EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has promised to make good on “Make America Healthy Again” priorities, but sources inside and outside the agency say he isn’t any closer to embracing the movement’s anti-corporate stances.
EPA over the past year under the Trump administration has shown little movement in adopting views touted by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — the leader of the movement — on restricting certain pesticides, lowering the fluoride in drinking water, decoupling agency science from industry influence and so on.
But Zeldin shifted his messaging in December, after a handful of MAHA influencers organized a petition to remove him as administrator. He has held meetings with advocates over the past few months to develop a MAHA agenda for the agency.
The meetings are “to ensure the plan reflects grassroots priorities,” EPA spokesperson Brigit Hirsch said, adding that the agency “is in the final stages of completing” the agenda and “expects to release it in the coming months.”
“MAHA advocates have asked for stronger protections from pesticides, PFAS, plastics, air pollution and contaminated drinking water, and that is exactly where we’re focused,” Hirsch said.
But a senior EPA official with knowledge of discussions said they “can’t get a straight answer on” what the agency’s MAHA agenda entails, let alone when it will be released. Sources were granted anonymity to speak freely.
“I feel the MAHA people are being played,” the senior official said. “I don’t see any internal indication that there’s a serious reconsideration of the activities and the priorities.”
Other employees who work on pesticide and chemical issues echoed the sentiment.
“MAHA should never feel optimistic when it comes to EPA. That’s not a secret,” said one EPA staffer who was also granted anonymity. “I think the main MAHA influence is over how EPA does their press releases.”
Hirsch gave a few other hints on what will be in the MAHA agenda.
It “will highlight EPA’s central role in advancing the” White House’s September MAHA strategy and respond to “the issues communities have emphasized.” EPA’s role in the MAHA strategy is to address cumulative environmental chemical exposures through research, not necessarily regulations.
Hirsch said the agenda will follow these pillars: advancing gold-standard, transparent science; protecting children’s health; improving and protecting drinking water; ensuring safer chemicals and cleaner air; and promoting healthy food systems and reducing pollution from farm to plate.
MAHA activists in talks with Zeldin have given his office a wish list to work from.
“It wasn’t ‘ban all pesticides’ or anything extreme at all. It’s really manageable,” said Kelly Ryerson, a prominent MAHA influencer who co-leads the nonprofit American Regeneration. “At the top of my list, specifically, was to eliminate pre-harvest desiccation with synthetic chemicals.”
EPA last Friday broke with MAHA on one of leaders’ top asks by reapproving dicamba, a pesticide.
“Dicamba actually should have been a really easy one, in comparison to some other things that we’re asking for; that’s pretty low-hanging fruit for them to be able to achieve,” Ryerson said.
“It’s a disheartening way to start off the year, for sure, when I felt like there was positive momentum and excitement to get more involved with MAHA,” she continued. “My hopes are still higher than they were prior to the petition, because I think communication is good, and I’m still holding a space for hope around what the MAHA agenda will have. There is a chance that some of the things will be addressed.”
Leaders at MAHA Action, a Kennedy-aligned political action committee, seem more focused on maintaining the administration’s appearance as a unified front.
“We have a MAHA head of the EPA now, Lee Zeldin,” MAHA Action President Tony Lyons said during a recent webinar. “This is the most open, transparent government in these areas that we’ve ever seen, and I think everybody should take good advantage of that and not attack the government but really try to really find ways to work with the government to get the very best possible health outcomes.”
Others are less optimistic.
“I just don’t think that they’re [EPA political appointees] really bought into it,” said the senior EPA official.
Take fluoride.
Kennedy and his supporters advocated “on day one” to ban water fluoridation — the process of adding fluoride to drinking water to strengthen teeth. Research has shown the chemical can have neurotoxic effects on kids’ brains.
Zeldin has yet to adopt Kennedy’s views on fluoride. Instead, he opted for additional review while continuing to fight a 2024 court decision prompting EPA regulatory action under the Toxic Substances Control Act.
“Obviously the White House is acutely aware of this tension at EPA, and I think MAHA is going to lose in the end,” said one chemical lobbyist.
Reach the reporter on Signal at eborst.64.
