Two Steps Back

by Robert McCarty

August 2, 2025: The Endangerment Protection Agency

Lee Zeldin, Administrator of the EPA since January of 2025, disputes the scientific consensus on climate change. In 2014, he expressed doubts about the severity of climate change¹.

You might intuitively think that the Environmental Protection Agency, as the name implies, should protect the environment. Lee Zeldin, however, has learned to think outside of the box, in that the EPA is planning to repeal the 2009 Endangerment Finding, which determined that pollutants caused by burning fossil fuels endangers humans, and can therefore be regulated under the Clean Air Act. But never fear, what Lee Zeldin lacks in enthusiasm for the EPA’s mission “to protect human health and the environment,” he makes up for with bizarre claims like, “The initial rule made predictions about the science that were not just pessimistic, they turned out not to be true." Critics of the administration's plan argue that the move to repeal the endangerment finding lacks both a scientific basis and a legal foundation and will exacerbate the harmful impacts of climate change.

As if any doubt remained, the Trump Administration has formalized climate denial as the official policy of the United States government. If approved, rescinding the endangerment finding would strike a decisive blow to the EPA's authority to limit deadly greenhouse gas emissions and protect our people and our planet from the very worst of the climate crisis, said Loren Blackford, the Sierra Club's acting executive director.².

Repealing Labor Laws

The U.S. Department of Labor is in the process of rewriting or repealing more than 60 workplace regulations. These include:

Eliminating the minimum wage and overtime pay for home health care workers.
Reversing protections for migrant farm workers from retaliation for filing complaints.
Rescinding a requirement for employers to provide adequate lighting at construction sites.
Limiting the government’s ability to penalize employers if workers are injured or killed while engaging in inherently risky activities³.

Abandoning proposed heat protection that would shield 36 million workers from heat stroke.
Narrowing the general duty clause, which makes employers responsible for keeping workers safe from obvious dangers.
Abandoning a rule to protect miners from dangerous silica exposure⁴.

But don’t worry, Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer painted this travesty over with absurd excuses, The Department of Labor is proud to lead the way by eliminating unnecessary regulations that stifle growth and limit opportunity³.

Donald Trump’s populist policies are famous for protecting American citizens against the Deep State. “The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer,” Donald Trump proclaimed in his victory speech following his first term election in 2016⁵. Perhaps the forgotten men and women of our country would have preferred to keep their labor law protections, since the Trump administration’s Department of Labor is stripping these protections from American workers. So much for standing up for the common people.

Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. -Isaiah 1:17