Trump eases industrial pollution limits

E&E News

6 days ago

President Donald Trump, putting White House muscle to work for polluting industries, on Thursday gave dozens of plants around the country more time to meet EPA regulations intended to cut emissions of air toxics tied to cancer and other serious health problems.
In a series of four 'proclamations' released late in the day, Trump tapped a rarely used provision in the Clean Air Act to grant two-year compliance extensions to 53 chemical plants and refineries, 39 medical sterilization facilities, eight mills that process the low-grade iron ore known as taconite, and three coal-fired power plants.
All are subject to strengthened hazardous air pollutant rules issued last year during then-President Joe Biden's administration. While the rules contain a variety of deadlines, the extensions will broadly push back the cutoffs to meet key requirements from 2027 to 2029.
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Corporations benefiting from the delays include Shell, Sterigenics, Dow and other heavyweights.
While not all plants covered by the tighter regulations sought delays, previous EPA forecasts suggest that the extensions will save industry collectively millions of dollars while allowing the release of hundreds of tons more pollution than would have otherwise occurred.
EPA meanwhile plans to revisit — and possibly repeal — each of the rules under what Administrator Lee Zeldin has billed the biggest deregulatory action in U.S. history.
The White House in a statement said the exemptions show the president is delivering for the American public.
'The American people elected President Trump to unleash American energy and lower prices, not to entertain the left's radical climate agenda,' said White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers. 'Yesterday's proclamations will provide temporary regulatory relief from stringent Biden-era regulations that impacted sectors critical to our national security.'
The Clean Air Act allows the postponements if the president finds that they would both benefit national security and that the needed pollution control technology is not available. The White House in a fact sheet maintained that's indeed the case.
'The exemptions ensure that these facilities within these critical industries can continue to operate uninterrupted to support national security without incurring substantial costs to comply with, in some cases, unattainable compliance requirements,' White House officials wrote.
EPA concurred that the president is authorized under the Clean Air Act to take action.
'Decisions to grant compliance extensions is an authority that rests with the President,' said Molly Vaseliou, a spokesperson for the agency.
Yet environmental groups are already suing to overturn extensions granted to 68 coal-fired power plants in April. In statements assailing the program's expansion, they accused Trump of opening the spigot for cancer-causing pollution and vowed to contest the newly announced rollbacks.
'Trump is illegally delaying clean air laws from his desk because polluters make more money when they just dump their toxic chemicals in our air,' said Patrice Simms, vice president of litigation at Earthjustice's Healthy Communities program. 'Trump's action on behalf of big corporate polluters will cause more cancer, more birth defects, and more children to suffer asthma. The country deserves better.'
Vickie Patton, the Environmental Defense Fund's general counsel, said Trump's 'callous and dangerous actions would let some of the country's worst industrial polluters evade compliance with the safeguards that protect Americans from toxic air pollution' and 'increase cancer risk and mean more suffering for people — children and adults — in communities across the country.'
Patrick Drupp, the Sierra Club's climate policy director, said the White House move shows Trump is putting profit over public health. 'It is disgusting that Donald Trump and Lee Zeldin are continuing to hand out exemption after exemption from standards that would save lives and prevent illnesses,' said Drupp. 'We have already taken action on their treacherous and dangerous actions and we will continue to push back against this disgraceful administration.'
The delays also threaten a key part of Biden's environmental legacy. The regulations for medical sterilization plants, many of them located in residential neighborhoods or near schools, were expected to cut emissions of highly carcinogenic ethylene oxide by more than 90 percent.
But on Thursday, Trump wrote that the current compliance timetable would likely force some sterilization facilities to close, thus making 'critical sterile medical devices unavailable to care for patients in our civilian and military medical systems.'
He took a similar stance in granting waivers to the 53 chemical plants and refineries encompassed by a separate set of rules targeting their emissions of ethylene oxide and chloroprene, which EPA considers a likely carcinogen. Those rules were central to Biden's efforts to reduce disproportionately high pollution exposure in communities of color and low-income areas, such as the Louisiana tract often known as 'Cancer Alley.'
In another proclamation, however, Trump warned that the technological requirements embedded in the regulations would weaken supply chains and increase dependence on foreign producers.
'These consequences would ripple across sectors vital to America's growing industrial strength and emergency readiness,' the proclamation says.
The Ethylene Oxide Sterilization Association did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the American Chemistry Council in a release applauded the exemptions and reiterated that the Biden-era rule was costly and risked potential shutdowns with unworkable compliance deadlines.
'Without relief from these unworkable timelines, the HON rule jeopardizes the production of essential chemistries that are crucial for our national security interests, including public health and economic security, as they are used for countless everyday products and critical industries such as agriculture, healthcare, semiconductor manufacturing, and more,' the council wrote.
You've got mail
EPA opened the door to companies seeking extensions in March, inviting companies to shoot the agency an email should they want exemptions to a host of Clean Air Act rules. Since then, the process has been enveloped in secrecy, with the public given no opportunity to comment before the compliance delays were announced.
The agency has thus far not responded to Freedom of Information Act requests seeking the names of applicants. It is unclear how EPA vetted requests to ensure they meet the Clean Air Act's criteria.
Trump's announcement Thursday directly benefited companies tied to making steel and producing power from coal by easing pollution controls.
One proclamation the president signed exempted eight additional facilities that use taconite — a low-grade iron ore used in steelmaking — from a 2024 Biden-era rule aimed at reducing mercury pollution. Mercury is a neurotoxin that can accumulate in fish and harm human health, particularly affecting developing brains and nervous systems.
The White House in a fact sheet argued that the so-called Taconite Rule requires compliance with standards that rely on emissions-control technologies that haven't been demonstrated to work, are untested at commercial scale or are not 'reasonably achievable under current operational conditions.'
The White House also warned that enforcing the rule could force some facilities to shut down, reduce domestic production and threaten national security.
Now, eight taconite iron ore processing plants in Michigan and Minnesota under the umbrella of Cleveland-Cliffs and U.S. Steel are exempt from the rule for an additional two years.
Andrew Fulton, a spokesperson for U.S. Steel, welcomed the proclamation in an email and said such action directly protects national security, domestic steelmaking and U.S. workers.
'The 2024 Taconite Rule is not supported by science and would impose unprecedented costs while setting technologically unachievable standards,' said Fulton. 'This Presidential exemption is fair, reasonable and necessary. U. S. Steel remains committed to environmental excellence and safety, and we will work collaboratively with the EPA in support of regulations based on sound science and proven technology.'
Cleveland-Cliffis did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Yet another directive added three coal-fired power plants in Ohio, Illinois and Colorado to the 68 facilities exempt from stricter Mercury and Air Toxics Standards regulations.
In issuing the proclamation, Trump argued that the rule 'requires compliance with standards premised on the application of emissions-control technologies that do not yet exist in a commercially viable form.'
But environmental groups that sued the administration for exempting scores of coal plants from the MATS regulation in June argued that not only was the technology available, but companies were already moving to install it.
'Many of the exempted power plants have already installed and are actively using the technology sufficient to meet the targeted mercury and other toxic air pollution standards — technology that EPA itself determined was available in a final rule issued just over a year ago, based on an ample record developed through public notice and comment,' wrote attorneys for Earthjustice.