Last August, the soot fetishists in the Trump administration released a proposal to prop up dying coal plants by giving states free rein to come up with their own rules, or let them petition to opt out of profit-killing regulations altogether. Among the many problems with Donald Trump’s “Affordable Clean Energy rule”? Technical analysis from his own Environmental Protection Agency showed that whereas Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan was expected to prevent between 1,500 and 3,600 premature deaths annually by 2030, Trump’s replacement would cause as many as 1,400 premature deaths (just in America) each year. To many people, that seemed like a lot! So the administration has come up with a new tactic to get the nation on board. No, it’s not to keep Obama’s plan in place or to actually make sources of human-killing dirty energy comply with any sort of legitimate oversight. Instead, it’s to ignore science to get those pesky predicted deaths out of future disclosures.

The New York Times reports that the E.P.A. plans to “get thousands of deaths off the books,” not by doing anything to actually prevent those deaths, but by altering “the way it calculates the health risks of air pollution,” which would “make it easier to roll back a key climate-change rule.” (According to reporter Lisa Friedman, “The E.P.A. . . . is normally expected to demonstrate that society will see more benefits than costs” from a rule change, and apparently some people don’t get that killing off four figures’ worth of Americans per annum is a worthy trade-off for increased corporate profits.) Naturally, experts say the new modeling method is “not scientifically sound,” a situation that obviously poses no concern for this White House:

The proposed shift is the latest example of the Trump administration downgrading the estimates of environmental harm from pollution in regulations. In this case, the proposed methodology would assume there is little or no health benefit to making the air any cleaner than what the law requires. . . . in the real world, there are no safe levels of the fine particulate pollution associated with the burning of fossil fuels.

Fine particulate matter—the tiny, deadly particles that can penetrate deep into the lungs and enter the bloodstream—is linked to heart attacks, strokes, and respiratory disease.

The five people familiar with the plan, all current or former E.P.A. officials, said the new modeling method would appear in the agency’s analysis of the final version of the replacement regulation . . . which is expected to be made public in June.

Jonathan M. Samet, the dean of the Colorado School of Public Health, said that the most recent studies show negative health effects far below the 12-microgram safety threshold set by the E.P.A. “It’s not a hard stop where we can say ‘below that, air is safe.’ That would not be supported by the scientific evidence,” Samet told the Times. Richard L. Revesz, an expert in environmental law at New York University, added, “Particulate matter is extremely harmful and it leads to a large number of premature deaths,” calling the expected change a “monumental departure” with “significant impact” that would likely lay the groundwork for gutting more environmental regulations in the future. William L. Wehrum—who, it will surely surprise you to hear, worked as a lobbyist and lawyer for chemical manufacturers and fossil-fuel businesses before joining the E.P.A.—would just as soon take his industry cronies’ word for it:

. . . fossil-fuel advocates ask, why should the E.P.A. search for health dangers, and, ultimately, impose costs on industry, in situations where air is officially considered safe? Wehrum, who worked as a lawyer and lobbyist for chemical manufacturers and fossil-fuel businesses before moving to the E.P.A., echoed that position in two interviews. He noted that, in some regulations, the benefits of reduced particulate matter have been estimated to total in the range of $40 billion.

“How in the world can you get $30 or $40 billion of benefit to public health when most of that is attributable to reductions in areas that already meet a health-based standard,” he said. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

Actual scientists say it makes total sense, noting that standards for particulate matter are a lot like speed limits; while 65 miles per hour is typically “considered reasonable” to prevent deaths, it doesn’t mean that an accident couldn’t happen at lower speeds. There are reasons not to force people to drive at 20 or 25 miles per hour on the highway, and most people accept the risk of driving at 65. In this case, however, the administration is in the uncomfortable position of arguing that the risk here—1,400 people dying every year—is worth it, purely to allow the fossil-fuel industry to make some extra cash. Even someone as dumb as Trump knows that’s a hard sell.

If you would like to receive the Levin Report in your inbox daily, click here to subscribe.

Cheating on your taxes?

If you’re among the ultra-rich, you’re probably in the clear!

The Internal Revenue Service audited just 0.59 percent of individual tax returns last year, marking the seventh consecutive annual decline as the tax agency copes with smaller budgets and fewer workers. . . . Audits of the highest-income households dropped sharply, to their lowest levels since the I.R.S. began reporting that data in 2008. In fiscal 2018, the I.R.S. audited 6.66 percent of returns of filers with more than $10 million in adjusted gross income, down from 14.52 percent in 2017. Among households with income between $1 million and $5 million, the audit rate dropped from 3.52 percent to 2.21 percent.

Last year, an investigation by ProPublica revealed that a person making $20,000 a year and claiming the earned-income tax credit was much more likely to be audited than someone making 20 times that amount. So if you’re dodging taxes and are a cartoon villain who hates the poor, this is doubly good news.

How’s Trump’s trade war going?

Well, on Monday, more than 170 retailers, including Adidas and Nike, signed a letter begging him not to impose a threatened 25 percent tariff on footwear that could cost consumers an estimated $7 billion a year. Also on Monday, Morgan Stanley predicted that no trade deal plus further tariffs, which Trump is considering, could cause a global recession. Meanwhile, China has indicated that it has no intention of backing down anytime soon:

China’s government looks to be settling in for a long trade war with the United States, with President Xi Jinping invoking one of the Communist Party’s most epic—and ultimately successful—battles. The Chinese leader, accompanied by his top trade negotiator, Vice Premier Liu He, on Monday placed a floral basket at a monument in Jiangxi province commemorating the start of the Long March in 1934. In the 4,000-mile, year-long trek, the Communists broke through Nationalist lines, eventually ousting them and installing Mao Zedong as leader of China.

Meanwhile, China’s main movie channel, CCTV-6, has scrapped its regular programming in favor of films about the Korean War, which ended in a draw after China intervened to push back the Americans. . . . The planned coverage of the Asian Film Awards was ditched Friday for the classic war movie Heroic Sons and Daughters, the story of Chinese “volunteer troops” who helped North Korea fight the Americans in the 1950s. Then, over the weekend, came three more movies about resisting the United States: Battle on Shangganling Mountain and Surprise Attack. Another classic, the 1960 film Guards on the Railway Line, about Chinese scouts rooting out spies who work for the Americans, was due to screen Monday night.

Oh, and a song about the trade war—an extremely niche genre—has reportedly gone viral and includes the lyrics: “If the perpetrator wants to fight, we will beat him out of his wits.” So you might say Trump’s trade war isn’t going great!

The White House would really prefer that a witness to Trump’s attempts to obstruct justice not speak with House Democrats

It’s almost as though the administration has something to hide:

Trump on Monday directed former White House counsel Donald F. McGahn II to defy a congressional subpoena and skip a hearing scheduled for Tuesday, “denying House Democrats testimony one of the most important eyewitnesses to Trump’s attempts to obstruct the Russia investigation.”

Since last month’s release of the 448-page redacted report by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, Democrats have sought for Mr. McGahn to publicly give his account of Mr. Trump’s attempts to thwart investigators. . . . Democrats hoped that hearing directly from Mr. McGahn in a televised hearing would help galvanize public opposition to Mr. Trump.

Mueller cited McGahn more than any other witness in his report on whether the president obstructed justice. In interviews with the special counsel’s investigators, McGahn detailed several episodes including an effort to oust Mueller—that showed the president intent on using his position atop the executive branch to protect himself from the Russia inquiry.

During his own testimony, Attorney General William Barr claimed it was “not a crime” for the president to instruct McGahn to lie to investigators about Trump’s attempt to fire Mueller, a legal opinion many have taken issue with.

Elsewhere!

U.S. Supreme Court Rejects Bid to Let Businesses Donate to Candidates (Bloomberg)

Tesla’s stock tanks after analyst blasts Musk’s “sci-fi projects” (N.Y.P.)

Trump’s would-be immigration czar wants “access to a government jet 24 hours a day,” among other demands (N.Y.T.)

“What are we celebrating? The loss of billions of dollars in value?” the person asked. (The Washington Post)

Seeing a twisting road ahead, Ford cuts 7K white-collar jobs (Associated Press)

How Tariffs Could Make It Harder to Renovate Your Home (W.S.J.)

Nigel Farage blames Remainers after milkshake attack (Politico)

What happened to all of Trump’s “infrastructure weeks”? Trump happened. (The Washington Post)

Original Spice Girls bus converted into Airbnb rental (U.P.I.)

— Visit our brand-new, searchable digital archive now!

— How Beto O’Rourke lost his narrative

— Wall Street’s dangerous new addiction

— Can Kamala Harris catch fire?

— Is Uber’s the biggest I.P.O. flop in history?

— From the archives: Sixteen words that changed the world

Looking for more? Sign up for our daily Hive newsletter and never miss a story.