Why do Louisiana U.S. Reps. Steve Scalise and Mike Johnson, two of the most powerful members of Congress, think your children should have a better chance of getting cancer, leukemia, suffering brain dysfunction and terrible lung diseases?

And why are they joined in this decision by their Louisiana colleagues in the House, Clay Higgins, Mike Johnson and Julia Letlow, as well as U.S. Sens. John Kennedy and Bill Cassidy?

Oh, and why do they also want your children and future Louisiana generations to continue to live in the country’s most polluted state with the third worst release of industrial toxins and associated health impacts — all of which help result in the fourth lowest life expectancy in the nation?

I ask this because why else would they have remained silent when President Donald Trump cheered a promised rollback of 31 regulations protecting families from these terrible outcomes — all so fossil fuel producers could make a little extra money?

This isn’t hyperbole from environmental extremists out to kill industry. These warnings are coming from leading medical authorities, including the American Lung Association.

Labeling Trump’s plan a “tragedy for health,” the lung association called the changes what they were, “a historic handout to polluters at the direct expense of the health of families across America.”

Well, Trump disagrees.

His EPA director, Lee Zeldin, wants to change that congressionally mandated mission to “relieve the economy of unnecessary bureaucratic burdens that drive up costs for American consumers. … to lower the cost of buying a car, heating a home and running a business … to rollback trillions in regulatory costs killing the energy industry.”

Of course, that is nonsense. When those Biden-era regulations were in effect, the United States began producing more oil and gas than any nation in history and is now the world’s leading exporter of gasoline.

• Rolling back of almost all regulations opposed by the petrochemical industries. These include spending money to reduce emissions of benzene, toluene, xylene and hexene, all known carcinogens; sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, linked to respiratory problems like asthma; and heavy metals like mercury, nickel and cadmium, which can cause neurological and developmental problems as well as cancer.
• Reducing or killing the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards on coal-powered plants. Mercury, a known neurotoxin, is one of the most dangerous pollutants, with even small amounts linked to serious health problems in the nervous, digestive and immune systems, and on lungs, kidneys, skin and eyes and development of children in utero.
• Closing the EPA Office of Research and Development, which studies environmental hazards, so you won’t know just how bad things are, and what new threats are being caused by the polluters.
• Eliminating the 2009 Endangerment Finding, which used science and measurements to prove carbon dioxide was a pollutant causing serious health impacts, and was a key to justifying regulations reducing emissions, driving climate change.
• Rolling back the Particulate Matter National Ambient Air Quality Standards and National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants for American energy and manufacturing sectors, both of which help reduce premature death, heart attacks, irregular heartbeat, aggravated asthma, decreased lung function and increased respiratory symptoms like coughing and difficulty breathing.

It never once mentions the expected increase in your medical costs or the extra suffering and likely shorter life spans for your children.

If you live in Louisiana, you might want to ask your representatives in Congress why they think it’s a good idea for your kids to have better chances of painful, life-shortening diseases — just to increase profits for wealthy industries.

Why else would they support these changes?