The Trump Administration’s Pro-Cancer Agenda

Over the nearly two years of President Donald Trump’s second term, his administration has taken more than 500 actions that harm public health or the environment. When faced with this onslaught of harm, it can be difficult to see the strategic agenda at play. However, NRDC’s new analysis reveals that the Trump administration is executing a sweeping and long planned—but quiet—government-wide campaign to dismember major programs that are intended to prevent exposure to cancer-causing toxics and radiation. In sum, this administration has reversed course: America’s government is no longer fighting a “War on Cancer” but fighting a “War to Promote Cancer.”

These actions include:

• Dismantling protections against carcinogenic PFAS “forever chemicals”
• Rolling back radiation safeguards for nuclear plants and nearby communities
• Expanding production of the weed killer Roundup and supporting immunity from liability for its manufacturers, despite substantial evidence that the active ingredient glyphosate is a probable human carcinogen
• Giving producers of carcinogenic ethylene oxide and numerous other carcinogens a free pass to keep polluting
• “Revisiting” standards that would finally phase out asbestos use

This is not an accident. Much of this campaign can be found throughout the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 blueprint and has long been advocated for by industry. But a healthy life should not be treated as an obstacle to somebody else’s profit margin. The freedom to breathe clean air, drink safe water, eat safe food, work without needless exposure to carcinogens, and raise children without avoidable toxic risks should be among the most basic expectations of life in America. Americans should not have to wonder whether the water coming from their taps contains cancer-causing chemicals, whether the air they breathe carries toxic pollution from a nearby industrial facility, or whether going to work means being unnecessarily exposed to carcinogens.

Instead of ensuring these basic freedoms, the Trump administration is creating a system in which polluters are given greater leeway to expose everyone in the nation to cancer-causing toxics and radiation.