THE ROLLBACK
Every protection you thought you had.
Sources: Federal Register · EPA Records · DOL Records · DOJ Records · Congressional Budget Office · Bureau of Labor Statistics · GAO Reports
The cost of regulation is measured in dollars. The cost of deregulation is measured in lives.— David Michaels — Former OSHA Administrator, Author of 'The Triumph of Doubt'
Between January 2025 and early 2026, the Trump administration rolled back, weakened, delayed, or killed more than 145 federal regulations, protections, and enforcement actions across every area of American life. Clean air. Clean water. Workplace safety. Overtime pay. Civil rights. Food assistance. Gun safety. Disability access. Consumer protection.
These are not abstract policy changes. They are the rules that kept arsenic out of your drinking water, required your employer to pay you overtime, protected your child from lead poisoning, gave you recourse when you were discriminated against, and ensured the food on your table was safe.
Every rollback has a beneficiary. Chemical companies avoid billions in cleanup costs. Employers extract more labor for less pay. Corporations escape discrimination liability. Gun manufacturers sell untraceable weapons. The pattern is consistent: the costs are socialized onto workers, families, and communities, while the profits are privatized to corporations and donors.
The Anatomy of
a Rollback
Every rollback follows the same playbook. Understanding the pattern makes the individual stories impossible to dismiss as coincidence.
You can't enforce rules with no one left to enforce them.
No rule means no violation — and no accountability.
What isn't counted doesn't count.
The building is there. The mission is gone.
What's
Being Lost
Former regulators, scientists, and enforcement officials on what these rollbacks mean.
We went from being able to inspect every workplace in America once every 186 years to something even worse. And then they killed the heat rule. Workers will die because of this.
The Civil Rights Division was established in 1957. It survived Nixon, Reagan, both Bushes. It took this administration 14 months to destroy it.
There is no safe level of lead exposure for children. Every year of delay is another year of irreversible brain damage. The science is not ambiguous.
Choose a
Section
Each section documents what was rolled back, who it affects, and who benefits — with the specific regulations, the dollar figures, and the enforcement data.
Workers pay with their health. Families pay with their water. Communities pay with their safety. Corporations pay nothing. Every rollback follows the same pattern — and it's all documented here.