Waiting to exhale? Trump’s EPA just made it possible.



The Trump administration has rescinded the Obama administration’s 2009 Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding for gases such as carbon dioxide. You may now exhale without worrying that the carbon dioxide in your breath will contribute to global warming.

After all, with 8.3 billion people on the planet exhaling an average of 2.3 pounds of CO2 per person per day, roughly 9.5 million tons of CO2 are respired into the atmosphere daily. That is a lot of hot air — literally.

If you have been holding your breath while waiting for more sensible environmental regulations that focus on both people and the planet, you may now breathe easier.

Fortunately, plants use the air we exhale. It is part of the life cycle that sustains a healthy biosphere. Add the full carbon cycle — in which carbon is sequestered and released throughout the living and nonliving components of the global ecosystem — and a natural balance is generally maintained.

The serious question has been whether human activity, especially the increasing use of fossil fuels since the late 1800s, has tipped that balance.

The major “consensus science” conclusions tied to the endangerment finding include the confident assertion that modern climate change can be attributed to people burning fossil fuels and releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. According to one professional organization, these human-caused changes “are larger and faster than any humanity is known to have endured over the last 10,000 years.” The same view also holds that many harmful impacts already under way will intensify and outweigh any benefits.

Yet another perspective deserves consideration. One of the greatest forces lifting people out of poverty has been the burning of fossil fuels. The progression from coal to oil to natural gas — along with advances in pollution controls — has helped produce dramatically higher living standards in societies that use their energy resources well.

Arguably, the human-caused improvements in comfort, productivity, and longevity made possible by fossil fuels are also “larger and faster than any humanity is known to have [enjoyed] over the last 10,000 years.”

As for harmful impacts, the rhetorical pattern often looks familiar: find an extraordinary weather event and blame it on anthropogenic global warming. Extreme heat? Human activity. Extreme cold — as the United States recently experienced? Human activity again.

At least most scientists acknowledge that positive effects exist. These include substantial increases in global vegetation and the advantages of warmer temperatures over colder ones for human well-being and development.

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Khanchit Khirisutchalual via iStock/Getty Images

Any honest assessment of climate change and its effects on people, infrastructure, and the natural world should weigh both benefits and harms. Complex systems demand that kind of accounting.

The current retraction of the endangerment finding will be a particular breath of fresh air for the auto industry. In essence, the Environmental Protection Agency concluded that it “lacks statutory authority under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act to prescribe standards for [greenhouse gas] emissions” from “new motor vehicles and new motor vehicle engines.”

According to the EPA:

As a result of these changes, engine and vehicle manufacturers no longer have any future obligations for the measurement, control, and reporting of [greenhouse gas] emissions for any highway engine and vehicle, including model years manufactured prior to this final rule. This final action is only related to [greenhouse gas] emissions and does not affect regulations on any traditional air pollutants. Rather, this action realigns EPA’s regulatory framework with the best reading of the CAA, which does not authorize EPA to regulate [greenhouse gas] emissions from new motor vehicles.

As the agency notes, traditional health-based air pollutants such as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, ground-level ozone, particulate matter, lead, and carbon monoxide — not CO2 — are unaffected by this EPA action.

So if you have been holding your breath while waiting for more sensible environmental regulations that focus on both people and the planet, you may now breathe easier.

Editor’s note: A version of this article appeared originally at American Thinker.

Trump EPA To Gut Legal Foundation for Electric Car Mandates

The Trump Environmental Protection Agency will soon repeal Obama-era rules that formed the legal basis for high-profile climate regulations like those targeting gas-powered vehicle emissions and coal plants, agency head Lee Zeldin announced.

The post Trump EPA To Gut Legal Foundation for Electric Car Mandates appeared first on .

The Supreme Court can protect families or protect corporate cover-ups



When you get pregnant, doctors warn you to avoid everything from coffee to deli meat. When you build a home — as a spouse, parent, or homeowner — you make careful choices about what comes through the front door, onto your table, and into your yard.

But what if those precautions don’t matter? What if the food you serve, the lawn your kids play on, or the weeds you spray carry a poison approved through fraud, sold without warnings, and protected from accountability by the Supreme Court?

We ask parents to obsess over lunch meat. We can demand at least as much honesty about what gets sprayed on the yard.

That isn’t paranoia. It’s the situation Americans may soon face.

The Supreme Court last week agreed to hear Monsanto Co. v. Durnell, a case pushed aggressively by Bayer, the German pharmaceutical giant that bought Monsanto in 2018. The justices will decide one narrow but decisive question this term: Does federal pesticide law block state failure-to-warn lawsuits when the Environmental Protection Agency has not required a cancer warning on the label?

Bayer wants the answer to be yes. It wants federal pre-emption — a legal shield that turns an EPA-approved label into immunity. If Bayer wins, state juries could lose the ability to hold companies accountable even when families prove they used a product as directed, got sick, and never received a warning.

That outcome would reward the very behavior the law should punish.

Juries across the country have already heard evidence in Roundup cases and awarded billions to plaintiffs who developed cancer after using the herbicide. Yet Roundup still sells without a cancer warning. Now Bayer wants the Supreme Court to slam the courthouse door on future victims for good.

Consider what that means in human terms.

Pregnant mothers avoid raw fish and unpasteurized cheese to protect their children, yet millions of families unknowingly expose themselves to chemicals linked in research to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and other cancers. A major meta-analysis published in the journal Pediatrics found that children exposed to residential pesticides face significantly higher risks of leukemia and lymphoma. Another peer-reviewed 2019 meta-analysis linked glyphosate-based herbicides to an increased risk of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

We get lectures about sushi, but weed killer gets a pass.

This fight should feel familiar. During COVID, Americans were told to trust emergency approvals as official guidance shifted rapidly. Those who raised concerns often got mocked or sidelined. Only later did many learn the story was more complicated than the public was allowed to hear.

We can’t undo that confusion. We can refuse to repeat it.

The evidence here does not revolve around a single labeling dispute. The deeper allegation is deception. Critics claim Monsanto relied on ghostwritten research and buried evidence to convince regulators glyphosate was safe — and that those approvals then became the foundation for selling Roundup without a cancer warning.

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In late 2025, a key study used for years to defend glyphosate was retracted over serious ethical concerns and undisclosed corporate influence. That retraction matters because it goes to the heart of Bayer’s argument: that the government approved the label, so the company should be protected.

Pre-emption should not become a reward for fraud.

If the Supreme Court sides with Bayer, the fallout will spread far beyond Roundup. The ruling could shield tens of thousands of pesticides from meaningful liability so long as companies point to federal “compliance” — even when compliance was built on manipulated research, regulatory capture, or withheld evidence. Families could lose their best tool for accountability: state courts and state juries.

That isn’t pro-business; it’s regulatory capture. In fact, it’s immunity for wrongdoing.

The court should reject this power-grab. Federal minimum standards should not erase state-level accountability, especially when the federal process can be gamed. Americans deserve warnings when products pose real risks. Families deserve the ability to seek justice when corporations hide dangers and regulators fail to act.

We ask parents to obsess over lunch meat. We can demand at least as much honesty about what gets sprayed on the yard.

The Supreme Court has a choice: protect public health, or protect corporate cover-ups. The country should insist that it choose public health — for our families and for generations yet unborn.

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Time for RFK Jr. to expose the dark truth about the pill



No drug is as sacrosanct in today’s sexually “liberated” culture as oral contraceptives. But the proliferation of the birth control pill since the 1960s has fostered a number of grave consequences for our society: hook-up culture, delayed marriage, and the destruction of the nuclear family.

None of this would surprise Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood. In the early 20th century, she promoted contraception as the mechanism for female emancipation. “Birth control is the first important step a woman must take toward the goal of her freedom,” she wrote. “It is the first step she must take to be man’s equal. It is the first step they must both take toward human emancipation.”

Though the perceived benefits of birth control pills are loudly and publicly celebrated, their costs need to be fully exposed.

Feminist author Betty Friedan agreed, asserting that the pill gave women “the legal and constitutional right to decide whether or not or when to bear children” and established the basis for true equality with men.

Because oral contraception has been touted as a cornerstone of women’s equality and freedom, its health repercussions are rarely called into question. Even Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who regularly wades into controversy by calling for investigations into seed oils and food dyes, remains relatively silent on oral contraceptives.

This is to the detriment of women across the country. As Dr. Sarah Hill demonstrates in “This Is Your Brain on Birth Control: How the Pill Changes Everything,” birth control has had numerous repercussions on women, relationships, and society. She shows that women at the peak of their cycle feel sexier, more outgoing, and more confident with the natural increase in estrogen. And men find them more attractive at that time, too.

More than mere ‘birth control’

As Hill points out, birth control pills do more than just prevent pregnancy: They affect a woman’s hormones more generally — hormones that affect everything from her brain to her fingertips and her overall emotional, mental, and physical health. Many of the women Hill interviewed described feeling emotionally blunted, or as if they were moving through life in a fog, while on the pill.

A woman’s menstrual cycle is often known as the fifth vital sign, and a disruption signals a concern to be addressed, not to be masked.

Birth control is, in fact, “medicated menopause.” While it can be a difficult reality for many to face, studies show that women who no longer menstruate are not as attractive to men, which is why trying to find a mate in the latter years of life can be challenging. The drive to partner up and reproduce is diminished, making marriage less of a necessity and mere companionship more of the goal.

Studies comparing women who use contraception with those who do not reveal that the pill lowers libido, can lead to mood swings or depression, disrupts natural cycles, can cause infertility after discontinuation, interferes with the endocrine system, and can lead to bloating and a gain of nearly five pounds on average. Other studies have found that estrogen-containing pills raise the risk of venous thromboembolism and, to a smaller extent, strokes and heart attacks.

America lags behind

European countries have conducted many tests that demonstrate such effects. A nationwide Danish cohort study of over one million women found higher rates of first antidepressant use and first depression diagnosis among users of contraceptives than nonusers. Another large Danish study found that women who were currently or recently on hormonal contraception were more likely to attempt suicide or die by suicide than women who had never used it.

A Finnish study and a Swedish one produced similar results. A British database shows that the first couple of years of being on the pill brought an increased risk of depression and that women who began using the pill in their teens sometimes had a lasting higher risk.

Few, if any, comprehensive American studies have been conducted, even though about 15% of American women between 15 and 49 use oral contraceptives.

Environmental havoc

Potential problems are not limited to those who ingest the hormones. Synthetic estrogen, an endocrine-disrupting compound used in oral contraceptives, makes its way from America’s toilets to the water supply. Wastewater treatments can reduce, but never fully remove, such psychoactive drugs from drinking water.

U.S. regulators and scientists treat these as “contaminants of emerging concern.” The Environmental Protection Agency and the United States Geological Survey publish methods for measuring the prevalence of such hormones in wastewater and waters used for our drinking supply.

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simarik via iStock/Getty Images

Male fish begin growing female genitals, and fish populations collapse in water containing the synthetic estrogen from birth control, according to some studies. As RFK Jr. has mentioned, boys are “swimming through a soup of toxic chemicals today, and many of those are endocrine disruptors.”

Though some studies show that typical concentrations of synthetic estrogen in drinking water pose negligible risks to women, perhaps the cumulative exposure to endocrine disruptors affects the sexual development of young males.

Long overdue accountability

RFK Jr. promised to “follow the law regarding access to birth control” during his confirmation process. That could include commissioning the National Institutes of Health to conduct “gold standard science” on oral contraception, as he has sworn to do for other food additives and pharmaceuticals, studies that many European countries have already done.

While calling for restrictions on birth control pills would likely cause a frenzy among many, informed consent is a paramount health priority. Though the perceived benefits of birth control pills are loudly and publicly celebrated (women, you too can have sex like a man!), their costs need to be fully exposed if we are going to restore human health and flourishing among both sexes.

Editor’s note: This article was published originally at the American Mind.

California’s superstate creates waste, not solutions



California loves to pretend its problems don’t exist. Power shortages, housing shortages, suffocating regulation, wildfires, polluted waterways, and the nation’s largest homeless population all make the Golden State look less like a paradise and more like a failed state.

Yet, its politicians keep picking fights with Donald Trump while ignoring the rot at home.

Once an issue becomes symbolic in California, solutions no longer matter. Every crisis becomes a stage for politicians to declare themselves protectors of the people.

That’s why Bed Bath & Beyond executive chairman Marcus Lemonis made waves in August. “We will not open retail stores in California,” Lemonis said. “This isn’t about politics — it’s about reality. California’s system makes it nearly impossible for businesses to succeed, and I won’t put our company, our employees, or our customers in that position.”

Unlike the political class, Lemonis acknowledged what business leaders see clearly: The state’s promises don’t match its reality.

California’s theater of waste

Take the Chiquita Canyon Landfill in northwest Los Angeles County. In operation since the early 1970s, it stopped taking trash on Dec. 31, 2024, and formally closed in January. Regulators had blocked expansion a year earlier, citing odor and earthquake risks. Residents and politicians then piled on with lawsuits, claiming health harms and price gouging in new waste contracts.

Now, a federal judge is hinting at a preliminary injunction — against a landfill that’s already closed. The legal circus has little to do with waste management and everything to do with California’s political theater. The real waste that needs to be disposed of is the state’s broken system of governance.

California masks its failures with glossy headlines about “protecting communities” while courts and agencies bankrupt operators with lawsuits. That’s not stewardship. It’s damage control dressed up as virtue.

I’ve worked for decades as an investor with a focus on sustainability. Real stewardship balances safety, markets, and management. When the state cripples businesses caught in its crosshairs, it destroys the very resources needed for remediation. Mining provides a clear example: If regulators bury companies in red tape after they scar mountainsides, no one has the money left to restore the land.

But California prefers to bankrupt operators, create thousands of plaintiffs, and unleash a regulatory swarm. At Chiquita alone, more than 9,000 plaintiffs are attached to multiple lawsuits, and at least 10 agencies — from the EPA to the California Air Resources Board — have swarmed the site. With that many bureaucrats involved, solving problems takes a back seat to turf wars and political maneuvering for credit.

Image over impact

I saw this dynamic firsthand in 2015, when I led takeover attempts of American Apparel, then one of the nation’s largest manufacturers. Regulators in Los Angeles didn’t care about managing waste or energy use. They cared about projecting the right social image. Meanwhile, toxic dyes, chemical runoff, and hazardous waste poured into the basin.

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Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

The pattern repeats. Los Angeles “fixed” diversity in its fire department just before wildfires swept the city. San Francisco “fixed” homelessness just in time for a visit by China’s Xi Jinping. And Gavin Newsom is scrambling to “fix” his reputation by backtracking on Medicaid for illegal immigrants.

Once an issue becomes symbolic in California, solutions no longer matter. Every crisis — from wildfires to homelessness to waste management — becomes a stage for politicians to declare themselves protectors of the people. The real beneficiaries are trial lawyers, regulators, and politicians themselves.

Lemonis is not alone in seeing through the charade. Californians deserve better than endless lawsuits and performative fixes. Until the state values results over theater, it will keep hemorrhaging businesses, people, and trust.

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