The roughly 46,000 residents of Channelview, an unincorporated community outside Houston, will feel the effects firsthand.

This article was originally published by Public Health Watch, a nonprofit investigative news organization. Find out more at publichealthwatch.org.

In the first five months of his second term, President Donald Trump changed federal environmental regulations — and the agencies that enforce them — in ways that will directly affect Texans who live near oil refineries and petrochemical facilities.

The roughly 46,000 residents of Channelview, an unincorporated community outside Houston, will feel the effects firsthand.

Over the course of just three decades, the majority-Latino community — which Public Health Watch recently profiled on our investigative podcast, Fumed — has been transformed from a cluster of quiet, riverside neighborhoods to an environmental justice community plagued by toxic chemicals, including high levels of benzene, which causes leukemia. Channelview neighborhoods are in the 99th percentile nationwide for cancer risk from petrochemical facilities, according to a map created by the Environmental Defense Fund based on U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and census data.

Many of the Trump administration’s actions eliminate policies created under former President Joe Biden. Others are part of a political ping pong match between Trump and the Biden and Obama administrations, with regulations strengthened or weakened depending on the party in power. Polluted communities in Texas, Louisiana and other industry-friendly states are at particular risk when federal regulations are relaxed, because the EPA is often their last hope for relief.

Below are seven federal policy changes that will impact Channelview and other highly industrialized communities.

1. Cutting weather scientists and increasing forecasting errors

The Trump administration has cut more than 20% of staff at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which includes the National Weather Service. The administration’s proposed 2026 budget would slash NOAA’s funding by about 25%.

Accurate weather forecasting is critically important to Channelview and the nearby Houston Ship Channel, one of the biggest petrochemical hubs in the world. Texas is the second most hurricane-prone state after Florida, and Channelview is especially vulnerable to the flooding that typically accompanies major storms. According to archived EPA data, 92 percent of the properties in the River Bottom, a swampy riverside neighborhood in Channelview, are at risk of flooding.

A recent study found that in the future Texas will have the nation’s highest increase in property losses from hurricane-force winds. In the 2050s, wind speeds there are expected to be 14 percent higher than they are today.

With fewer NOAA staff available to gather data and release weather balloons, forecasts will be less precise, according to Houston meteorologist Matt Lanza. That means officials will have to issue evacuation warnings for larger areas than needed.

Evacuations are expensive — and sometimes deadly.

In 2015, the evacuation for Hurricane Rita caused a 20-hour traffic jam in Houston. More than 100 people died during the rush, including two dozen nursing home evacuees whose bus caught fire. Dozens more suffered from heat stroke, and irritable drivers fought on the highway.

Imprecise warnings can also lead to more pollution. Petrochemical facilities thought to be in a storm’s path — correctly or not — may have to shut down. Not only do shut-downs and start-ups cost businesses money, but they also release bursts of pollution into nearby communities.

“These are relatively small cuts that we’re making in terms of budget and the problem is they have such an outsized impact on what can happen,” Lanza said. “You have to think of it as return on investment. And the National Weather Service is one of the best returns on investment you have in government.”

2. Weakening the fine particles standard

The Biden EPA tightened regulations for the fine airborne particles that come from cars, chemical facilities and other sources, something scientists had been urging for years. According to the World Health Organization there’s no safe exposure to fine particles, which are linked to breast and lung cancer, heart disease and other health conditions.

The Trump administration announced in March that it’s going to “increase flexibility” for the implementation of the Biden standard. The EPA did not respond when Public Health Watch asked what that means.

Residents of 10 Texas counties, including Harris County, where Channelview is located, would breathe cleaner air under the Biden rules. A 2023 Public Health Watch analysis estimated that 8,405 Texans died in 2016 (the latest data available) from exposure to fine particles. Harris County had the most deaths: 1,372, or 31 people per 100,000.

3. Ending environmental justice efforts

In the first hours of Trump’s second presidency, he repealed a Biden administration program that required some companies receiving federal funds to invest in environmental justice communities. Then, in March, the EPA announced it was ending all its remaining environmental justice efforts.

That included removing “EJScreen,” an online tool that provided data on dozens of health risks and environmental hazards and helped identify communities with vulnerable populations and high levels of pollution. It showed that Channelview is in the top 1 percent for toxic chemical pollution in the country.

A coalition of organizations and researchers has archived the EJScreen data and is searching for ways to keep it updated.

The Trump Administration also shuttered its Washington, D.C., environmental justice headquarters and the 10 regional offices that led programs and distributed grants for communities disproportionately affected by pollution. The office was created by President George H.W. Bush in 1992 as the Office of Environmental Equity.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said the agency can find other ways to do this type of work, without “improperly implementing so-called ‘environmental justice.'”

But Jennifer Hadayia, executive director of the environmental nonprofit Air Alliance Houston, said making these cuts in “an era of mass deregulation” creates a perfect storm for increased pollution and worsening health risks.

“It’s a leg-up to the polluters,” Hadayia said. “It’s a double-whammy on the communities that are going to bear the burden of that pollution the most.”

4. Delaying — and possibly eliminating — regulations for big polluters

The Trump administration has taken aim at Biden’s effort to cut emissions of hazardous air pollutants from 218 petrochemical facilities. Two of those facilities are in Channelview and a dozen more border the community to the east and south, according to a map created by the Environmental Integrity Project and Environmental Defense Fund.

The two Channelview facilities are part of a 4,000-acre complex owned by LyondellBasell, one of the world’s largest chemical corporations. In 2020, the most recent year for which data is available, the map shows they emitted a combined 770,000 pounds of hazardous chemicals, including ethylene oxide, which can cause lymphoma, leukemia and other cancers. The Biden administration estimated that its new regulations, known as the HON rule, would cut 80% of U.S. emissions of ethylene oxide. According to the Environmental Defense Fund, LyondellBasell’s ethylene oxide emissions are responsible for 58% of the cancer risk from petrochemical pollution in nearby neighborhoods.

Most of the Biden requirements were scheduled to go into effect in 2026, but the Trump administration invited companies to request two-year exemptions while it reconsiders the rule. Two industry trade groups want the president to exempt all companies that would be affected by the HON rule. The White House did not respond to questions on the status of those exemptions.

“It’s not like protections are being taken away from you, but…finally the federal government had said, ‘this is unacceptable,'” said Sarah Vogel, a senior vice president at the Environmental Defense Fund. “[Now] they’re just going to allow it to continue.”

5. Reversing Biden’s policy on seven toxic air pollutants

In May, Congress overturned a Biden administration rule that limited pollution of seven toxic chemicals, including lead and mercury, both of which attack the nervous system.

The law, which Trump signed this month, marks the first time Congress has weakened protections in the 50-year history of the Clean Air Act.

Here’s some background:

In 1995, the EPA required any facility that it considered a “major source” of pollution to install technology that limited the emissions of 187 chemicals. Facilities had to maintain these controls even if their emissions decreased to the level where they were no longer considered a “major source.”

The first Trump administration removed that stipulation in 2020 and allowed reclassified facilities to remove those pollution controls. The Biden administration closed that loophole, but only for emissions of seven of the most toxic air pollutants. Health effects linked to these chemicals include cancer, damage to the nervous system, and reproductive and developmental problems.

6. Re-evaluating safety requirements to prevent chemical accidents

The Trump administration has said it’s “reconsidering” rules created during Obama’s second term that strengthened safety protections for facilities that handle extremely explosive and toxic chemicals. Some of the most critical requirements include third-party audits of safety equipment and independent investigations into the cause of accidents.

The first Trump administration overturned these additions to the EPA’s Risk Management Plan rule. But Biden restored them and added new conditions, including requiring companies to install warning systems that alert nearby communities of accidental chemical releases and to allow employees to weigh in on accident prevention plans.

Some of the Biden rules went into effect last year. But several — including the accident-cause analysis — won’t go into effect until 2027 or later. The EPA told Public Health Watch it plans to open a public comment period to start revising the rule.

The regulations would have improved safety measures at dozens of facilities in Harris County. A fire at one of those facilities, Intercontinental Terminals Company, rained ash on Channelview and left cancer-causing benzene hovering in the air for weeks in 2019. The company wasn’t required to have a safety plan or automated detection equipment for the chemical storage tank where the fire began, according to a report from the federal Chemical Safety Board.

7. Withdrawing Grants

The Trump administration has cancelled $73 million in federal funds that Texas nonprofits and local governments were supposed to receive from the Inflation Reduction Act. The grants supported climate-resilient infrastructure, such as solar panels, as well as other programs benefiting environmental justice communities.

Among the losses was a $3 million Air Alliance Houston grant that would have expanded a program that notifies Harris County residents when nearby petrochemical companies apply for new permits or permit renewals. The funding would have extended the program to Corpus Christi and other communities along the Gulf Coast.

Although Hadayia is disappointed by the Trump administration’s pullback from environmental justice work, she remains hopeful.

“I don’t have a very clear crystal ball, but I know there will come a time where there will be different priorities in the federal government,” she said. “Pollution doesn’t know a political party, and administrations change.”