Nearly All US Coal Power Plants Could Have Met Pollution Rules For Toxic Metals; Shitstain's EPA Cut Those Rules Anyway

[hatrack]

Almost all coal-fired power plants in the US had the ability to comply with rules limiting their emission of dangerous pollutants such as mercury that can cause brain damage in children. Despite this, Donald Trump’s administration decided to demolish the standards anyway. Last week, the Trump administration said it is loosening restrictions on air toxins from mercury, lead and other heavy metals that are released by coal plants. Such pollution is known to be neurotoxic and has been linked to irreversible brain damage in children and infants, as well as heart disease and cancer in adults.

Stricter limits were placed on mercury, lead and arsenic pollution in 2024 under Joe Biden’s administration, updating the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (Mats) first enacted in 2012, but have now been ditched by Trump. The pollution cuts “would have destroyed reliable American energy”, said Lee Zeldin, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

However, the EPA’s own previous analysis shows that only 27 coal plants across the US, out of around 219 total coal facilities, would have to adopt any sort of technological upgrade, such as filters in their smokestacks, to meet the stronger standards. This means that the safeguards have been entirely reversed by the Trump administration in order to allow a minority of the US’s dirtiest, most unhealthy coal plants, located in states including Wyoming, Texas, North Dakota, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, to continue as they are.

“It’s infuriating that this rollback is happening given that only a small number of coal plants would have to make upgrades,” said Surbhi Sarang, senior attorney at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). “This decision is completely ridiculous and not based on any reality. We can easily have a reliable grid and cleaner air at the same time, we have the technology to do so.

EDIT

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/27/trump-coal-plant-air-pollution-rules

[Botany]

1. Coal kills* and even Trump knows that. This is known science so I have to assume Trump wants people dead

Deaths associated with pollution from coal power plants. (NIH study 2023)

A careful analysis found that air pollution from coal power plants is associated with greater mortality than previously thought.

It also found that such deaths have decreased due to air pollution regulations and coal power plant retirements.

The findings highlight the health benefits of continuing to reduce coal emissions.

Coal-burning power plants are a major source of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) air pollution. Exposure to PM2.5 is associated with increased risk of death. To judge the success of measures to improve air quality, we need to estimate the health impacts, including death, associated with specific air pollution sources. Previous attempts to do so have assumed that PM2.5 from all sources is equally toxic. But coal PM2.5 is rich in sulfur dioxide, black carbon, and metals. Recent evidence suggests that such emissions may be more deadly than PM2.5 from other sources.

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/deaths-associated-pollution-coal-power-plants

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* Coal kills. It kills the miners, it kills the environment around the mines, it kills the supportive capacity
of the planet, it kills fish 100s of miles from where it is burned, and it kills some of the people who breath in the by products of its combustion.

[Ray Bruns]

2. Breathing is overrated anyway.