WASHINGTON — On New Year's Eve, Lee Zeldin did something out of character for an Environmental Protection Agency leader who has been hacking away at regulations intended to protect Americans' air and water.
He announced new restrictions on five chemicals commonly used in building materials, plastic products and adhesives, and he cheered it as a "MAHA win."
It was one of many signs of a fragile collaboration that's been building between a Republican administration that's traditionally supported big business and a Make America Healthy Again movement that argues corporate environmental harms are putting people's health in danger.
The unlikely pairing grew out of the coalition's success influencing public health policy with the help of its biggest champion, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. As health secretary, he has pared back vaccine recommendations and shifted the government's position on topics like seed oils, fluoride and Tylenol.
Building on that momentum, the movement now sees a glimmer of hope in the EPA's promise to release a "MAHA agenda" in the coming months.
MAHA wins a seat at the table
Last year, activist Kelly Ryerson was so frustrated with the EPA over its weakening of protections against harmful chemicals that she and other MAHA supporters drew up a petition to get Zeldin fired.
The final straw, Ryerson said, was the EPA's approval of two new pesticides for use on food. Ryerson said the pesticides contained "forever chemicals," which resist breakdown, making them hazardous to people. The EPA has disputed that characterization.
But when Ryerson spoke with Zeldin in December, she felt that he listened to her perspective — he even invited her and other activists to meet with him at EPA headquarters, and that meeting led to more conversations with Zeldin's deputies.
"The level of engagement with people concerned with their health is absolutely revolutionary," Ryerson said. She added that the agency's upcoming plan "will say whether or not they take it seriously," but she praised MAHA's access as "unprecedented."
Zeldin joined a call in December with the advocacy group MAHA Action, where he invited activists to participate in developing the EPA's MAHA agenda. Since then, EPA staffers have regularly appeared on the weekly calls.
Last month, Ryerson's petition to get Zeldin fired was updated to note that several signers had met with him and are in a "collaborative effort to advance the MAHA agenda."
EPA Press Secretary Brigit Hirsch said the forthcoming agenda will "directly respond to priorities we've heard from MAHA advocates and communities."
EPA's alliance with industry raises questions
Despite the ongoing conversations, the Republican emphasis on deregulation still puts MAHA and the EPA on a potential collision course.
Lori Ann Burd, environmental health program director at The Center for Biological Diversity, said the administration has a particularly strong alliance with industry interests.
As an example, she pointed to the EPA's proposal to allow the broad use of the weed killer Dicamba on soybeans and cotton. A month before the announcement, the EPA hired a lobbyist for the soybean association, Kyle Kunkler, to serve in a senior position overseeing pesticides.
Environmentalists said the hiring of ex-industry leaders is a theme of this administration. Nancy Beck and Lynn Dekleva, for example, are former higher-ups at the American Chemistry Council, an industry association. They now work in leadership in the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, which oversees pesticide and toxic chemical regulation.
Hirsch said the EPA consults with ethics officials to prevent conflicts of interest and ensures that appointees are qualified and focused on the science, "unlike previous administrations that too often deferred to activist groups instead of objective evidence."
Activists await EPA's MAHA agenda
Hirsch said the MAHA agenda will address issues like lead pipes, forever chemicals, plastic pollution, food quality and Superfund cleanups.
Ryerson said she wants to get the chemical atrazine out of drinking water and stop the pre-harvest desiccation of food, in which farmers apply pesticides to crops immediately before they are harvested.
She also wants to see cancer warnings on the ingredient glyphosate, which some studies associate with cancer even as the EPA said it is not likely to be carcinogenic to humans when used as directed.
However, Ryerson said some of the moves Zeldin is promoting as "MAHA wins" are no such thing.
For example, in his New Year's Eve announcement on a group of chemicals called phthalates, he said the agency intends to regulate some of them for environmental and workplace risks, but didn't address the thousands of consumer products that contain the ingredients.
Courtney Swan, an activist who focuses on nutritional issues and has spoken with EPA officials in recent months, said time will tell if the agency is being performative.
"The EPA is giving very mixed signals right now," she said.
