Trump EPA Proposals Would Eliminate Protections Against Power Plant Pollution

(Washington, D.C. – June 11, 2025) Trump EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin today announced formal proposals to eliminate two vital clean air protections for power plant pollution – the modernization of the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, and the Carbon Pollution Standards for climate pollution from power plants. 

The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards reduce pollution from power plants that is associated with brain damage in children, cancer and heart and lung diseases. The Carbon Pollution Standards are our only national limits on how much climate-destabilizing pollution power plants can emit into our air. Both protections are required under U.S. clean air laws. Both the U.S. Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court rejected numerous motions to block the rigorous clean air protections proposed to be repealed today. These standards are currently in full effect and protecting the American people. 

“The Trump EPA’s proposed repeal of these life-saving clean air protections is dangerous to the health, safety and well-being of all Americans. The Trump EPA is recklessly disregarding its responsibility under our nation’s clean air laws to protect the American people from mercury, arsenic and climate pollution from industrial smokestacks,” said Vickie Patton, General Counsel of Environmental Defense Fund. “Power plants are already among the largest sources of mercury, toxic and climate-destabilizing pollution in the nation, and these proposals would allow them to pour more of that pollution into our air. These pollutants are associated with deaths, serious illnesses and hospitalizations, and increased medical costs. The Trump EPA is pursuing this irresponsible action even though we have widely available technologies that allow power plants to reduce pollution with proven cost-effective solutions.” 

The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards were first adopted more than a decade ago to reduce mercury, arsenic, chromium, nickel, and other particularly dangerous types of pollution that are emitted by coal-fired power plants. Since then, they have saved more than tens of thousands of deaths at a fraction of what power companies initially claimed it would cost.   

EPA updated the standards last year to strengthen protections against cancer-causing toxics, provide for more rigorous and transparent monitoring of power plant pollution, and close a loophole that allowed power plants that burned one type of especially dirty coal – lignite coal – to emit three times more mercury than other plants. EPA’s update would reduce coal plant mercury emissions by almost 20% by 2035, as well as prevent other highly toxic pollutants including arsenic and chromium from being discharged into the air we breathe. These more protective standards can be readily achieved using available controls and monitoring technologies that are already in widespread use at coal-fired plants across the country. For example, last year EPA found that 93% of affected coal plants are already complying with the standard for non-mercury toxic metals.   

Fossil fuel-fired power plants are also one of the nation’s largest sources of climate pollution, emitting over 1.4 billion tons of carbon pollution in 2024 alone. This pollution puts people across the country at risk from extreme heat waves, drought, catastrophic fires, severe storms, floods, rising sea levels, soaring home insurance premiums, and increased health threats. There is a robust body of science affirming the causes and consequences of climate change.  

The Carbon Pollution Standards for fossil fuel-fired power plants established technology-based emission limits that allowed power companies to reduce pollution through an array of available low and zero-emitting solutions. EPA estimates the standards would result in 1,200 lives saved in 2035 alone. They would also prevent thousands of asthma attacks and other illnesses, and would provide $370 billion in net climate and health benefits through 2047. 

Both standards are successfully protecting people across America today and providing cleaner air for future generations. However, President Trump already issued purported “exemptions” from the strengthened mercury and air toxics standards to 68 coal-fired power plants.(See more about that here.) And today the Trump EPA formally proposed to jettison these life-saving protections altogether. 

The public will have 45 days to comment on each proposed rollback, beginning once they are published in the Federal Register.