IN YOUR BACKYARD: The People vs. Dirty Air (ft. Rep. Ro Khanna)

October 2, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

In Pittsburgh in the 1970s, a local TV weatherman named Joe DiNardo would give the pollution index every morning alongside the forecast. If the air was bad enough, kids with asthma—like a young girl named Kathy Lucas—would walk to school with a bandana tied around their faces. It was a thin defense against the glittery sidewalks of Homestead, where the sparkle came from heavy metals settling out of the air from the steel mills. Decades later, in 2022, Kathy was diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension. Old blood clots and scar tissue had clogged her lungs, requiring open-heart surgery to dig them out. Now she has right-side heart failure, takes four prescription drugs that cost between $20,000 and $50,000 each per month, and checks the air quality index every morning before deciding whether she can walk her border collie-lab mix or needs to stay inside with an N95 mask.

This episode of In Your Backyard follows host Luke Radel to two communities—outside Pittsburgh and in southeast Michigan—where the Trump administration's rollback of air pollution protections is not an abstraction. It is the difference between a child breathing and not breathing.

The cost of rolling back protections

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What you'll learn

1 (00:00) **Episode & Series Introduction** - Host Luke Radel sets up the topic: the Trump administration's rollback of air pollution protections and the real-world impact on communities.
2 (06:07) **Voices from the Backyard: Kathy Lucas (Pittsburgh, PA)** - Luke introduces Kathy Lucas, who has managed a respiratory illness her entire life in a region shaped by heavy industry.
3 (11:22) **Kathy Lucas: The Daily Fight for Breath** - Kathy explains how she manages her health in a world with increasingly poor air quality.
4 (15:52) **Kathy Lucas: The Cost of Deregulation** - Kathy connects the Trump administration's environmental rollbacks to her personal financial and health crisis.
5 (19:11) **Voices from the Backyard: Elizabeth Hopman (Michigan)** - Luke introduces Elizabeth Hopman, a mother whose son's asthma has turned her into an environmental activist in Livingston County, Michigan.
6 (23:10) **Elizabeth Hopman: The Human Cost of Coal** - Elizabeth details the specific impacts of a coal plant in her community and the personal toll on her family.
7 (28:18) **Elizabeth Hopman: Choosing Between Health and Childhood** - Elizabeth describes the painful calculus her family must make daily due to poor air quality.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Guests on this episode

Ro Khanna

Show Notes

Polluters have less to worry about in the second term of the Trump administration.

The Environmental Protection Agency recently lifted carbon emissions limits on coal-fired power plants. And that’s just the latest in a series of dozens of policy shifts tearing down protections against air pollution.

Earlier this year, the administration reversed the landmark Endangerment Finding, the core tenant of the Clean Air Act and so many more pollution protections. Without it, the federal government is no longer obligated to combat the air pollution fueling the climate crisis and causing critical health concerns. If that weren’t enough, it’s now federal government policy to only consider effects on industry when setting pollution policy. The value of our health and lives is not part of the equation anymore when it comes to setting pollution standards.

The impacts on actual human lives, however, are enormous, with health impacts ranging from asthma to cancer and heart disease. Luke talked to two people who think about harmful air every day. One Pennsylvania resident confronts significant health challenges that keep her on a knife’s edge when she does daily checks for air quality. And a mother of a child with asthma in Michigan has to map out the nearest hospital any time her son joins outdoor activities.

How has dirty air impacted you in your backyard? What else has been changing how you’re living your daily life lately? We want to know as we shape the next installments of the show.