America’s air monitors are disappearing. So is your power to expose polluters.

Federal air monitoring has thinned out over decades even as wildfire smoke, data-center emissions, and heat-driven ozone push exposure higher, and the Trump administration has delayed rules meant to hold emitters accountable. A Floodlight investigation finds that of 100 major industrial polluters examined in Kentucky, Louisiana, Ohio, and West Virginia, 71 emit their top chemical without any government monitor in the state capable of detecting it. Nearly six in ten U.S. counties have no public air monitor at all.

As residents turned to low-cost community sensors to fill the gap, chemical and manufacturing trade groups backed nearly identical bills in Louisiana, Ohio, and Kentucky barring regulators from using that data in enforcement unless it meets EPA-approved standards, equipment that often costs tens of thousands of dollars. When West Virginia lawmakers proposed a version meant to guarantee accuracy, an internal Chemours email complained it 'essentially codifies what we are trying to prevent.' Louisiana also canceled a $500,000 grant that would have funded monitors in 27 pollution hot spots, after only four were installed.

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