At a Glance
- The EPA will no longer assign a dollar value to the health benefits of cutting deadly air pollutants.
- Fossil-fuel pollution already costs every American about $2,500 a year in extra medical bills.
- The change affects future limits on power plants, steel mills, oil refineries, and other major emitters.
- Why it matters: Regulations may now weigh only industry compliance costs, not the billions in avoided hospital visits, illness, and early death.
The Environmental Protection Agency has quietly reversed a decades-old practice: when it writes new rules targeting fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ozone, it will no longer translate avoided heart attacks, asthma attacks, and premature deaths into dollars and cents. Agency officials say past analyses overstated the precision of those figures; critics call the move a green light to weaken air-quality standards that protect millions of Americans.
The New Rule
Under the final rule, EPA regulators must stop monetizing the health gains tied to stricter limits on PM2.5 and ozone. Benefit-cost analyses that once tallied the economic value of fewer emergency-room visits, lost workdays, and early deaths will now leave those line items blank.
An EPA spokesperson told News Of Fort Worth the agency “is still considering the impacts that PM2.5 and ozone have on human health but will not be monetizing the impacts at this time.” The regulatory impact analysis argues that earlier models claimed “a level of precision that could not be supported by the underlying science.”
The spokesperson added that because PM2.5 and ozone levels have fallen since 2000, the “incremental impacts” of additional clean-up are harder to measure, prompting a methodological reset.
Why the Shift Matters
Richard Revesz, faculty director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at NYU School of Law, told the New York Times the decision is “anathema to the very mission of EPA.” The agency’s own mission statement lists its core duty as protecting “human health and the environment.”
By removing the dollar value of cleaner air, future rule-makings will compare only the compliance costs industry faces against unquantified health benefits. Revesz told NPR that without a concrete price tag on avoided illness, regulators can more easily justify looser standards.
Health Toll of the Two Pollutants
Long-term exposure to PM2.5 and ozone has been linked to:
- Heart disease and stroke
- Chronic lung disease
- Premature death
PM2.5 particles are small enough to slip deep into the lungs and enter the bloodstream, triggering widespread inflammation and organ damage. Ozone mostly harms the respiratory system, irritating airways and reducing lung function over time. Short-term spikes can provoke asthma attacks, raise infection risk, and cause wheezing or coughing.
Where the Pollution Comes From
Both pollutants trace back largely to fossil-fuel combustion. PM2.5 can be emitted directly from:
- Power plants
- Factories
- Mining operations
Or it can form in the atmosphere when gases like sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides react. Ozone is not released directly; it emerges when nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds-primarily from motor vehicles, power plants, and industrial boilers-cook in sunlight.
National Trends
EPA tracking data show average PM2.5 and ozone concentrations have trended downward for decades, improvements the agency credits to federal and state rules. Yet the American Lung Association’s 2025 State of the Air report finds ozone progress has reversed in recent years, and dangerous PM2.5 spikes persist in many regions.
At the same time, fossil-fuel-related air pollution costs the U.S. more than $820 billion annually in extra medical spending, according to previous federal estimates-roughly $2,500 for every American.
Broader Deregulatory Pattern
The change is the latest in a string of Trump-era EPA moves that strip away long-standing analytical tools and environmental protections. Over the past year the agency has:
- Moved to rescind the endangerment finding that underpins greenhouse-gas regulation
- Ditched emission limits on power plants
- Undid a Biden-era ban on asbestos linked to cancer
Revesz says halting the monetization of health impacts from PM2.5 and ozone could smooth the path for additional rollbacks. If benefits carry no dollar figure, they risk being left out of the political calculus entirely.
Key Takeaways
- The EPA will keep tracking health effects of PM2.5 and ozone but will no longer assign them an economic value.
- The move could tip future rules toward weaker standards by erasing billions in avoided health costs from the ledger.
- Fossil-fuel pollution already adds an estimated $2,500 a year to each American’s medical bills.
- With ozone progress stalling and PM2.5 spikes lingering, the policy shift arrives as air quality remains a major public-health concern.
