MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Republican lawmakers in Alabama have passed new legislation that would significantly limit the state’s power to create environmental regulations beyond federal requirements, mirroring the deregulatory approach championed by President Donald Trump’s administration.
The Alabama Legislature voted Tuesday to approve the business-backed measure, which blocks state agencies from establishing pollution standards that surpass federal guidelines. When federal standards don’t exist, Alabama could only create new environmental rules by proving a “direct causal link” between harmful emissions and “manifest bodily harm” to people.
Advocates of the Alabama bill argue it ensures regulations are based on “sound science” and prevents government overreach. However, environmental advocates warn the legislation will severely handicap the state’s capacity to address environmental and public health threats, including PFAS contamination — commonly called forever chemicals — that has affected large portions of the South.
Sarah Stokes, a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, described the bill as creating an “impossible hurdle” for state environmental protections because it specifies that simply showing an “increased risk of disease” isn’t sufficient to prove harm to people.
“It’s a blank check to businesses. We’re basically sacrificing human health for businesses,” Stokes stated. “That doesn’t seem like the best calculation for our citizens.”
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and various business organizations endorsed the legislation. Republican Sen. Donnie Chesteen, who sponsored the bill, described it as “pro-business” legislation during committee hearings this month.
“If we’re going to be able to compete with states in the Southeast to attract and bring some of these businesses in, then we need to have these standards adopted so that it’s clearly defined what our companies are working with,” Chesteen explained. Supporters also pointed to the measure as aligned with Trump’s deregulatory policies.
“This does not remove the use of sound science and legitimate science,” Republican Rep. Troy Stubbs stated during floor debate. “What it does is protect Alabama and the people of Alabama from runaway government that can become overly burdensome and regulatory to a point that it drives the cost of living way up.”
Stubbs argued the legislation wouldn’t weaken current regulations, claiming existing state environmental rules would remain unchanged. Environmental attorney Stokes, however, expressed worry that companies might use the new law to challenge current regulations.
This Alabama action represents part of a broader movement to constrain state environmental oversight. Indiana Gov. Mike Braun issued an executive order last year preventing Indiana from implementing environmental regulations stricter than federal ones without state law authorization or gubernatorial approval. Tennessee legislators passed similar legislation last year mandating that regulations exceeding federal standards demonstrate connections to “manifest bodily harm in humans.”
Stokes noted that Alabama’s proposal extends further than Tennessee’s law. Similar legislation has been proposed in Utah.
According to Stokes, the Alabama bill emerged after advocacy organizations convinced the Alabama Environmental Management Commission to consider updating state standards for arsenic, cyanide, and eleven other toxic substances.
Cara Horowitz, an environmental law professor and executive director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA School of Law, said the legislation would block state agencies from making “independent decisions about how much to protect public health from things like water pollution, air pollution, and toxics.”
“Alabama could adopt its own pollution standard only where the state’s rationale for doing so relies on a very particular kind of science,” Horowitz explained in an email. “Alabama could not rely, for example, on studies showing a correlation between pollution exposure and an increased risk of disease.”
The legislation also prohibits agencies from using the EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System as the primary foundation for water quality standards. This system evaluates health risks from environmental chemicals, but chemical industry lobbying groups have criticized it as excessively restrictive and scientifically questionable.
Alabama Democrats opposed the bill during two hours of debate before GOP legislators voted to halt discussion and force the vote.
Democratic Rep. Chris England argued the bill transforms Alabama citizens into experimental subjects. “We are a petri dish for businesses to do as they will until they kill people,” England declared.
Rep. Neil Rafferty, also a Democrat, said the bill is “defining sound science just to gut our ability to use it to drive science-based and data-driven policy.”
The state House of Representatives approved the measure 88-34, sending it to Republican Gov. Kay Ivey. Her office has not yet responded to requests for comment.
