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