February 24, 2026
PRESS RELEASE
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today proposed a rule that would weaken or eliminate key protections and requirements of the Risk Management Program (RMP), endangering families and communities living near chemical plants. The proposal is opposed by a broad coalition of labor, health, and environmental justice organizations.
“Once again, we’re seeing the Trump administration gamble with the health of entire communities, prioritizing the chemical industry’s profits, instead of doing its job to keep families safe from industrial chemical emergencies,” said Emma Cheuse, senior attorney at Earthjustice. “This proposal to end and weaken protections from chemical fires, explosions, releases, and other safety incidents would take away solutions that are needed to help save lives, prevent injuries, and protect families and children from toxic chemical exposure. EPA should do its job to protect communities’ health instead of going backward on safety.”
“The Trump EPA plan to weaken the RMP rule will not just put industrial workers at risk but also fenceline and downwind communities and first responders,” said Jason Walsh, Executive Director of Blue Green Alliance. “Removing and downgrading safety measures established in the 2024 rule will increase the risk of catastrophic chemical accidents that devastate communities and take lives, all for the sake of corporate profits. The proposed action doesn’t make America great or healthy; it makes every chemical worker and every community near a chemical plant less safe.”
“Rolling back requirements for safer technologies, planning for extreme weather events, emergency preparedness, and worker safety protections ignores both the scientific evidence and lessons learned from past disasters,” said Darya Minovi, senior analyst for the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). Additionally, it moves the EPA further away from its responsibility to use the best available science and data to reduce foreseeable harm and protect public health. People deserve confidence that federal policy is working to reduce risks – not increase them.”
“This proposed rule is a direct assault on safety and a political gift to polluters,” said Ana Parras, Executive Director of Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services (T.e.j.a.s) “For fenceline communities and facility workers, this rollback is a declaration that our lives are deemed acceptable sacrifices. By ripping away the requirement for safer technologies, the administration is actively increasing the threat of explosions and toxic releases - preventable disasters that will deepen environmental injustice for generations."
“This administration wants to play ping pong with the already commonsense protections that were finalized in 2024 after decades of input from communities, workers, and industry alike,” said Maya Nye, Federal Policy Director for Coming Clean. “Millions of Americans in harm’s way of chemical disasters are waiting for protections while industry lobbyists once again rewrite the rules. Enough is enough. Communities around these facilities and workers are hurt the most by rollbacks. Playing policy ping-pong is a waste of limited EPA staff time and shrinking taxpayer resources.”
“EPA has the authority and moral obligation to do more, not less, to reduce risk and eliminate the harm from chemical disasters that endanger workers and poison neighboring residents. Instead of going back again and rewriting basic protections for workers and communities, EPA must implement the 2024 provisions and move on to strengthen other overdue or outdated rules required to protect human health and the environment, as is their mission,”said Michele Roberts, National Coordinator of the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform.
“With this proposal, Trump’s EPA is actively endangering people’s lives,” said Lizzy Duncan, Government Affairs Advocate for Healthy Communities for League of Conservation Voters . “They are abandoning over 177 million people who live near and work in facilities using extremely hazardous chemicals by weakening safety protections and accident prevention measures. Removing the Risk Management Program’s requirements for safer technologies and community notifications after a chemical disaster is another giveaway to corporate polluters and chemical industry lobbyists, at the expense of the health and safety of our communities, workers, and first responders. We urge Trump’s EPA to stop prioritizing polluters over people and abandon this reckless proposal that will inevitably lead to more illness and death caused by chemical disasters.”
