EPA says it can’t regulate greenhouse gases — NRDC, Earth Justice and 24 Democratic-majority states beg to differ
Published
March 25, 2026 6:30AM (EDT)
(Photo illustration by Salon / Getty Images / eric1513 / Saul Loeb)
Last year, 7 million people around the world, 600,00 of them children, died from a slow-moving, silent and largely invisible killer: air pollution. In the U.S. alone, that number was 135,000 people, roughly the population of Dayton, Ohio. Poor air quality also accrues an economic cost of about $800 billion each year. And of course pollutants get trapped in the atmosphere, causing global heating and climate change that threatens to upend all life on the planet. Critics are now warning that deregulation at the federal level threatens to make this issue even worse.
