The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is set to roll back a series of landmark environmental and clean air regulations. The agency is targeting more than two dozen policies. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin says the moves are in line with President Trump’s promise to lower the cost of living for Americans. These likely federal cuts could impact New York state’s budget, forcing lawmakers to return for a special session later this summer to reallocate funding to fill the gap. And it could threaten current state regulations on clean water and energy. WAMC's Samantha Simmons spoke with Rob Hayes, Senior Director of Clean Water for Environmental Advocates NY, for an update on federal and state policies impacting the environment.
A new Executive Order from President Donald Trump launches the possibility that the Department of Justice will go to court against state laws aimed at slashing planet warming, greenhouse gas pollution from fossil fuels. It coincides with climate Superfund legislation gaining traction in states like New York and Vermont, and Trump has declared a national emergency and says his attorney general should take action against states targeting climate change in New York, leaders say the climate Superfund program is crucial. Can you talk more about this and what it could mean if states are brought to court over this?
So, this was incredibly disappointing to see from the president, but is par for the course with his anti-environmental agenda, President Trump is trying to keep us locked in a state where we are continually exposed to dirty and polluting fossil fuels that only harm our health and ultimately, our economy. New York should continue moving forward to a clean energy fossil fuel free future. We should not back down in the face of the President's attacks on our state, because we know we're in the right here, the transition to clean energy is going to create 1000s of good, paying union jobs. It's going to clean up our air and it's ultimately going to make New Yorkers healthy. So ultimately, you know how this all plays out legally, remains to be seen, but New York should feel confident that the laws that it's putting in place, like climate super fund, will stand up in court because they have been vetted, and they will help hold the oil and gas industry accountable.
And this isn't the only environmental legislation that the federal court is kind of looking to strip away. So, the EPA was going to make a decision this week on PFAs legislation. They pushed back on that and are asking for a month more to decide on that.
There are a lot of threats right now from the federal government on the issue of these toxic PFAs chemicals that have polluted so much drinking water across New York. The EPA is deciding right now whether or not to roll back really critical PFAs drinking water standards that were finalized last year. These drinking water standards will clean up New Yorkers drinking water that are exposed to dangerous levels of PFAs contamination. But the chemical industry is pushing hard to eliminate these standards, and the Trump administration looks like they might do their bidding in this case. So right now, the EPA is still deciding what to do, we are pushing them to stand up for public health and stand up for New Yorkers drinking water. But ultimately, if the Trump administration abandons these protections, we're going to need Governor [Kathy] Hochul and the State Department of Health to step up and continue cleaning up PFAs in drinking water, continue to move forward with EPA PFAs standards, because we can't backtrack on drinking water protections.
Last week, Hoosick Falls turned on the tap for a new water source after decades of PFAs and PFOA contamination, and they've kind of paved the way for the state's Department of Environmental Conservation to dig into PFAs. But what does this mean for other communities still facing PFAs like Petersburg, Poestenkill, and Newburgh?
There is a lot of remediation still to be done across the state to clean up PFAs chemicals. You know, there's a reason that PFAs are known as forever chemicals. They don't break down in the environment. They could be present 1000 years down the line, unless we take action to remediate our environment. There's a lot more that the state can be doing on this topic. One of the actual pieces that the governor and the legislature could advance in this budget cycle is new funding and new policies to eliminate PFAs chemicals in private wells in many of these communities where there has been contamination of the environment, you also see that seeping into private drinking water wells in the surrounding area. Many of these well owners might have no idea that there's PFAs in their drinking water and that they're being put at risk when they turn on the tap. The governor and the legislature should absolutely include new funding and policies to eliminate PFAs in private wells in the budget, because that will go a long way to addressing a big, big problem across the state.
Your organization is also looking for the state to develop some sort of network that would notify people when PFAs was found in their system. What are you hoping that that would look like on a state level, if they found a way to implement that?
There are a lot of PFAs chemicals showing up in New Yorkers drinking water, only a couple of which are formally regulated right now, even though we know that as a class of chemicals, many, many of these chemicals have been tied and linked to harmful health effects. The State Department of Health was two years ago, supposed to release new regulations requiring water utilities to directly inform New Yorkers about the scale and extent of PFAs contamination in their drinking water. We are still waiting for those regulations. Doh is missing their statutory deadline to do so. New Yorkers can't wait any longer to know what's in their drinking water. We need doh to publish those regulations immediately.
New York currently doesn't follow the federal government's maximum contaminant levels for PFAs, which you say would be more productive than the current state law. What do you expect to happen when the EPA likely changes some standards under the Trump administration?
Yeah, this goes back to those federal PFAs drinking water standards we were talking about earlier, and you're right. The standards that EPA finalized last year nationwide are stronger and more health protective than we have right now. In New York, right now we have maximum contaminant levels of 10 parts per trillion for P F O, A and P F O S. The Federal Government finalized limits at four parts per trillion. Right now, there are a lot of New Yorkers with between four and 10 parts per trillion of P F O, A and P F O S in their drinking water that aren't having their drinking water cleaned up. Right now, filtration is not being installed, a new water source isn't being found. If we lose those standards at the federal government, those New Yorkers might remain exposed to dangerous levels of PFAs. That's why it's so important that Governor Hochul and the Department of Health, the moment that EPA tries to roll back these standards, publicly commits to continue moving forward with them here in New York.
The state budget, which is over a week late, is still being negotiated with federal cuts expected, and state legislators not fully taking that into account right now. They might be back for a special session later. What do you expect to see if cuts are made? Do you think money will be moved around to cover climate and environmental legislation, or do you think that funding will be stripped from those initiatives?
There are a lot of unknowns right now, but certainly it seems like the Congress is dead set on slashing funding for really critical programs, including for the environment right now. You know, we're fighting for environmental funding in the state budget. Let's take clean water funding, for example, the governor has proposed $500 million to help fix our aging and failing water infrastructure. The state legislature is working to try and increase that to $600 million, and that's what we are pushing to be included in the final budget. But if the federal government cuts so much of New York's funding that could put every single program in the state budget at risk of cuts down the line. What we are trying to communicate is that investments in clean water and investments in our environment are absolutely essential to protect New Yorkers health, to create jobs, to help keep the state affordable. As we're thinking about, how do we continue making the investments in our state to keep ourselves competitive and on the right track, the environment should not be on the chopping block when we're having to make difficult decisions.
Is there anything else happening in your world that's important for our listeners to know?
Another issue that we're very involved in is around lead pipes and lead in drinking water contamination, which is a huge issue across the state of New York. There's an estimated 500,000 lead pipes contaminating our drinking water every day here, we've actually are very excited that new legislation has just been introduced at the state level by Senator Rivera called the lead pipe replacement act, that would codify the mandate to achieve 100% lead pipe replacement by 2037 in case that is rolled back at the federal level, as well as working to create a gold Standard replacement program here in New York, where no New Yorker will be on the hook to pay $5,000 or $10,000 to dig their pipe out of the ground, and that we're prioritizing the communities most vulnerable to lead exposure, like disadvantaged communities, like schools, homes with elevated blood lead levels. So, we're very excited about this new legislation. Are hoping this will make it through the legislature, because there's a lot more work to do to get the lead out here in New York.
Why do you think the state legislature, why do you think sometimes lead bills don't make it through?
I think oftentimes on the issue of lead pipes and lead in drinking water, there's too much focus on kind of the short-term investments needed to do this work, there's going to be a lot of money needed to get these lead pipes out of the ground, and we should absolutely be investing to make sure that water utilities have the resources they need to get these pipes out of the ground. But at the end of the day, the benefits to public health and our economy from removing lead service lines vastly exceeds that initial investment that we need to make to remove lead service lines. The US EPA estimates that it could be 13 times greater benefits than costs of getting the lead out of drinking water. That should be what's on top of folks' minds as they're thinking about what policies do we need to advance to protect kids from lead exposure?
Rob Hayes is the Senior Director of Clean Water at Environmental Advocates NY.