I am honored to have been part of a group of more than 70 leaders in Children's Environmental Health, including many who have served on the EPA's Children's Health Protection Advisory Committee (CHPAC), who have sent a letter to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin asking why he has not reconvened the CHPAC since terms ended in February. Those of us reapplying sent in our intent to continue serving in October, 2025, and the new committee was set to be named in March, 2026.
These experts and organizations centered on children's environmental health want to know why, counter to the EPA's statutory obligations and the MAHA agenda this administration has so forcefully championed, the EPA is not consulting the one group of experts best suited to advise appropriate actions and regulations to protect children. Indeed, the CHPAC was pointedly charged with helping deploy MAHA efforts and received the charge enthusiastically.
Just yesterday, Trump and Vance were rolling out the red carpet for MAHA in DC. Yet most promises to that group have been broken as the Trump EPA rolls back even the few regulations we have that exist to protect children.
I hope soon to place an op-ed describing the inferences I am drawing about what is going on. And I also hope that Trump and Zeldin will respond to the requests in the letter in a way that protects children, rather than poisoning them.
Read more on the Environmental Protection Network (EPN)'s website at https://www.environmentalprotectionnetwork.org/20260930_chpac-letter-to-zeldin_release/ or at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) at https://www.ucs.org/resources/independent-science-initiative
