2026年4月13日 美国东部时间早上5:00 / KFF健康新闻
北美最大的焦炭厂坐落于宾夕法尼亚州莫农加希拉河西岸，将过热煤炭转化为富碳燃料的过程中持续排放污染物。
研究人员表示，约1英里外的克莱尔通小学的学生们正为此付出代价。他们发现，该校以及宾夕法尼亚州其他靠近大型污染场地的小学的学生，哮喘发病率高于该州其他儿童。
居民和环保倡导者原本以为拜登政府出台的一项旨在抑制焦炭厂污染的规定能带来希望和宽慰。但就在该规定生效前，特朗普总统就给予了全美所有11家焦炭厂——包括克莱尔通的这家——两年的标准豁免期。
特朗普先生和共和党人一直试图契合“让美国再次健康”（MAHA）运动的民粹主义理念，比如改善美国人的食品选择、减少企业对环境的破坏。但本届政府却在加紧攻击MAHA支持者所珍视的环保保护措施。
健康研究人员表示，这些反环保举措加在一起将导致更多与污染相关的疾病，以及更高的医疗支出。这还可能产生政治影响：如果MAHA的支持者认为共和党更依附于企业而非该运动的议程，他们对共和党候选人的支持可能会在11月的中期选举中受到削弱。
2024年9月9日拍摄的宾夕法尼亚州克莱尔通的克莱尔通焦炭厂设施。贾斯汀·梅里曼 / 彭博社 via 盖蒂图片社
芝加哥大学能源政策研究所与美联社-NORC公共事务研究中心联合开展的一项民调显示，仅有五分之一的美国成年人支持放宽环境监管，其中约四分之一的共和党人持此观点。
一些MAHA支持者认为，选民会支持共和党，因为特朗普政府在该运动的其他重要目标上取得了进展。
“MAHA的政策目标相当多元化，从医疗自由到食品与环境问题都有涉及，”曾在特朗普第一任期内担任卫生与公众服务部领导层职务的戴维·曼斯多弗尔说道，“总体而言，特朗普政府在MAHA的诸多议程上都取得了显著成果。”
东北大学公共政策与政治学教授克里斯托弗·博索表示，尽管MAHA选民对政府部分推动工业发展的举措感到不满，但目前尚不清楚这会在中期选举中产生何种影响。许多人对特朗普的一项行政令感到失望，他们认为该行政令推动了草甘膦的使用，而卫生与公众服务部部长小罗伯特·F·肯尼迪曾称草甘膦为毒药。
“草甘膦事件着实激怒了许多人；他们非常不满，”博索说道，“肯尼迪说那是毒药。如果它是毒药，那我们为什么不加以监管？这就是矛盾所在。”
克莱尔通焦炭厂及其他获得监管豁免的工厂的情况，凸显了潜在的公共健康风险。KFF健康新闻的一项分析显示，截至去年5月，11家工厂中有6家存在《清洁空气法》规定的“高优先级”违规行为。5家焦炉厂连续至少三年每季度都有严重违规记录。
“ Allegheny县最弱势的一些居民仍在遭受毒害，”曾住在宾夕法尼亚州格拉斯波特附近的戴维·梅克尔在2025年3月县议会关于焦炭厂的会议上说道。
美国环境保护署发言人布里吉特·赫希表示，总统给予企业额外时间是因为符合新标准的技术尚未成熟。
“在现有工具尚未具备的情况下强制工厂合规，并不会让空气更清洁，只会让工厂倒闭、夺走工作岗位，却毫无成效，”赫希说道。
但环保组织不同意这些工厂无法以合理成本完成合规，并表示EPA要求的豁免表明特朗普政府优先考虑煤炭行业，却牺牲了公众健康。
“特朗普政府不懈地拆解挽救生命的环保保护措施，这对政府自身‘让美国再次健康’的承诺是一记沉重打击，”自由派智库美国进步中心的高级研究员凯瑟琳·凯利说道。
克莱尔通的艰难处境
克莱尔通工厂占地近400英亩，其焦炉将煤炭加热至最高2000华氏度，每年可生产多达430万吨的富碳燃料——焦炭。该产品用于高炉炼铁。
这是一个污染严重的生产过程。会释放出危险的苯（一种致癌物，美国疾病控制与预防中心表示其可导致贫血和白血病）以及二氧化硫（可引发严重哮喘）。
克莱尔通工厂的排放和运营一直存在诸多问题，包括致命爆炸和有毒化学品的过量排放。根据EPA的数据，自2022年以来，该工厂已因2018年一场导致高排放的火灾等问题，收到阿勒格尼县卫生部门超过5600万美元的罚款，并且在过去12个季度中每个季度都违反了《清洁空气法》，最近一次合规监测是在2025年7月。
2025年8月11日工厂爆炸后拍摄的克莱尔通焦炭厂。丽贝卡·德羅克 / 法新社 via 盖蒂图片社
日本制铁公司去年收购了美国钢铁公司，后者如今作为其子公司运营。该公司未回复置评请求邮件。美国钢铁公司表示，其每年在克莱尔通工厂的环境合规上投入1亿美元。
“环境管理是美国钢铁公司的核心价值观，我们始终致力于保障社区的安全，”发言人安德鲁·富尔顿说道。
克莱尔通曾一度繁华，拥有电影院、各类杂货店、河畔公园、舞蹈馆和表演热气球项目。但钢铁行业的衰落给当地带来沉重打击。该镇人口从20世纪中期的1.9万多人，缩减至2024年的不足6000人。数十栋房屋被废弃，直至被拆除，取而代之的是“禁止入内”的标识。1978年电影《猎鹿人》讲述了一个艰苦的工业小镇的故事，部分场景就取景于此。如今，约33%的居民生活在贫困线以下。
尽管该工厂带来了就业和税收，但该镇及周边地区的居民长期以来一直抱怨将健康问题归咎于其排放物。
“我的父母都去世了。我母亲患了癌症，父亲也是，”克莱尔通居民卡拉·比尔德-欧文斯在2025年县议会会议上说道，“我失去了很多亲人，也目睹其他人因为这个工厂去世。”
儿科过敏症专家黛博拉·真蒂尔博士对该地区靠近大型污染场地的1200名在校儿童的哮喘发病率进行了调查，其中包括克莱尔通小学的学生。她牵头的这项研究显示，这些儿童的哮喘发病率几乎是全国平均水平的三倍，非裔青年的发病率最高。
“我们都很震惊，”她说道，“结果比我们预期的高出一倍甚至三倍。当地人对自己的工业背景感到自豪。我们需要钢铁行业，但他们的运营做得不够好。”
后续研究发现，当二氧化硫污染升高时，住在焦炭厂附近的哮喘儿童缺课的几率高出80%。
2018年10月2日，一名男子走在宾夕法尼亚州克莱尔通的街道上。迈克尔·亨宁格 / 《华盛顿邮报》via 盖蒂图片社
包括克莱尔通和匹兹堡在内的阿勒格尼县拥有众多工业工厂，研究人员已将当地的空气污染与死亡率上升、慢性心脏病以及不良妊娠结局联系起来。在2018年EPA的一份报告中，该县因固定工业空气污染物导致的癌症风险位列全美各县前1%。
根据KFF健康新闻对州和联邦数据的分析，克莱尔通的年龄调整后癌症死亡率为每10万人170例，高于全县每10万人150例的死亡率。
美国肺脏协会2025年给该县的颗粒物污染水平评为F级。环保组织PennEnvironment曾就克莱尔通工厂与美国钢铁公司达成和解，该组织表示，2021年该焦炭厂的有毒物质排放量达110万磅，占该县当年此类总排放量的60%。
根据EPA的工厂报告，2020年至2025年期间，克莱尔通工厂因《清洁空气法》处罚收到的罚款超过了全美任何其他焦炉厂，美国钢铁公司为此付出了超过1000万美元的代价。
“我们对豁免条款深感担忧，这些条款允许空气有毒物质影响公众健康，”阿勒格尼县卫生部门发言人罗尼·达斯在一份声明中说道。
克莱尔通工厂为该地区提供了1200个制造业岗位，并带来数亿美元的税收收入。根据宾夕法尼亚州制造商协会的估计，这些工作岗位每年创造近30亿美元的经济产出。
一些社区成员和维权组织曾希望焦炭厂易主后空气质量会有所改善。日本制铁已承诺升级莫农加希拉河谷的设施。
政治、豁免与环境担忧
根据拜登时代的规定，焦炭厂本应在2025年7月开始遵守新的限制，包括加热煤炭的焦炉炉盖和炉门泄漏问题。他们还必须在其物业边界监测苯含量，并在超过特定水平时采取措施降低这种致癌物的排放。合规截止日期定在2025年7月。
寻求振兴煤炭行业的特朗普政府进行了干预。去年，该政府邀请包括克莱尔通焦炭厂在内的数百家工业工厂，申请豁免EPA2024年发布的九项独立规定。
随后特朗普先生在去年11月更进一步，给予所有焦炭厂两年的合规宽限期。
EPA发言人赫希表示，此次宽限是必要的，因为这些要求本会给行业带来额外成本，而现行标准在减少污染方面“效果极佳”。
2024年9月9日，克莱尔通焦炭厂设施附近的推土机正在移动煤炭。贾斯汀·梅里曼 / 彭博社 via 盖蒂图片社
赫希还表示，特朗普领导下的EPA正在保护环境，并指出政府在减少持久性化学物质全氟和多氟烷基物质（PFAS）、预防铅中毒、加强化学品安全以及保护美国人的食品和水供应方面采取的行动。
“我们正在建设一个未来，让下一代美国人成为我国历史上最健康的一代，让他们继承世界上最清洁的空气、土地和水，”赫希说道。
然而，环保组织表示，本届政府已采取多项削弱健康保护的措施。
总统发布了一项推广草甘膦的行政令，这种除草剂被世界卫生组织与癌症联系起来，这引发了MAHA支持者的强烈抗议，他们认为自己被背叛了。EPA已决定在制定政策时不再考虑减少污染带来的健康相关经济收益，转而专注于行业遵守规则的成本。该机构还废除了长期以来将温室气体认定为危害公共健康的法律和科学依据。
这些行动激怒了一些MAHA支持者，他们原本指望本届政府能解决慢性病问题，尤其是儿童慢性病问题。Change.org上一份超过1.5万人签名的请愿书呼吁罢免EPA Administrator李·泽尔丁，称其放松管制的举措支持企业，违背了MAHA的目标。
一些MAHA支持者在社交媒体上表达了不满。
“现在没人应该相信EPA还在坚持MAHA的理念，”专注于保护性农业的美国复兴组织领导人凯利·赖尔森2月8日在X平台上说道。
健康与健康播客主持人亚历克斯·克拉克也在X平台上表达了她的担忧，称“EPA里的情况非常诡异，我绝不让美国人被误导，以为他们在坚持MAHA的议程。”
“相当多支持特朗普的人担心这些放松管制的举措会损害他们的健康，”民主党策略师、Third Degree Strategies传播公司创始人马克斯·伯恩斯说道，“MAHA选民，尤其是女性，对此非常敏感。共和党人让自己陷入了困境。”
弗吉尼亚大学政治中心发布的无党派选举预测通讯《萨巴托水晶球》的总编辑凯尔·孔迪克表示，MAHA支持者不应惊讶于特朗普政府不将环保保护置于工业利益之上，因为总统一直以来都支持化石燃料。
“如果他们真这么认为，那他们可能是自欺欺人，”他说道，“特朗普是个天才，尤其是在卸任后，他能让人们将自己的期望投射到他身上，因为他自己的公开声明本身就非常杂乱无章。”
2024年12月17日拍摄的克莱尔通焦炭厂。奎因·格拉比基 / 《华盛顿邮报》via 盖蒂图片社
焦炭厂豁免令让一些关注公众健康和排放问题的社区成员、环保组织和监管官员感到失望。
根据美国环保协会汇编的EPA数据，全美11家活跃焦炭厂周边三英里范围内居住着近30万人。
放松环境规则帮助特朗普赢得了规模达910亿美元的美国煤炭行业的支持。今年2月，矿业行业高管和游说者聚集在白宫，向特朗普鼓掌致意。
包括一些头戴印有美国国旗白色安全帽的矿工，向他赠送了一个刻有“美丽清洁煤炭无可争议的冠军”的青铜色奖杯。
在活动中，特朗普赞扬了他们的工作。“我们热爱清洁、美丽的煤炭，”他说道。
KFF健康新闻是一家致力于健康问题深度报道的全国性新闻编辑部，也是KFF的核心运营项目之一——KFF是独立的健康政策研究、民调与新闻资讯来源。
Pennsylvania town faces fallout from Trump’s environmental rule rollback
April 13, 2026 5:00 AM EDT / KFF Health News
North America’s largest coke plant hugs the west bank of Pennsylvania’s Monongahela River, belching out emissions from turning superheated coal into a carbon-rich fuel.
Researchers say the children at Clairton Elementary School about a mile away pay the price. They discovered the students there and at other elementary schools near major pollution sites in Pennsylvania had higher asthma rates than other children in the state.
Residents and environmental advocates saw reason for hope and relief in the form of a Biden administration rule designed to tamp down on coke oven plant pollution. But even before it took effect, President Trump granted all 11 coke plants in the U.S. — including the one in Clairton — a two-year exemption from the standards.
Mr. Trump and Republicans have sought to align themselves with the Make America Healthy Again movement’s populist ideals, such as improving Americans’ food choices and reducing corporate harm to the environment. But the administration is ratcheting up its attacks on the very environmental protections that MAHA followers hold dear.
Taken together, these anti-environmental initiatives will lead to more pollution-related illnesses and higher health care spending, health researchers say. They could also have political ramifications, eroding MAHA’s support for GOP candidates in the November midterm elections if followers believe the party is more beholden to industry than to the movement’s agenda.
The Clairton Coke Works facility in Clairton, Pennsylvania, on Sept. 9, 2024. Justin Merriman / Bloomberg via Getty Images
Only 1 in 5 American adults, including about a quarter of Republicans, support rolling back environmental regulations, according to a poll by the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Some MAHA supporters believe voters will support Republicans because the Trump administration is delivering on other goals important to the movement.
“MAHA has a pretty diverse set of policy goals, ranging from medical freedom to food and the environment,” said David Mansdoerfer, who served in the Department of Health and Human Services leadership during Mr. Trump’s first term. “In totality, the Trump administration has strongly delivered on much of the MAHA agenda.”
While MAHA voters have been upset at some of the administration’s actions that promote industry, it’s hard to know how that may play out in the midterms, said Christopher Bosso, a professor of public policy and politics at Northeastern University. Many were disillusioned by a Trump executive order they viewed as promoting glyphosate, which HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has called poison.
“The glyphosate thing really ticks off a lot of them; they’re really upset,” Bosso said. “Kennedy said it was poison. If it is a poison, why aren’t we regulating it? That’s where the tension plays out.”
The situation with the Clairton coke plant and the others granted exemptions from regulations underscores the potential public health risks. Six of the 11 factories had “high priority” violations of the Clean Air Act as of last May, according to a KFF Health News analysis. Five coke oven plants logged major violations every quarter for at least three years straight.
“Poisoning continues to some of the most vulnerable residents of Allegheny County,” David Meckel, who had lived in nearby Glassport, Pennsylvania, said at a March 2025 county meeting about the coke plant.
Environmental Protection Agency spokesperson Brigit Hirsch said the president gave companies extra time because the technology needed to meet a new standard isn’t ready yet.
“Forcing plants to comply before the tools exist doesn’t make the air cleaner, it just shuts down facilities and kills jobs with nothing to show for it,” Hirsch said.
But environmental groups disagree that the plants were unable to comply at a reasonable cost, and they say the exemption from the EPA requirements shows the Trump administration is prioritizing the coal industry at the expense of public health.
“The Trump administration’s relentless actions to dismantle lifesaving environmental protections are a gut punch to the administration’s own promise to Make America Healthy Again,” said Cathleen Kelly, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.
Hard Times in Clairton
Sprawled across nearly 400 acres, the Clairton plant operates ovens in which coal is heated to as much as 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit to make up to 4.3 million tons annually of the carbon-rich fuel known as coke. The product is used in blast furnaces to produce iron.
It’s a dirty operation. The process leads to hazardous emissions of benzene, a carcinogen that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says can lead to anemia and leukemia, as well as sulfur dioxide, which can trigger severe asthma.
The Clairton operation has had repeated problems with its emissions and operations, including fatal explosions and excess releases of toxic chemicals. The plant has received more than $56 million in fines from the Allegheny County Health Department since 2022, stemming largely from a fire in 2018 that led to high emissions, and violated the Clean Air Act in each of the last 12 quarters, with the last compliance monitoring in July 2025, according to the EPA.
Clairton Coke Works is seen following an explosion at the plant on Aug. 11, 2025. Rebecca Droke/AFP via Getty Images
Nippon Steel Corp. last year acquired U.S. Steel, which now operates as a subsidiary. The company didn’t respond to an email seeking comment. U.S. Steel said it spends $100 million annually on environmental compliance at Clairton.
“Environmental stewardship is a core value at U. S. Steel, and we remain committed to the safety of our communities,” spokesperson Andrew Fulton said.
Clairton was once bustling with movie theaters, a mix of grocery stores, and riverside parks, with a dance pavilion and a performing hot-air balloonist. But the decline of steel hit hard. The town’s population dwindled from more than 19,000 people in the mid-20th century to fewer than 6,000 as of 2024. Dozens of homes stood abandoned until they were razed and replaced with signs saying to keep out. The 1978 movie “The Deer Hunter,” which depicts a hardscrabble industrial town, is partly set there. Today, about 33% of residents live in poverty.
While the plant brings jobs and revenue, residents of the town and the surrounding areas have long complained about health problems they attribute to its emissions.
“My parents are gone. My mom had cancer, my dad,” Carla Beard-Owens, a Clairton resident, said at a 2025 County Council meeting. “I lost a lot of loved ones and seen other ones pass because of this mill.”
Pediatric allergist Dr. Deborah Gentile looked into asthma rates among 1,200 children who attended school near major pollution sites in the area — including students at Clairton Elementary School. They had nearly triple the national rate of asthma, with the highest rate among African American youth, according to the study she led.
“We were shocked,” she said. “It was double or triple what we expected. The people are proud of their industrial background. We need steel, but they’re not running a good enough operation.”
A follow-up study found children with asthma living near the coke plant had an 80% higher chance of missing school when sulfur dioxide pollution was elevated.
A man walks down a street in Clairton, Pennsylvania, on Oct. 2, 2018. Photo by Michael Henninger/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Allegheny County, which includes Clairton and Pittsburgh, is home to a number of industrial plants, and researchers have linked its air pollution to increased deaths, chronic heart disease, and adverse birth outcomes. It was ranked in the top 1% of counties in the nation for cancer risk from stationary industrial air pollutants in a 2018 EPA report.
Clairton has an age-adjusted cancer death rate of 170 per 100,000 people, higher than the broader county’s rate of 150 deaths per 100,000 people, based on a KFF Health News analysis of state and federal data.
The American Lung Association in 2025 gave the county an F rating for its particle pollution levels. PennEnvironment, an environmental group that was party to a settlement with U.S. Steel involving the Clairton plant, says the coke operation caused 1.1 million pounds of toxic releases in 2021, which amounted to 60% of all such releases in the county that year.
From 2020 through 2025, the Clairton plant racked up more in fines from Clean Air Act penalties than any other coke oven facility nationwide, costing U.S. Steel over $10 million, according to EPA facility reports.
“We are deeply concerned with exemptions, which allow air toxics to affect public health,” Allegheny County Health Department spokesperson Ronnie Das said in a statement.
The Clairton plant provides 1,200 manufacturing jobs and hundreds of millions in tax revenue to the area. The jobs help generate nearly $3 billion in annual economic output, according to estimates from the Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association.
Some community members and advocacy groups hoped air quality would improve after the coke plant was sold. Nippon Steel has pledged to upgrade facilities in the Monongahela River Valley.
Politics, waivers, and environmental concerns
Under the Biden-era rule, coke plants were supposed to start meeting new limits on leaks from the lids and doors of ovens that heat coal. They would also have had to monitor for benzene at their property lines and take steps to lower emissions of the carcinogen if they exceeded certain levels. Compliance deadlines were set for July 2025.
The Trump administration, which has sought to revive the coal industry, intervened. Last year, it invited hundreds of industrial plants, including coke plants such as Clairton’s, to seek presidential waivers from nine separate rules issued in 2024 by the EPA.
Then Mr. Trump in November went further, granting all coke plants a two-year compliance break.
The reprieve was necessary, the EPA spokesperson Hirsch said, because the requirements would have meant extra costs for the industry when standards already in effect work “extremely well” at reducing pollution.
Bulldozers move coal near the Clairton Coke Works facility on Sept. 9, 2024. Justin Merriman / Bloomberg via Getty Images
Hirsch also said the agency under Mr. Trump is protecting the environment, pointing to action the administration has taken to reduce long-lasting chemicals called PFAS, prevent lead poisoning, strengthen chemical safety, and protect Americans’ food and water supply.
“We are building a future where the next generation of Americans is the healthiest in our nation’s history, and they inherit the cleanest air, land and water in the world,” Hirsch said.
However, the administration has taken several steps that environmental advocates say weaken health protections.
The president issued an executive order to promote glyphosate, a herbicide the World Health Organization has linked to cancer, which touched off a furor among MAHA enthusiasts who said they felt betrayed. The EPA has decided to stop considering the health-related economic benefits of reducing pollution when making policy decisions, instead focusing on the cost to industry of complying with rules. The agency also rescinded the legal and scientific basis that had long established greenhouse gases as dangerous to public health.
The actions have rankled some MAHA enthusiasts who counted on the administration to tackle chronic disease, especially among children. A petition to Mr. Trump on Change.org with more than 15,000 signatures called for the removal of EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, citing deregulatory actions it said supported corporations over MAHA goals.
Some MAHA enthusiasts have sounded off on social media.
“No one should believe that MAHA is being upheld at the EPA at this point,” Kelly Ryerson, a leader of American Regeneration, which focuses on a conservation approach to farming, said Feb. 8 on X.
Alex Clark, host of a health and wellness podcast, also aired her concerns on X, saying “there is something really freaking spooky going on at the EPA and I refuse to let the American people be gaslit into thinking they’re upholding the MAHA agenda.”
“A significant number of people who supported Trump are worried these rollbacks are going to hurt their health,” said Max Burns, a Democratic strategist and the founder of the communications firm Third Degree Strategies. “The MAHA voters, especially women, are very sensitive to this. Republicans have put themselves in a bind.”
MAHA supporters shouldn’t be surprised by a Trump administration that doesn’t prioritize environmental protections over industry, because the president has always championed fossil fuels, said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a nonpartisan election forecasting newsletter published by the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
“If they believe that, they were probably delusional,” he said. “Trump is a genius, especially when out of office, for allowing people to project what they want onto him, because he is so scattershot himself in his public statements.”
Clairton Coke Works on Dec. 17, 2024. Photo by Quinn Glabicki/The Washington Post via Getty Images
The coke plant exemptions have disappointed some community members, environmental groups, and regulators concerned about public health and emissions.
Nearly 300,000 people live within three miles of the 11 active coke plants across the U.S., according to EPA data compiled by the Environmental Defense Fund.
Weakening environmental rules has helped boost Mr. Trump with the $91 billion U.S. coal industry. In February, mining industry executives and lobbyists gathered at the White House, greeting Mr. Trump with applause.
Coal miners, including some in white hard hats bedecked with American flags, presented him with a bronze-colored trophy emblazoned “The Undisputed Champion of Beautiful Clean Coal.”
At the event, Mr. Trump praised their work. “We love clean, beautiful coal,” he said.
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism.