EPA's cancer risk air pollution data goes offline

The US Environmental Protection Agency has stopped publishing its annual estimates of cancer risk from air pollution – data communities have used for decades to identify hotspots, challenge permits, and hold industrial operators accountable. The absence of these figures matters because they're one of the few transparent, standardised metrics that allow residents to compare pollution exposure across neighbourhoods and regions. Without them, enforcement becomes harder. Local groups lose a quantifiable baseline for litigation. Polluters face fewer external pressure signals. The EPA's decision to stop releasing this data – whether temporary or permanent – is a governance failure. It removes a tool that sits at the intersection of human health, environmental justice, and corporate accountability. Communities in fence-line neighbourhoods, many of them predominantly low-income and non-white, depend on clear air quality metrics to demand that companies, refineries, and chemical plants meet enforceable standards. Greenwashing thrives in data vacuums. When baseline health risk data disappears, polluters can claim improvement without independent verification. This withdrawal also weakens supply chain risk assessment for institutional investors trying to map environmental and health liabilities tied to manufacturing and logistics sites. The question now is whether this gap signals broader erosion of EPA transparency – and whether the agency will restore the data.

The EPA’s data on cancer risk from air pollution has gone dark

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