San Francisco – Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued this statement on the Trump Administration’s final rule seriously weakening public health protections that limit the release of mercury and other toxic metals from oil and coal-fired plants:

“While tens of thousands of Americans are dying from the coronavirus pandemic, the President is yet again seeking to unleash toxic pollution and dirty air into our communities. Even President Trump’s own EPA has admitted that this rule threatens to cause serious health problems including brain damage and death and to inflict billions of dollars of economic damage on our struggling economy.

“The President’s senseless, special interest decision is another galling example of his disdain for science and for the health of the American people. It comes just weeks after the President slashed car pollution standards and refused to strengthen protections against lung-damaging industrial soot emissions – and after studies have shown a clear link between pollution and higher coronavirus death rates.

“Americans are facing a public health and economic crisis of staggering and historic proportions, and they need smart, science-based leadership, not more frantic handouts to dirty corporate polluters.”