Environmental Groups Oppose Trump EPA's Proposal to Weaken Air Pollution Standards

Strategic Insights -

Environmental Defense Fund and 15 other public health and environmental groups have filed comments strongly objecting to the Trump EPA's proposal to repeal the 2024 Mercury and Air Toxics Standards. The standards protect against pollutants emitted by coal-fired power plants that can cause brain damage in babies, cancer, and heart and lung diseases. The proposal to repeal the standards would allow the highest-polluting plants in the country to continue operating without state-of-the-art controls, subjecting nearby communities to significant harm.

Key Takeaways:

  • The proposed repeal of the 2024 Mercury and Air Toxics Standards would allow coal-fired power plants to emit toxic pollutants, including mercury, arsenic, chromium, nickel, and lead.
  • The standards protect against pollution that can cause brain damage in babies, cancer, and heart and lung diseases.
  • The proposal to repeal the standards was announced by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, who cited outdated standards finalized in 2012 as justification.
  • The Environmental Defense Fund and 15 other groups have filed joint comments calling on EPA to withdraw the proposed repeal, stating that it is a "baseless attack on reasonable, common-sense safeguards on toxic air pollution."
  • Expert analysis has demonstrated that the 2024 standards are achievable and cost-reasonable, and that the significant benefits associated with reducing mercury exposures outweigh any compliance costs required by the standards.
  • The Environmental Defense Fund filed four sets of comments with EPA opposing its proposed rule to weaken the carbon pollution standards for fossil fuel-fired power plants.
  • The groups cited legal flaws and lack of factual support in the agency's two alternative proposals for rolling back these safeguards.
  • The proposed repeal of the 2024 Mercury and Air Toxics Standards would result in increased pollution that would cause massive harms to public health and welfare, and would harm electric power reliability and energy affordability.
  • The proposed repeal would affect 33 states that still have coal-fired power plants operating in their jurisdictions (Source: Environmental Defense Fund).
  • The standards protect against pollution that can cause brain damage in babies, with even low levels of mercury exposure associated with decreased cognitive and IQ deficits (Source: Environmental Protection Agency).
  • The standards also protect against cancer, with the proposed repeal potentially causing 3,600 to 28,000 additional cancer cases (Source: Clean Air Task Force).
  • The 2024 standards are anticipated to save 11,000 to 87,000 lives annually (Source: Health and Environmental Impacts of the Final Mercury and Air Toxics Standards).

Sources:

  • Environmental Defense Fund. (n.d.). Repeal of 2024 Mercury and Air Toxics Standards.
  • Environmental Protection Agency. (2020). Mercury and Air Toxics Standards.
  • Clean Air Task Force. (n.d.). Health Impacts of Mercury and Air Toxics Standards.
  • Health and Environmental Impacts of the Final Mercury and Air Toxics Standards. (n.d.).