Homes in Jefferson County, Texas, still bear the scars of Hurricane Harvey: black and blue tarps cling to rooftops. Families in historically Black neighborhoods navigate a slow, unequal recovery from the 2017 storm, and in 2022, the federal government found that the state discriminated against Black and Hispanic residents when doling out flood mitigation funds.
Yet the hurricane’s relentless rainfall was only a small part of a larger crisis: Between 2010 and 2023, the region’s factories and oil refineries released 364 million tons of climate-warming gases into the air, according to the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program.
Every year, local industries emit a vast plume of gases that is equivalent to the yearly output of more than 6 million cars or keeping the power on in 3 million homes. As each ton accumulates, it traps heat, fueling extreme weather and nudging sea levels higher.
Scientists now trace Harvey’s flooding, in part, to these emissions. Airborne particles of gases from these plants acted as rain cloud “seeds,” supercharging the downpour. The storm had denser, darker clouds, which triggered hours of blinding, flood-causing rainfall that researchers now say was fueled by Southeast Texas’ own pollution, according to a landmark study published in 2020.
Nearly a decade since Harvey, residents are afraid history might be repeated. As Black Texans face compounded harms from polluters and unjust disaster relief, federal rules that require thousands of facilities to report these emissions are suddenly at risk.
On Sept. 13, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed axing the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program. This means that the nation’s more than 8,000 major polluters will no longer have to track their annual emissions of climate-warming gases. Other facilities, like pipelines, would not have to have their emissions tracked until 2034.
The decision, proposed by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin under the direction of President Donald Trump, is intended to reduce costs for these companies. The change, experts argue, would make it less likely for facility operators to install new technology to lower pollution.
The consequences ripple far beyond regulatory red tape, residents and advocates said.
“It’s just another step by the government to give cover to these polluters who are actually hurting, harming, and killing people,” said John Beard Jr., 67, who has lived in Port Arthur, a predominantly Black city in Jefferson County, his whole life.
The U.S. is responsible for about 25% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions since 1750, despite only making up roughly 5% of the population.
Within the country’s borders, Black residents are nearly twice as likely to live in heavily polluted areas compared to white ones. This pattern persists even when controlling for income, and studies confirm that systemic racism and historical housing policies have concentrated environmental hazards in predominantly Black neighborhoods across all geographic regions and urban, suburban, and rural areas.
Rising greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels can fill the air with invisible, cancer-causing pollutants that seep deep into people’s lungs, driving up rates of lung cancer, heart disease, and breathing problems, federal research has confirmed. And now, without this public record, policymakers, scientists, and affected residents say they are at risk of losing the ability to track major polluters, hold companies accountable, and craft new policy solutions.
Historically, U.S. scientists have been the backbone of global greenhouse gas tracking. Monitoring greenhouse gases is a vast data operation that not only warns world leaders about invisible threats in the air, but shapes how every country responds to the climate crisis.
Global efforts to tame climate change, as well as national and local fights for clean air — already an uphill battle in Black neighborhoods and low-income regions — could also be left fumbling in the dark without the data.
“What it means for my home is more destruction in our community, more people who will be struggling to stay afloat and maintain their homes, and more people not being able to live here any longer,” said Beard, who worked at a local oil refinery for 37 years, but is now an environmental activist in his hometown.
At a time when environmental activists say climate data and transparency are essential not just for U.S. leadership but for global cooperation, ending the reporting program could threaten to turn back the clock. Advocates say the end of the program could make it harder to protect people who live near facilities and to push for a safer future as the threat of climate change continues to grow worldwide.
“Eliminating information about pollution will not make the problem of climate change go away; it will only make it more expensive and difficult to deal with,” said Edwin LaMair, an attorney at the Environmental Defense Fund.
“This is a cynical effort to keep the American public in the dark, because if they don’t know who the polluters are, they can’t do anything to hold them responsible,” David Doniger, senior strategist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, added.
As the federal government strips away climate data, it is also cutting FEMA’s recovery and infrastructure spending budget. Beard said this ensures that when the next storm hits places like Port Arthur, families least responsible for the climate crisis will face even greater obstacles to rebuild their lives.
“Quite simply, our government is not doing its job to protect us and to help us,” he said.
In another study, researchers found that every year, more than 90,000 Americans die prematurely due to air pollution. Black Americans are dying at the highest rate, with the largest concentration of poor health found in Texas and Louisiana.
Since Trump took office, another research team discovered higher rates of greenhouse gas pollution across the country has led to an increase in overall global emissions. Trump has sought to end America’s clean energy sector by cutting incentives for new solar, wind, and battery projects, and instructing his administration to halt new renewables facilities, even if they were approved and nearly completed.
The rollback is part of a broader agenda that is outlined in Project 2025, a series of proposals by the administration’s advisers that call for sweeping efforts to weaken federal authority on climate and environmental regulations and disaster recovery. Eight months into Trump’s second term, nearly two-thirds of Project 2025’s environmental policy proposals have been implemented.
Once this EPA proposal is published in the Federal Register, the government will allow public comments for 47 days. After that period, the agency said it will finalize the proposal, likely within the next year, before sending it to Congress.
The post Pollution is Driving Climate Disasters And The Government Plans to Stop Tracking it. appeared first on Capital B News.
