Air pollution: half of all US children
More Americans are exposed to polluted air in the United States.
Washington Post April 2026 PDF
- An estimated 33.5 million children in the United States — or nearly half of people under 18 — live in an area that received a failing grade for at least one measure of air pollution.
- Unfortunately: "Since President Donald Trump took office again in early 2025, the EPA has lifted emissions standards on the nation’s cars and trucks, vacated a regulation that sought to impost stricter standards on fine particulate matter, weakened air pollution standards for new power plants, rescinded a landmark legal opinion underpinning federal climate policies and said it would no longer consider the health impacts and resulting economic costs of some of the deadliest pollutants."
- Previously, the cost of a pollution death was valued at $1 million to $10 million; now, the cost of a death may drop to $0.
