By now everybody's quite familiar with how the legacy media operates in the era of Trump. There's really nothing this administration can do without breathless reports of how many lives are being lost as a result of the decisions made. We all remember the scary COVID death counter on CNN that pretty much disappeared as soon as Joe Biden and President Autopen took office. That kind of approach continues.
Under the previous administration the EPA was largely a mechanism to, as Director Lee Zeldin put it recently, light billions of taxpayer dollars on fire to pay off Dem friends and cronies.
That's all worth keeping in mind when we come across headlines like this alarming sounding take from the New York Times:
Breaking News: The EPA will stop considering lives saved when setting pollution limits and instead calculate only the cost to businesses. https://t.co/uYom4BthnT
— The New York Times (@nytimes) January 12, 2026
The Times' story starts out this way:
For decades, the Environmental Protection Agency has calculated the health benefits of reducing air pollution, using the cost estimates of avoided asthma attacks and premature deaths to justify clean-air rules.
Not anymore.
Under President Trump, the E.P.A. plans to stop tallying gains from the health benefits caused by curbing two of the most widespread deadly air pollutants, fine particulate matter and ozone, when regulating industry, according to internal agency emails and documents reviewed by The New York Times.
It’s a seismic shift that runs counter to the E.P.A.’s mission statement, which says the agency’s core responsibility is to protect human health and the environment, environmental law experts said.
Zeldin quickly called BS on the story:
Yet another dishonest, fake news claim courtesy of the New York Times.
— Lee Zeldin (@epaleezeldin) January 12, 2026
Not only is the EXACT OPPOSITE of this headline the actual truth, but the Times is already VERY WELL AWARE that EPA will still be considering lives saved when setting pollution limits. The Times’ unyielding… pic.twitter.com/9jlhK0uz7u
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Next up was Richard Grenell:
Everyone knows this NYT headline is fake news and designed to simply attack Republicans, again - sadly, the NYT reporters and editors are the only ones not seeing that their reputations have imploded. https://t.co/szi4oQnpgm
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) January 12, 2026
When the previous administration calculated "lives saved" we can also be fairly certain the number was hugely inflated and brought to us by the Biden White House's Department of Numbers We Completely Made Up.
How does @nytimes even calculate "lifes saved", by adding $$$$$ sent to Somali or something?
— JJ Wild (@JJWild4) January 12, 2026
We were wondering that too.
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