Why Business shouldn’t cheer EPA gutting

(This commentary first appeared in Callaway Climate Insights, a partner of ClimateCrisis247)

For the past decade, I had the good fortune to be a finals judge for the Gerald Loeb Awards, the highest annual awards in the U.S. for business journalism. Many of the best examples of investigative journalism — and they improved over the years — were stories about how large industrial plants and factories skirted environmental rules to save money, creating deadly pollution nearby that often hit low-income neighborhoods.

Holding big business to account is part of the mission of business journalism, but also of certain government agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency. The gutting of the EPA this week by Administrator Lee Zeldin, celebrated as the “most consequential day of de-regulation in American history,” will go down as one of the most irresponsible and harmful acts of the Trump era.

Given the opportunity to ignore expensive safeguards against pollution, many businesses will simply turn away from their activities, as the health and social ramifications might not be felt for years to come. For decades, bipartisan legislation in Congress such as the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act sought to really make America great again. Now those are wiped away as part of a petty campaign to attack electric vehicles or anything tied to Biden-era climate initiatives.

History will show that deregulating environmental rules won’t lead to a new era of profits for business, or even less expenses up front. If anything, it more clearly exposes them to costly legal proceedings down the line, if not for environmental violations than for something else. Not to mention more journalistic scrutiny.

There was no celebration on Wall Street of the rollbacks, if that’s what the administration was hoping for. Most business leaders are aghast at the chaos and uncertainty that has been caused in the past month. Even a short-term win eluded Zeldin in this dramatic act. The long-term damage will be felt, and reported on, for years to come.

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