Sweeping federal funding cuts have halted a slate of local projects intended to reduce emissions and bolster resilience to climate change. The cuts come as U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin continues to repeal environmental regulations.

Local advocates warn that EPA rollbacks could have dire consequences for communities, especially as funding for local programs is cut and parts of the Pittsburgh region already struggle with industrial pollution.

On June 11, Zeldin moved to erase federal limits on greenhouse gas emissions from coal and gas-fired power plants, and to strip restrictions on hazardous emissions including arsenic, mercury and lead.

The proposals are the latest in a series of deregulatory actions and funding cuts by President Trump’s administration, dubbed the “biggest deregulatory action in U.S. history.”

The EPA contends that the moves will lower the cost of living for American families, bring jobs and manufacturing into local communities, eliminate “trillions” in regulatory costs and “unleash American energy”.

“We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion,” Zeldin said earlier this year.

The recent easing of power plant emission restrictions came after the cancellation of several EPA grants that supported local efforts to cut emissions and build climate resilience.

Cuts “devastate” environmental protection

The recent rollbacks have been met with opposition from environmental advocates who say that, if approved, the moves are certain to harm public health and the environment.

The Breathe Project called the latest EPA rollback “a gift to fossil fuel lobbyists and industry at the expense to the health and well-being of our country.”

The local nonprofit, which also represents a coalition of environmental organizations under the Breathe Collaborative, pointed to research from Harvard University that it said attributed “over 25,380 extra deaths per year of people older than 14 years old due to exposure to PM2.5 from fossil fuels.”

People arrive before dawn to watch the smokestacks fall at the former Homer City Generating Station on March 22, 2025. The site is slated to host a new gas-fired power plant. (Photo by John Beale for PublicSource)

“Everything is getting dirtier because of the decisions being made by this administration, and I don’t think that anyone voted for that,” said David Hess, who served as secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection [DEP] in the early 2000s. Hess said EPA proposals to eliminate grants to state regulators like the DEP “will incapacitate state environmental protection efforts,” which backstop deregulation at the federal level.

The White House’s recommended cuts, detailed in a recent budget proposal, “will devastate economic development, critical infrastructure, and environmental protections across the nation,” wrote the Environmental Council of the States, a nonpartisan association of state environmental regulators, including the Pennsylvania DEP, in a May 3 letter to Zeldin.

In Pennsylvania, Hess said, that’s likely to mean fewer inspections, enforcement and permit reviews for a DEP that’s already struggling to keep up.

A coalition of environmental advocacy organizations in Pennsylvania, including PennFuture, GASP and Physicians for Social Responsibility, issued a collective statement on the EPA rollback on June 11.

By rolling back these protections, this will increase carbon pollution stemming from power plants that exacerbate the climate crisis, the coalition wrote. “These rollbacks combined with the administration’s all out assault on climate will cost lives and livelihoods of Pennsylvanians across the state.”

Dr. Stephanie Maximous, a pulmonologist and assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, said the most recent EPA rollbacks pose a “major problem” for the region, despite Allegheny County’s last coal-fired power plant being demolished in 2023. “All of the air is shared.”

Air quality is already among the worst in the country, Maximous said, pointing to a recent failing grade from the American Lung Association, but it’s also come a long way since the heyday of industry in Allegheny County. That improvement, Maximous said, is because of regulation. Now, “we’re going in the wrong direction,” she said.

“Everybody in the Pittsburgh region and Allegheny County stands to have worsened health outcomes” due to the EPA rollbacks, Maximous said,: “It puts our local residents at risk.”

EPA cuts stall climate resiliency, green workforce projects

As the Trump administration moves to strip limits on climate-warming emissions, the EPA has clawed back funding for projects intended to address the local impacts of climate change, including landslides, flooding and associated workforce development and cleanup efforts.

The EPA “abruptly cancelled” a $930,000 grant to the Allegheny County Health Department, according to spokesperson Ronnie Das. The grant was intended to fund 10 new green infrastructure stormwater projects aimed at reducing flood damage in designated environmental justice communities, including Braddock, Homestead, Swissvale and Wilmerding. It was also set to finance litter cleanups in 10 local communities. The initiative was a partnership among the University of Pittsburgh’s Swanson School of Engineering and two local nonprofits, Landforce and Allegheny Cleanways.

News of the cancellation came in late March, days before work was scheduled to begin on a project aimed at mitigating stormwater damage at the Westgate Condominiums in Wilkinsburg.

The county does not plan to continue the project after losing “crucial funding,” according to Das, who added that the funds “may have been cut because of the words ‘environmental justice’ being attached to it.”

Separately, Allegheny County lost $4.1 million that was awarded in early January by the U.S. Department of Transportation for the installation of 150 new electric vehicle charging stations. The grant was set to “accelerate the transition to clean energy and promote sustainable transportation across our region,” U.S. Rep. Summer Lee said at the time.

That funding was matched with an additional $2 million from Duquesne Light Company, which, along with other project partners including the City of Pittsburgh, the Allegheny County Airport Authority, the Pittsburgh Parking Authority and 14 local municipalities, are “considering options” to continue the project, according to Brittany Prishak, sustainability director for Allegheny County.

Lyssa Eberhardt and Asher Khersonsky, of Allegheny Cleanways, clear debris from condemned houses in McKeesport on Friday, June 27, 2025. The nonprofit organization, focused on illegal dumping cleanups across Allegheny County, recently lost funding as a result of cancelled EPA grants under the Trump Administration. (Photo by Quinn Glabicki/PublicSource)

Federal efficiency or government ‘plundering?’

In early May, the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, slashed more than $6.4 million in federal funding to local organizations when the EPA terminated the Thriving Communities Grantmaking Program, which was part of the Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act.

On June 11, Lee and Congressman Chris Deluzio, D-Aspinwall, wrote to Zeldin at the EPA in response to ongoing federal funding cuts:

“[DOGE] is plundering our government and dismantling important community-led public and environmental health initiatives, workforce development, and outdoor education programming,” the representatives wrote, while requesting that the EPA restore the grants.

Allegheny Cleanways, a local nonprofit focused on illegal dumpsite remediation, had signed a contract for $224,500 before the EPA canceled the grant. It would have been the single largest influx of funding for the organization, said Executive Director Caily Grube, and would have supported the organization’s land and water cleanups and education programs for two years.

The organization has been hit twice more by federal funding cuts through partnerships with Allegheny County and the City of McKeesport.

When they were approved, “me and my staff were literally dancing,” Grube said. Now, the organization is planning for “fiscal gymnastics.”

On June 18, a federal judge ruled the EPA’s termination of the Thriving Communities grants was unlawful. The EPA is reviewing the decision.

“We’re half assuming it will get axed again,” Grube said.

Across the region, a number of other grants have been canceled by the EPA, including:

$1 million to the City of McKeesport to address environmental issues including air pollution, heat island effects, residential brownfields and stormwater management.

$4.9 million to the Energy Innovation Center Institute to support workforce development in the water utilities.

$15 million to Landforce for workforce development in land stewardship.

More local organizations, including New Sun Rising, the Beaver County Marcellus Awareness Community, 412 Food Rescue and Riverwise, had all been relying on funding from the Thriving Communities Grantmaking Program for projects that improve public health initiatives across the Pittsburgh region, the representatives wrote in their letter.

“This Administration is yet again breaking promises to our region. The EPA has long been a lifeline for so many communities in Pennsylvania. From helping provide clean drinking water, to commerce, to recreation, and more — our prosperity relies on clean and healthy initiatives funded by the EPA.”

Quinn Glabicki is the environment and climate reporter at Pittsburgh’s Public Source. He can be reached at quinn@publicsource.org and on Instagram @quinnglabicki.

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