By eliminating the power plant pollution standards, Trump is choosing to allow preventable asthma attacks, heart disease, and even deaths. With more coal and gas being burned to power data centers, the impacts of this rollback will hit particularly hard in Iowa, where developers are racing to take advantage of this pro-polluter EPA. Instead of ‘Making America Healthy Again,’ Trump is telling the biggest fossil fuel companies that they can make Americans sicker just to add to their bottom lines.”

Trump and Republicans in Congress have increased pollution and hurt public health across Iowa:

• Trump’s EPA repealed the endangerment finding, which obligated the federal government to protect communities from harmful air pollution that can cause life-threatening illnesses,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. 
• A 2026 analysis found that Iowa’s high pesticide and fertilizer use, combined with PFAS contamination in drinking water, contributed to Iowa’s rising cancer rate, the second highest in the nation.
• Three out of Iowa’s four congressional districts are polluted with PFAS concentrations above the federal thresholds, exposing at least 340,000 Iowans to toxic chemicals linked to health impacts, 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. 
• As of September 2025, coal ash was stored at 19 power plant sites in Iowa. All 13 power plant sites with data available had groundwater contamination that exceeds federal safe drinking water standards. 
• In 2025, seven Iowa coal power plants- the George Neal North, George Neal South, Louisa, Muscatine, Ottumwa, Prairie Creek, and Walter Scott Jr. Energy Center- reported toxic mercury emissions. 
• 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.

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