The 36-page official national strategy document bears the presidential seal and involves 10 agencies from across the federal government.
It isn’t the government’s policy on tariffs or border security. It’s President Trump’s master plan to eradicate paper straws and bring back plastic.
“My Administration is committed,” the document declares, to “ridding us of the pulpy, soggy mess that torments too many of our citizens whenever they drink through a paper straw.”
It’s a shot in the culture wars, critics say, and another example of the haphazard policies of an administration guided by Mr. Trump’s whims and dislikes, whether for paper straws, wind turbines or low-flow shower heads.
But there’s a twist: It complicates another, bigger public health question in the administration’s drive to roll back regulations.
In its attack on paper straws, the document devotes a robust eight pages to highlighting their health and environmental dangers. It points out, in particular, the dangers of PFAS, a class of thousands of synthetic chemicals that are used to make paper straws and other everyday products water-resistant but are also linked to serious health problems and are turning up in tap water around the country.
The Biden administration set strict new federal standards last year that tightened restrictions on PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals” because they don’t break down easily in the environment. But industry and utility groups sued, calling the standards “unattainable” and “onerous,” and have urged the Trump administration to roll them back.
It’s unclear whether Lee Zeldin, who leads Environmental Protection Agency, will oblige. The administration faces a May 12 deadline to decide whether to continue to defend the standards in court.
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