The official national strategic document on page 36 is marked by the president and involves 10 agencies from across the federal government.
It is not a government policy regarding tariffs or border security. It is President Trump's master plan to eradicate paper straws and restore plastic.
“My administration is committed,” the document declares, “removes us the confusion that sucks us out, that many of our citizens suffer every time we drink through paper straw.”
Critics say it's a shot from a culture war, whether it's paper straw, wind turbines, or low-flow showerheads, another example of Trump's whims and mischievous administration's accidental policy.
But there's a twist. It complicates another, bigger public health question in its willingness to roll back regulations in its administration.
In an attack on paper straws, this document devotes eight robust pages to highlight health and environmental hazards. In particular, the dangers of PFA, a class of thousands of synthetic chemicals used to make paper straws and other everyday products resistant, are linked to serious health issues, and point out that they are manifested in tap waters around the country.
Last year, the Biden administration set strict new federal standards to tighten restrictions on PFA, also known as “eternal chemicals.” as it doesn't easily break down in the environment. But industry and utility groups sued, calling the standards “unachievable” and “funny” and urged the Trump administration to revert them.
It is unclear whether the Environmental Protection Agency leader Lee Zeldin will be mandatory. The administration will decide in court whether to continue to adhere to standards, facing the May 12 deadline.
“Are Zeldin going to roll back the PFAS drinking water standards when there is this anti-PFA screed from the White House?” said Matthew Tehada, head of environmental health policy at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “If the White House is worried about Straw's PFA, can Zeldin pretend that he has no issues with his drinking water?”
Under Zeldin, the agency has begun pushing for deregulation and targeting the removal of dozens of environmental regulations limiting toxic pollution. And he met the rank of institutional leadership as an industry lobbyist and lawyer who opposed environmental regulations.
During a news briefing with a reporter on Monday, Zeldin said the science regarding the PFA “is not declared settled.”
“We've found some of the questions related to PFA, but the research is important to continue,” Zeldin said. And he said regulations should be based on “less assumptions and more facts.”
But Trump's paper-stripping strategy document is more explicit about chemicals.
“Scientists and regulators have been very concerned about PFAS chemicals for decades,” says a White House paper. “PFA is harmful to human health and is associated with harms affecting reproductive health, developmental delays in children, cancer, hormonal imbalances, obesity, and other dangerous health conditions.”
This week, the White House repeated these warnings. “Paper straws contain dangerous PFAS chemicals — “Eternal chemicals” are permeating water supplies in relation to serious long-term health conditions,” the administration said in a Earth Day statement on Monday.
Another wildcard is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary to the Department of Health and Human Services, working on Wednesday's forum on the health and environmental impact of plastics, listing PFA among the chemicals Kennedy hoped to remove from the food system. “We have good reason to remove the entire chemical category in our food and believe it is harmful to human health,” he said.
Both the White House and the EPA said there was no gap between their approach to PFA.
“President Trump and Zeldin are taking locksteps to remove harmful toxins from the environment,” said White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers. “The Trump administration, including Zeldin, has revealed that PFA is harmful to human health. Further research into the risks of PFA is important for us to make America healthy again.”
EPA spokesperson Molly Vaseliou declined to comment specifically on whether the agency would attempt to roll back the PFAS drinking water standards, but she pointed to Zeldin's long experience with the PFAS issue.
Before joining the Trump administration, Zeldin served four terms as a Long Island lawmaker. In 2020, he was one of 23 House Republicans and voted to pass the PFAS Act. This is a massive bill defended by Democrats that the Environmental Protection Agency will restrict chemicals in drinking water and retain polluters that cause cleansing.
“He is a solid advocate for protecting Long Islanders and all Americans from contaminated drinking water and remains,” Vaselio said.
Zeldin is right that more research is needed to identify the health effects of exposure to PFA. Yet, there is growing evidence of chemical harm, especially in the most studied type of PFA. Straw's White House Strategy lists evidence supported by the seven-page reference.
“The EPA conducted an analysis of current peer-reviewed scientific research and found that PFA exposure was related to health risks,” the document states.
This also includes lower birth rates, high blood pressure in pregnant women, low birth weight, accelerated adolescence, child behavioral changes, reduced immune system and increased cholesterol, according to the White House.
Plastics also contain harmful chemicals. Microplastics are everywhere, polluting ecosystems and can harm human health. Critics point out how the fossil fuel industry can help promote plastics, producing plastic components.
Still, Linda Billumbaum, a toxicologist and former director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, who has been warning PFAs for decades, agreed to aspects of the White House document. “Their statement of all these negative effects is well-based,” she said.
But if the Trump administration was concerned about the health effects of PFA, she said they should be concerned about the presence of chemicals around us, for example, in food and food packaging in drinking water. “Instead, they put all this effort into bringing people together around the straw,” she said.
The debate over plastic straws dates back to the mid-2010s, when it suddenly became a pariah due to its role in the explosive plastic waste crisis. Some cities and retailers have banned plastic straws, while some states have imposed restrictions. (Disabled rights groups have expressed concern about the ban, and some people are noting that they need straws to drink safely.)
Plastic diffusion alternatives: stainless steel or glass straws and lids with spouts. However, paper straws quickly became a major replacement. And in the same way, they were ridded because they tended to collapse into mushy chaos.
Around the same time, scientists began detecting PFA on various paper and plant-based straws, raising concerns that it was exposing people to harmful chemicals and yet another source of water contamination.
The president portrayed Biden-era measures as “paper straw mandate,” but these plans did not specifically require a switch to paper straw.
His dare to paper straw goes back many years. His campaign for the 2020 election sold a pack of 10 branded plastic straws for $15.
In his grand strategy, Trump orders federal agencies to “be creative and use all available policy levers to end the use of paper straws across the country.” Furthermore, “Taxpayer dollars should never be wasted, so federal contracts and grants should not fund paper straws or support entities that ban plastic straws.”
Marine conservation biologist (10 years ago, he posted a viral video of a sea turtle filled with plastic straw) said that a paper packed with holes to plastic ignores all the simplest solutions.
She said straws have become “a symbol of everything unnecessary used in society as determined by convenience.” “Why is America so obsessed with straws? Most people don't need them.”
Lisa Friedman Reports of contributions.
