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Project 2025 Would Make It Easier for Big Corporations To Dump Dangerous Toxins That Poison Americans [1]

['Jill Rosenthal', 'Marquisha Johns', 'Jasia Smith', 'Associate Director', 'Media Relations', 'Director', 'Federal Affairs']

Date: 2024-08

This article is part of a series from the Center for American Progress exposing how the sweeping Project 2025 policy agenda would harm all Americans. This new authoritarian playbook, published by The Heritage Foundation, would destroy the 250-year-old system of checks and balances upon which U.S. democracy has relied and give far-right politicians, judges, and corporations more control over Americans’ lives.

Nine years ago, Deanna Branch’s younger son, Aidan, was poisoned by lead. He was exposed through lead service lines that provided water for the family’s home in Milwaukee. Aidan was hospitalized twice and will face lifelong health consequences. State Rep. Wendy E. N Thomas (D) lives in Merrimack, New Hampshire, 3 miles from a manufacturing plant that released toxic PFAS chemicals into her community. In 2022, Rep. Thomas was diagnosed with breast cancer. She has since undergone a double mastectomy and has plans to remove her ovaries and fallopian tubes.*

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These stories are only two examples of the millions of American families who have experienced harm from environmental toxins in the water they drink and the air they breathe. Yet far-right extremists want to make it easier for corporations to poison people. The Project 2025 playbook proposes replacing tens of thousands of career civil servants, such as scientists at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), with far-right, nonexpert loyalists to usher in a radical agenda that would make it easier for big corporations to dump dangerous toxins into the U.S. water supply and air. This would place corporate profits over the health of the American people and the environment: An April 2024 joint staff report by the Democratic staff of both the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability and the Senate Budget Committee sheds light on how fossil fuel companies have attempted to undermine efforts to curb pollution while they earn record-breaking profits. These far-right loyalists would seek to erode the fundamental freedom of every American to breathe clean air and drink safe water and, in so doing, would significantly increase the number of Americans suffering from asthma, cancer, heart disease, reproductive health harms, child development delays, and other health conditions.

Watch the video

I am terrified that we will all be exposed to lead again. Deanna Branch, mother of a child poisoned by lead in drinking water, Milwaukee

Read Rep. Thomas’ story State Rep. Wendy E. N Thomas, who lives near a manufacturing plant that released toxic PFAS chemicals, shared her story with the authors. Below are some quotes from the phone conversation. “PFAS levels were so high that we had to shut our [private] well down. And that is our only source of water. So we had to put in a filtration and reverse osmosis system. The cost for that is about $500 a year to maintain. We have also switched to bottled water, which we’ve been drinking for the past three years. But we initially forgot to give our dogs the bottled water. So we’ve had four little dogs die of cancer within the past six years.” “Our community is riddled with cancer. Three people in my neighborhood have died from colon cancer in recent years. It seems like every other weekend there’s a fundraiser for someone with cancer.” “I went to the doctor, and I was diagnosed with breast cancer. When I got the diagnosis, a group in town encouraged me to get a blood test for PFAS levels. It turns out that I have 12 PFAS chemicals in my blood. The PFOS [perfluorooctane sulfonate] total in my bloodstream is 38 times the value that is allowed for humans. And my PFOA [perfluorooctanoic acid] total chemicals are higher than 99 percent of Americans. Those chemicals are associated with ovarian cancer, so I became concerned that ovarian cancer could also be a risk for me.” “It doesn’t matter whether you’re red or blue—anyone can get sick from PFAS.”

The Biden-Harris administration has made important progress toward creating a reality in which Americans have clean air, clean drinking water, and healthy communities—including the EPA’s recent rulemaking on lead, PFAS, soot pollution, and other toxins. Project 2025 would reverse that progress, with Americans’ health paying the price.

If Project 2025 were implemented… 9.2 million homes would not have lead service lines replaced. The White House Source Up to 105 million people would not benefit from lower levels of PFAS in their drinking water. EPA Source 90.7 million people would live in counties that won’t be required to lower soot pollution to meet the EPA’s new limit. American Lung Association Source

$37 billion in annual health benefits would be lost per year due to failure to replace all LSLs ($4,000 per LSL). Natural Resources Defense Council Source Nearly $1.5 billion in annual health benefits would be lost due to failure to reduce PFAS levels to meet the EPA’s new drinking water regulation. EPA Source $46 billion in net health benefits would be lost by 2032 due to failure to meet the EPA’s new soot limit. EPA Source

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[1] Url: https://www.americanprogress.org/article/project-2025-would-make-it-easier-for-big-corporations-to-dump-dangerous-toxins-that-poison-americans/

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