EPA’s 500 Wins: Credit Where It’s Due, Then the Hard Part

One year into President Trump’s second term, the EPA touts a full ledger of actions. But in the places where public health demands courage, not just compliance, the agency must do more.

On January 20, 2026, The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced that the agency had achieved 500 “top environmental wins” in the first 365 days of President Trump’s new term. That pace—more than one action per day—is designed to signal momentum, resolve, and delivery. And this list certainly does.

Days later, EPA signaled on fluoride. Read on…

EPA’s year-one record includes material gains: new binational frameworks to address the decades-long Tijuana River sewage crisis, billions in funding to replace lead service lines, a proposed regulation to address perchlorate in drinking water, and finalized TSCA risk evaluations for 1,3-butadiene and five high-profile phthalates. These are not empty gestures; they move real contaminants out of people’s lives. They should be applauded.

Figure 1. 500 wins Organized by Program Area

Figure 2. EPA’s 500 Wins by Action Type

Combined Reduced Exposures

Collectively, these actions will result in reductions in the following exposures (many in specific local geographic regions, others nationally):

• Reduced childhood lead exposure

• Reduced mercury exposure

• Reduced PCB exposure

• Reduced nitrate and phosphorus runoff into drinking water

• Reduced exposure to PFAS (‘forever chemicals’)

• Reduced exposure to perchlorate (thyroid disruption)

• Reduced pesticide exposure in homes and food storage

• Reduced exposure to 1,3-butadiene (a known human carcinogen)

• Reduced exposure to phthalates (endocrine disruption, reproductive harm)

• Reduced diesel particulate exposure (linked to cancer and heart disease)

• Reduced exposure to VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds)

• Reduced fine particulate matter (PM2.5) levels in urban air

• Reduced sulfur dioxide (SO₂) exposure in nonattainment areas

• Reduced anhydrous ammonia exposure (respiratory hazard)

• Reduced indoor lead-paint exposure in high-density housing

• Reduced school-based exposure to lead and asbestos

• Improved drinking water safety through infrastructure upgrades

• Improved air quality in tribal and underserved communities

• Improved public health preparedness for chemical spills and disasters

• Reduced cumulative exposures in EJ-designated Superfund areas

• Reduced cancer risk from soil and sediment contamination at remediated sites

• Reduced respiratory irritation from wildfire smoke through real-time monitoring

• Reduced occupational exposure to hazardous substances in industrial settings

• Reduced exposure to uranium and heavy metals on Tribal lands

Each of these reductions should signal a “Go” for local activists to ensure programs are in place at the state, county and local level, as well.

Health Improvements the Public Can Expect from EPA’s 500 Actions

Due to reduced exposures resulting from the EPA’s 500 documented environmental actions during the first year of President Trump’s current term, the American public can reasonably expect a broad spectrum of health improvements—particularly in communities previously burdened by industrial pollution, degraded infrastructure, and lax regulatory enforcement.

Neurodevelopmental and Cognitive Gains

One of the most immediate and profound health effects will be seen in children’s neurodevelopment. As lead service lines are replaced, contaminated soil is removed from residential yards, and enforcement actions reduce household exposure to lead-based paint and dust, we can expect higher average IQs, fewer learning disabilities, and improved behavioral outcomes. These gains are not theoretical—they are backed by decades of epidemiological evidence showing that even modest reductions in lead exposure produce measurable improvements in executive function, attention, and long-term academic performance. Communities in Milwaukee, NYC, Chattanooga, and Evansville, among others, are already targeted for lead mitigation under EPA’s actions.

Respiratory and Cardiovascular Relief

Improvements in air quality will yield direct benefits in respiratory and cardiovascular health. Reduced emissions from diesel engines, enforcement of Clean Air Act violations, and particulate matter (PM2.5) attainment in urban centers will translate to fewer asthma attacks, reduced hospital admissions for bronchitis and COPD, and lower rates of heart attack and stroke, especially in vulnerable populations such as children, the elderly, and those with pre-existing conditions. Attainment redesignations in places like Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, and air permitting reforms in multiple states reflect structural progress toward cleaner breathing environments.

Cancer Risk Reduction

EPA’s actions will also lead to incremental but critical reductions in cancer incidence. Finalized TSCA risk evaluations for 1,3-butadiene—an established human carcinogen—and regulatory preparations for five high-volume phthalates signal a new willingness to treat chemical risk seriously. Remediation of legacy contamination at Superfund sites involving PCBs, arsenic, benzene, and VOCs will reduce long-term cancer risk in both groundwater and airborne exposure corridors. These interventions particularly protect fence-line communities historically subjected to disproportionate toxic burdens.

Endocrine and Reproductive System Improvements

Regulatory movement on endocrine-disrupting chemicals, especially phthalates and PFAS, is expected to yield improvements in reproductive health, hormone regulation, and fetal development. With reduced exposure, we can expect lower rates of early puberty, hormonal imbalance, infertility, and pregnancy complications such as low birth weight or miscarriage. EPA’s risk determination on multiple phthalate uses, and its PFAS groundwater monitoring programs, directly target these effects.

Safer Drinking Water and Reduced Disease Burden

Significant funding for drinking water system upgrades and hazard-specific responses will decrease the incidence of gastrointestinal illnesses, kidney and liver damage, and other organ system stress caused by contaminants such as perchlorate, manganese, nitrates, and microbial pathogens. Specific actions taken in Puerto Rico, Michigan, Kentucky, and on tribal lands will enhance water safety for tens of thousands of residents, with direct reductions in E. coli outbreaks, boil water advisories, and chronic contaminant exposures.

Benefits to Children and Schools

Targeted lead and asbestos remediation efforts in public schools and high-density housing complexes will improve attendance, reduce school absences, and support healthier developmental environments for children. These effects are amplified by air monitoring programs, emergency interventions in disaster zones, and technical support for water infrastructure in underserved districts—ensuring that environmental health benefits reach frontline communities first.

Emergency Response and Public Safety Enhancements

Finally, EPA’s increased attention to emergency preparedness and chemical spill response—including mobile lab deployments, lithium battery fire protocols, and coordinated storm debris management—will reduce acute injury, toxic exposure, and community trauma in the wake of environmental disasters. These actions are especially impactful in climate-sensitive and disaster-prone regions where rapid environmental recovery correlates directly with long-term public health resilience.

How EPA Got There is Important

But progress without auditability is public relations, not public health. And a win-counting system that blends finalized rules, consent decrees, stop-sale orders, monitoring updates, and training workshops into one celebratory pile conceals as much as it reveals. There is no transparent ledger behind the 500, no unique identifiers, no docket trace, no searchable outcome fields.

More importantly, some of the most critical public-health priorities—many of them explicitly defined in the Biden-era MAHA strategy and still embraced in principle by the current administration—are conspicuously absent from the 500-count list. The message is clear: in the places where public health intersects with chemical policy, regulatory litigation, or interagency inertia, EPA must do more.

Lead, Perchlorate, and Chemical Risk: Deliverables That Deserve Recognition

EPA deserves full credit for multiple serious completions. The agency used its funding authority to deliver $3 billion in new lead-pipe replacement grants, attached to updated service-line inventories that revise national estimates and improve prioritization. That alone affects millions of children.

EPA also moved forward on perchlorate—not voluntarily, but under a court order. The agency published a proposed National Primary Drinking Water Regulation in January 2026 with explicit Maximum Contaminant Level Goals (MCLGs), analytical methods, and cost assessments. It’s not yet final, but it’s public, trackable, and out for comment.

And EPA completed TSCA risk evaluations for 1,3-butadiene and five phthalates, each linked to identified risks for workers, the environment, and sensitive subpopulations. These evaluations cited tens of thousands of studies and now obligate the agency to act. If EPA follows through with timely and stringent risk-management rules, these will become defining health wins of the Trump era.

Fluoride: Public Feedback Forced the Issue—EPA Has Now Moved, Remarkably Fast

Among the hundreds of actions listed in EPA’s self-declared inventory of 500 environmental wins, fluoride stood out not because it was minor, but because it was missing. That absence did not go unnoticed. In public responses to EPA’s announcement—across social media, advocacy networks, and community forums—fluoride emerged as one of the most consistently cited concerns. The message was unmistakable: if EPA was serious about protecting children’s health, fluoride could not remain off the list.

That public pressure coincided with an unresolved legal backdrop. In September 2024, a federal court determined that fluoridation chemicals used in drinking water present an “unreasonable risk” under the Toxic Substances Control Act and ordered EPA to move toward regulatory action. EPA appealed the decision, a move that provoked sharp criticism from scientists and public-health advocates who viewed the evidentiary record as already sufficient.

For months, EPA’s position appeared static. The appeal remained active, and fluoride was absent from the January 2026 “wins” announcement—reinforcing the perception that the agency was resisting, rather than engaging with, the science.

That posture changed quickly. Within days of the public reaction to the 500-wins release, EPA announced it would take the next step in an accelerated review of fluoride in drinking water, shifting the regulatory pathway to the Safe Drinking Water Act and committing to a transparent, expedited assessment focused explicitly on childhood development and maternal and infant health. The speed of that move matters. It signals that EPA heard the feedback and recognized that fluoride had become a credibility test for its broader health-protection claims.

It means EPA is working to Make America Healthy Again.

This course correction is welcome, but it also sharpens the obligation ahead. The scientific record that prompted the court’s ruling—including human epidemiological studies linking fluoride exposure to neurodevelopmental harm at levels consistent with current fluoridation practices—has not weakened. A preliminary assessment plan and literature review are steps forward, but they are not protective outcomes in themselves. Watchful waiting is the byword, when EPA has, in the past, actively fought data in the courts.

The task now is not to reopen settled questions indefinitely, nor to substitute process for protection. Public feedback helped fluoride get onto the agenda. EPA’s rapid response shows that movement is possible. What remains is follow-through. The task is to carry this accelerated review through to its logical conclusion: updated health assessments and, if the evidence continues to support them, engineered in the bright glow of the precautionary principle (as all safety standards should be), enforceable changes to federal drinking-water standards.

MAHA Deliverables Still Unmet: What EPA Left Off the List

The White House’s 2025 MAHA strategy laid out a vision for environmental health grounded in prevention, transparency, and children’s vulnerability. EPA was not a passive observer in that process; it was assigned specific implementation roles.

Yet in the “500 wins,” EPA makes no mention of:

• Expanding the America’s Children and the Environment (ACE) indicators platform

• Updating drinking water guidance for pharmaceuticals or fluoride (but see above)

• Initiating cumulative-risk frameworks for classes of pesticides

• Reducing microplastics exposure research across air, water, and consumer products

These are not abstract deliverables. They are line items in a federal strategy document issued by the Office of Science and Technology Policy. The public deserves an answer to why they have not been advanced.

Clean Water Act §401: A Signal and a Procedural Win with a Substantive Red Flag

EPA listed its new proposal to “return CWA Section 401 to its proper statutory purpose” as a win. But for states and tribes that depend on Section 401 to protect water quality through certification authority, the proposal looks like a rollback.

Critics say the change would strip local control from water-protective communities and weaken the clean water gatekeeping function of §401. If EPA finalizes a rule that prioritizes permitting speed over health protection, it will trade measurable impact for ideological streamlining—a loss dressed up as a win.

Information Isn’t Enforcement: Contrails, Balloons, and Public Trust

EPA did make a visible effort to respond to public concern about contrails and unregulated geoengineering. It published a science-based explainer on contrail formation and issued a Clean Air Act information demand to the company “Make Sunsets,” which had been launching SO2-filled balloons for private solar geoengineering sales.

These actions matter. But the public isn’t asking for information; it’s asking for outcomes. If EPA concludes that Make Sunsets violated emissions, permitting, or chemical handling laws, it must act. If not, it must say so. Otherwise, information requests become performative and the perception of inaction metastasizes.

Keep the Momentum. Close the Gaps.

The EPA delivered hundreds of actions in 2025. Many of them matter. But real environmental governance is not a numbers game. It is about whether children drink safer water, workers face fewer carcinogens, and communities stop being dumped on or ignored.

EPA’s job is not just to count actions. It is to complete the hard ones. That means regulating fluoride under TSCA without delay. That means fulfilling the public health commitments of the MAHA strategy. That means using enforcement where information fails.

The Trump EPA still has time to firm up as an agency defined by outcomes, not output. That would be a win worth counting.