WASHINGTON — Ten days after President Donald Trump signed executive orders to boost the coal industry, the president on Friday exempted dozens of coal-powered electricity plants from a recently updated environmental standards to reduce mercury emissions.
In a proclamation, Trump said, "Forcing energy producers to comply with unattainable emissions controls" jeopardizes the federal government’s role in ensuring a secure and reliable power supply.
In 2024, the Environmental Protection Agency updated the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards that first took effect in 2015 as part of the Clean Air Act to regulate hazardous air pollutants from coal-powered electricity plants. On Friday, Trump said the updated standards place “severe burdens on coal-fired power plants and, through its indirect effects, on the viability of our nation’s coal sector.”
Saying commercially available emissions-control technologies to meet the new standards do not yet exist and would also increase the risk of coal-powered plants shutting down, Trump’s proclamation extends the compliance timeline to 2030. Under the recently updated standard, the plants were supposed to comply with the new standards by July 2027.
Trump’s proclamation exempts 68 of the country’s more than 200 coal-fired power plants from the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards.
According to the EPA, mercury emissions dropped 86% and non-mercury metal emissions fell 81% by 2017 after the rule was implemented. On its website, the EPA says mercury exposure can cause irreversible toxic effects in developing fetuses and young children. It also harms wildlife and ecosystems.
Mercury that is emitted into the air settles into water or onto land, where it can be washed into water, the EPA says. It can then be ingested by fish, shellfish and animals that eat fish. The agency says most exposure to mercury in humans is from eating contaminated fish and shellfish.
“By exempting the dirtiest power plants out there, Trump has robbed millions of Americans of a healthy future,” Sierra Club Chief Program Officer Holly Bender said in response to the relaxed rules.
“This is a direct attack on the health of our communities and our loved ones,” she said. “This move is a blatant disregard for public health as we turn an eye toward the worst types of air pollution that poisons our air and water with chemicals that cause more asthma attacks, more heart attacks, more premature deaths.”
The Sierra Club said the updated standards were expected to prevent 11,000 premature deaths, 4,700 heart attacks and 130,000 asthma attacks if all coal plants were in compliance.
