Earlier this month, the Trump administration granted dozens of coal-fired power plants exemptions from new regulations for mercury and other air pollutants.
Trump signed the exemptions for the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) on April 8 via a proclamation, which called coal “essential to ensuring that our Nation’s grid is reliable and that electricity is affordable for the American people, and to promoting our Nation’s energy security.”
The exempted plants include Keystone and Conemaugh power plants in Armstrong and Indiana counties in Western Pennsylvania, as well as several smaller waste coal plants, including Scrubgrass Generating Plant in Venango County, which burns waste coal to mine cryptocurrency. The exemptions also include Fort Martin, Harrison, and Mount Storm power plants in West Virginia, as well as Cardinal and Miami Fort power plants in Ohio.
The order gives plants a two-year reprieve from meeting the new standards, which were set to go into force in 2027. The administration can renew the extensions at a later date.
The move was criticized by environmental groups.
“This is just one piece of what I consider an all-out assault on environmental and public health safeguards by this administration,” said Thomas Schuster, director of the Sierra Club’s Pennsylvania Chapter.
The standards were finalized in July 2024 under the Biden administration and designed to limit the spread of the neurotoxin mercury and other hazardous air pollutants.
The EPA estimated the updated standards would prevent 9,500 pounds of mercury from being emitted into the air between 2028 and 2037.
Mercury is particularly harmful to infants and young children. Prenatal exposure to mercury through a pregnant mother’s food “has been associated with developmental neurotoxicity and manifests as poor performance on neurobehavioral tests, particularly on tests of attention, fine motor function, language, verbal memory, and visual-spatial ability” among children, according to the EPA.
Under the Clean Air Act, the president can exempt a source of pollution for two years if “the technology to implement such standard is not available and that it is in the national security interests.”
Trump’s exemption order states that the MATS rules call on coal plants to implement “emissions-control technologies that do not yet exist in a commercially viable form.”
Joe Goffman, assistant administrator at the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation under Biden, disagreed with that assessment.
“The [EPA] went through with lots of public input and input from the industry in order to answer the question whether technology was available,” Goffman said. “And the agency came to the conclusion (that) the technology was available.”
The technology was already in use with other plants around the country, he said, including scrubbers and other devices to reduce mercury emissions, as well as continuous emissions monitoring devices.
Biden administration sought to limit mercury pollution
The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards rule was first enacted in 2012. According to the EPA, the rule reduced mercury pollution from the electric power industry by 90 percent.
“It was a huge public health victory,” Schuster said. “Even with that, coal-fired power plants are still the largest source of mercury pollution.”
So last year, the agency strengthened the rule and mandated that all plants install continuous air monitoring on their stacks.
Those actions were opposed by the coal industry, which challenged them in court. For starters, the industry objected to the pricetag for compliance, which the EPA estimated could add up to $860 million.
Rachel Gleason, executive director of the Pennsylvania Coal Alliance, pointed out that the rule’s complicated legal history adds to the uncertainty of whether the new standards would ever be enforced. In 2015, the Supreme Court determined the EPA should have considered costs when crafting the rule. After the EPA recalculated those costs, the Supreme Court upheld the rule the following year.
But the recent update to the rule is in jeopardy. In March, it was included in a list of regulations EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin promised to unwind, among other moves designed to boost coal. Earlier this month, Trump signed an executive order mandating several federal agencies “identify any guidance, regulations, programs, and policies … that seek to transition the Nation away from coal production and electricity generation.”
Given the rule’s history, “the estimated $860 million in required upgrades is a significant, excessive and unjustified expense,” Gleason said, in an email.
PJM supported exemptions
The Trump exemptions were also supported by PJM Interconnection, the grid operator in the mid-Atlantic region. The organization says it needs all the power it can get for an oncoming rise in demand.
“This growth is largely driven by the increase in data center demand to meet artificial intelligence and related needs, and the on-shoring of existing industries,” the organization said, in a letter to the White House in support of the exemptions.
In March, PJM CEO Manu Asthana told a congressional subcommittee he foresaw trouble fulfilling demand, especially given the large number of coal plants that have planned to retire in the next few years.
“Electrical demand is growing, driven primarily by data center load growth,” Asthana said. “Less supply, more demand. It adds up to increased reliability risks and price increases.”
But Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Acting Secretary Jessica Shirley said what PJM is suggesting – foregoing clean air regulations to keep coal plants open – is misguided. She says other sources of energy, like natural gas and renewables, don’t need these types of exemptions.
“When you’re talking about mercury and air toxics, I don’t know that we want to exempt anyone from that. I mean, we live here, right? People live here,” Shirley said. “[Those regulations] are intended to be protective of public health, and we can’t lose sight of that. You can’t trade one emergency for another.”
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