One week after his presidential victory in 2024, Donald Trump promised that the United States would soon have “the cleanest air and water on the planet.” In the very same sentence, he vowed to deregulate the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and “unleash the power of American business.”

To critical observers, it was always obvious which of these mutually exclusive prospects would win out. It comes as no surprise to us on the Left that the Trump administration has spent the last seven months rolling back regulations protecting streams and wetlands, withdrawing limits on PFAS (or “forever chemicals”) pumped into the water supply by chemical companies, and slashing EPA enforcement budgets. In an effort to appeal to the Trump-aligned Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement, the administration initially promised to crack down on PFAS. Instead, it’s reducing regulatory pressure on manufacturers and water utilities to eliminate them.

The MAHA movement gives quarter to a motley crew of fringe theories, like the conviction that autism is caused by vaccines and/or Wi-Fi. But it also gives voice to entirely legitimate concerns, like the prevalence of dangerous pesticides and toxic chemicals in Americans’ water supply.