As Trump administration eases EPA regulations, Houston could pay a price
Washington — Since President Trump took office in January, his Environmental Protection Agency has been both slashing and reconsidering dozens of rules designed to fight pollution. The White House is also firing many of the EPA staffers who enforce the rules that remain.
This week, CBS News visited a Houston neighborhood that's near an NRG Energy coal-fired power plant, the largest in Texas.
When CBS News visited the same neighborhood in December, Mr. Trump had just been elected to a second term, promising the energy industry that he would roll back environmental regulations that protect air quality.
"I think of pollution as a silent and invisible killer," Dr. Winston Liaw, chair of the Health Systems and Population Health Sciences Department at the University of Houston, told CBS News.
Liaw treats patients who run a higher risk of lung disease, asthma and heart attacks due to emissions from oil refineries, chemical plants and coal plants in the Houston area.
He explained how the air in Houston can impact human health.
"There are these tiny particles, and they're so small that they bypass a lot of our defenses," Liaw said. "And then they start injuring all sorts of tissue in our body."
A 2018 study from Rice University found that pollution from the NRG plant contributes to 177 premature deaths per year.
In April, the Trump administration gave 68 plants — including the NRG plant in the Rice study — a two-year exemption from complying with federal regulations intended to lower mercury emissions, a powerful toxin that can affect the brain.
CBS News analyzed the Trump administration's exemptions and found that nearly 65% of these plants are located within 3 miles of low-income, minority communities.
"Bottom line is, who's more at risk are poor people," said Ben Jealous, executive director of the Sierra Club, an environmental advocacy group that has led an effort to try and close almost two-thirds of the nation's coal plants.
"When you start increasing production of coal-fired power plants, you're going to kill more people, and you're going to cause more heart attacks, and you're going to cause more asthma attacks," Jealous said.
In a statement provided to CBS News, NRG Energy said its "coal units operate in compliance with the current Mercury Air Toxics Standards (MATS) and will operate in compliance with any future MATS requirements."
In a separate statement, the Trump administration said Biden-era coal plant regulations "stacked burdensome regulations on top of the longstanding Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, raising the risk of coal-fired plants shutting down – which would eliminate thousands of jobs, strain our electrical grid, and undermine our national security by leaving America vulnerable to electricity shortages."
Jealous argues that coal is not a more reliable energy source than renewable energies.
"The argument that coal gives you more reliable energy isn't valid," Jealous said. "Solar, wind and batteries gives you the most reliable, the most resilient grid."
More importantly, he said, for the people of Houston and across the country, renewable energy means less pollution.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CBS News
11 minutes ago
- CBS News
ICE arrests under Trump top 100,000 as officials expand aggressive efforts to detain migrants
Arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement during President Trump's second term topped 100,000 this week, as federal agents intensified efforts to detain unauthorized immigrants in courthouses, worksites and communities across the U.S., internal government data obtained by CBS News shows. On Tuesday and Wednesday, ICE recorded more than 2,000 arrests each day, a dramatic increase from the daily average of 660 arrests reported by the agency during Mr. Trump's first 100 days back at the White House, the federal statistics show. During President Biden last year in office, ICE averaged roughly 300 daily arrests, according to agency data. The latest numbers show ICE is getting closer to meeting the far-reaching demands of top administration officials like White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, an immigration hardliner who has forcefully pushed the agency to conduct "a minimum" of 3,000 arrests each day. On Wednesday morning, ICE was holding around 54,000 immigrant detainees in detention facilities across the country, according to the data. The Trump administration is asking Congress to give ICE billions of dollars in extra funds to hire thousands of additional deportation officers and expand detention capacity to hold 100,000 individuals at any given point. Officials are also looking at converting facilities inside military bases into immigration detention centers. The marked increase in ICE arrests across the country — especially in major Democratic-led cities that do not cooperate with federal immigration officials — comes after the Trump administration replaced two of the agency's top leaders amid internal frustrations that arrests numbers were not high enough. CBS News reached out to the representatives for ICE and the Department of Homeland Security for comment. Trump administration officials have framed the aggressive expansion of immigration operations as necessary to fulfill the president's signature campaign promises of cracking down on illegal immigration, expelling immigrants with criminal histories and overseeing the largest mass deportation effort in U.S. history. But to boost arrest numbers, ICE has resorted to more aggressive — and controversial — tactics that have triggered outrage and even confrontations in some communities. Those efforts include arrests of migrants and asylum-seekers showing up to court hearings or check-in appointments that the government instructed them to attend. Immigration lawyers have strongly denounced those arrests, saying they deter migrants from complying with the legal process. Immigration roundups at some worksites have also been reported recently. Videos of some ICE arrests have depicted sobbing women and children being escorted into vehicles outside of immigration courts. Footage has also captured community members confronting federal agents — some of them masked — as they take migrants into custody. One video showed construction workers suspected of being in the U.S. illegally lined up after an ICE-led operation on their worksite in Florida. And while ICE has been arresting many immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally and also have criminal records, the agency is simultaneously detaining non-criminal migrants living in the U.S. without proper documents — including longstanding residents — amid the Trump administration's pressure to increase arrest levels. Among them is Marcelo Gomes, an 18-year-old Brazilian-born high school student in Milford, Massachusetts, who was arrested by ICE last week on his way to volleyball practice. While ICE has acknowledged that agents were looking for his father when they arrested Gomes, it has kept the teenager in detention, saying he's in the U.S. illegally. Gomes' lawyer said her client initially lived in the U.S. on a temporary visa that had since lapsed. Before Mr. Trump took office, someone like Gomes would likely not have been arrested by ICE, given his age, his lack of any criminal record and the fact that he came to the U.S. as a child over a decade ago. But the Trump administration has reversed Biden-era restrictions on ICE operations that directed the agency to largely focus on detaining serious criminals, recent arrivals and national security threats, like suspected terrorists. While ICE employees have spearheaded Mr. Trump's immigration crackdown, the agency is receiving support from other federal agencies as part of an unprecedented effort by the administration to muster manpower and resources from across the government for immigration enforcement. The federal agencies now helping ICE arrest unauthorized immigrants include Customs and Border Protection; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Drug Enforcement Administration; the Federal Bureau of Investigation; and the Internal Revenue Service. The Trump administration has also enlisted local and state law enforcement officials in friendly jurisdictions like Florida to support ICE operations.
CNN
11 minutes ago
- CNN
DHS halts ‘Quiet Skies' program following Republican claims it was used against political opponents
A program designed to flag travelers for potential extra screening and monitoring at airports and on airplanes will be discontinued, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced Thursday. The program recently came under attack from Republicans after it was revealed that prior to her appointment to lead the US Intelligence Community, Tulsi Gabbard was temporarily placed on the 'Quiet Skies' list – a process that can occur because of a number of different factors, including travel patterns. Being on the list does not mean an individual is suspected or accused of wrongdoing. Quiet Skies has long been the source of negative publicity for TSA, according to a former US official. But officials have seen it as valuable because it allows the agency to order extra security checks for certain people based on specific intelligence. 'It is clear that the Quiet Skies program was used as a political rolodex of the Biden Administration — weaponized against its political foes and exploited to benefit their well-heeled friends,' Noem said in her statement announcing the program's end. 'I am calling for a Congressional investigation to unearth further corruption at the expense of the American people and the undermining of US national security.' As CNN previously reported, Gabbard was quickly removed from the list after going public last year with claims she had been added to a 'secret terror watchlist' – saying she was placed on the list for criticizing then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris. US officials told CNN that to have a nominee for a top position — much less the director of national intelligence — placed on a government watchlist of any kind was highly unusual, if not unprecedented. It remains unclear why Gabbard was placed on the list and subsequently removed. The Quiet Skies algorithm looks at travel patterns, foreign connections and other data in a variety of government holdings, and if triggered, leads to additional security screening at the airport by Air Marshals. But it is not associated with the FBI's terrorist watch list. Security officials from multiple agencies previously told CNN that the program is known inside the government for having far laxer standards for inclusion. The program was only one part of airport security and other screening lists still exist inside of the department. In a press release Thursday, DHS said the program 'was used to target political opponents and benefit political allies.' 'TSA will continue performing important vetting functions tied to legitimate commercial aviation security threats to both ensure the safety of the American traveler and uphold its statutory obligations,' the department said.
Bloomberg
12 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
Senate to Keep Spectrum Sales in Tax Bill, Key Republican Says
A key Republican said senators have reached an agreement to reauthorize spectrum sales to internet companies that would generate billions of dollars in revenue toward funding US President Donald Trump's sweeping tax cuts and spending bill. Spectrum sales were included in the House version of the reconciliation package but the provision had drawn objections from South Dakota Republican Senator Mike Rounds, who previously said they risked undermining the US military's communications capabilities.
