{"id":496799,"date":"2026-03-01T03:47:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T03:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/496799\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T03:47:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T03:47:10","slug":"without-weighing-costs-to-public-health-epa-rolls-back-air-pollution-standards-for-coal-plants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/496799\/","title":{"rendered":"Without Weighing Costs to Public Health, EPA Rolls Back Air Pollution Standards for Coal Plants"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, when the Environmental Protection Agency finalized its repeal<\/a> of tightened 2024 air pollution standards for power plants, the agency claimed the rollback would save $670 million.<\/p>\n

Environmental and legal experts said that claim is just the latest example<\/a> of the agency\u2019s flawed accounting process under the Trump administration, which no longer considers the public health benefits<\/a> of air pollution regulations. Instead, EPA now only considers the costs to companies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you only look at one side of the ledger, it\u2019s always going to come out one way,\u201d said John Walke, senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council and a former EPA attorney.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The standards limited emissions of mercury and other hazardous air pollutants for coal- and oil-fired power plants across the country. In its announcement, EPA said the repeal of the limits set during the Biden administration will mean \u201csavings American families will see in the form of lower everyday living costs.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the rule\u2019s expense to most companies would have been marginal, Walke said. The $670 million is spread across nearly 200 plants, and a significant portion of the cost would fall on just one outdated facility, the Colstrip Steam Electric Station<\/a> in Montana, which opened in 1975.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat would be one of the cheapest Clean Air Act rules adopted in a generation. So it really wasn\u2019t about the cost savings,\u201d Walke said. \u201cFrankly, this was an ideological policy consistent with this administration\u2019s agenda that no compliance cost is worth spending.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Many of the plants affected by the standards were already meeting them, said Nicholas Morales, senior attorney at Earthjustice. \u201cSo by taking away the new standards, what the administration is doing is rewarding the few coal plants that had refused to clean up.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2024, the Biden-era EPA estimated<\/a> the tougher standards would create $300 million in health benefits and $130 million in climate benefits and would cost companies $860 million between 2028 and 2037. Exposure to the air pollutants emitted by coal and oil-fired power plants, including lead, cadmium and arsenic, can cause cancer as well as irritation to the lungs and skin and symptoms like nausea and vomiting. The EPA also found that the changes would not impact retail electricity prices and would not lead to coal plants\u2019 closures.\u00a0<\/p>\n

EPA\u2019s 2026 Regulatory Impact Analysis<\/a> for the repeal of the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards amendments lists some of the known health consequences linked to breathing in particulate matter, from heart attacks and strokes to asthma and lung cancer. That paragraph ends with a clear statement: \u201cThe EPA did not quantify or monetize the benefits or disbenefits\u201d of any of these health effects.<\/p>\n

The repeal \u201censures the continuation of the highly effective and robust 2012 MATS requirements,\u201d an EPA spokesperson said in a statement to Inside Climate News, noting that the standards have protected \u201cpublic health and the environment for years.\u201d By repealing the 2024 standards, \u201cEPA is fulfilling its core mission without compromising America\u2019s energy or economic prosperity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Reviving the shrinking coal industry has been a priority in both of President Donald Trump\u2019s terms. In the last year, he\u2019s forced aging coal plants to keep operating<\/a>, invested millions in modernizing<\/a> and extending the lives of others and directed the Pentagon to spend more money on coal-generated electricity. In February, coal industry leaders presented the president with a gold trophy labeled \u201cUndisputed Champion of Beautiful Clean Coal.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a statement, America\u2019s Power CEO Michelle Bloodworth said the EPA\u2019s rollback is \u201can important step toward maintaining a reliable and affordable supply of electricity and ensuring coal-based generation can continue supporting the nation\u2019s economy and electric grid.\u201d America\u2019s Power is a national coal industry trade organization.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rachel Gleason, executive director of the Pennsylvania Coal Alliance, noted that 23 states<\/a>, including West Virginia and North Dakota, had challenged the 2024 amendments in court. The states argued that the Biden administration had set \u201cimpossible standards\u201d that would \u201cdestroy the coal industry.\u201d Gleason said the technology requirements in the update were \u201cunnecessary and were not cost effective.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of the 2024 standards were requirements for plants to update their monitoring equipment from a quarterly system to continuous. \u201cNot only is it not a large cost for these facilities, it\u2019s actually beneficial for the facilities themselves,\u201d said Kevin Cromar, an associate professor of environmental medicine and population health at New York University, whose research focuses on the health impacts of air pollution and climate change. Continuous monitoring helps operators become aware of problems sooner.<\/p>\n

This story is funded by readers like you.<\/p>\n

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In a preview of this month\u2019s action last April, the Trump administration granted 47 power plants a two-year exemption<\/a> from the 2024 standards. The administration argued that the Biden-era standards placed \u201csevere burdens\u201d on companies and threatened the \u201cviability\u201d of the coal industry. Missing from the president\u2019s proclamation was any consideration of the health burdens that might be placed on communities living downwind of these plants.<\/p>\n

Cromar, along with researchers at the University of Washington, set out to investigate what those burdens might be. The 2024 update represents a minor change when you look at the national picture, Cromar said, mainly because the \u201cvast majority\u201d of plants already meet the standards. \u201cBut the paper was able to show that in discrete locations, it\u2019s not an insignificant amount of health impact,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The study found Trump\u2019s two-year exemption would mean 2,500 more tons of air pollution and more premature death in certain parts of the country near plants that aren\u2019t yet meeting the standards.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One of those places is Pennsylvania, home to 14 coal-fired power plants<\/a> and a long legacy of pollution from the coal industry. Tom Schuster, director of the Sierra Club\u2019s Pennsylvania chapter, lives in western Pennsylvania, not far from some of the state\u2019s largest remaining coal-fired plants. \u201cI\u2019m just over the ridge from there. I can see the steam from the cooling towers on a cold day,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Schuster worries EPA\u2019s decision could mean backtracking on the progress that has been made since the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards were enacted in 2012, resulting in huge reductions in mercury and hazardous air pollution emissions. In Pennsylvania, mercury<\/a> remains one of the leading causes of pollution in waterways, and residents are warned to limit consumption of fish from more than 100 lakes, rivers and creeks because of mercury contamination<\/a>. Mercury bioaccumulates in ecosystems\u2014building up in the bodies of fish and shellfish<\/a>\u2014and can persist in the environment for decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe gut punch of it is that most of the plants are already complying,\u201d Schuster said. \u201cThey\u2019ve already installed the pollution controls. They\u2019re already complying. And by eliminating the need to demonstrate that explicitly, we\u2019re giving them an opportunity to cut corners.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tAbout This Story<\/p>\n

Perhaps you noticed: This story, like all the news we publish, is free to read. That\u2019s because Inside Climate News is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. We do not charge a subscription fee, lock our news behind a paywall, or clutter our website with ads. We make our news on climate and the environment freely available to you and anyone who wants it.<\/p>\n

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Two of us launched ICN in 2007. Six years later we earned a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, and now we run the oldest and largest dedicated climate newsroom in the nation. We tell the story in all its complexity. We hold polluters accountable. We expose environmental injustice. We debunk misinformation. We scrutinize solutions and inspire action.<\/p>\n

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Thank you,<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tKiley Bense\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tReporter, Pennsylvania<\/p>\n

Kiley Bense covers climate change and the environment with a focus on Pennsylvania, politics, energy, and public health. She has reported on the effects of the\u00a0fracking boom in\u00a0Pennsylvania, the expansion of the American plastics industry, and the intersection of climate change and culture. Her previous work has appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic, Smithsonian Magazine, the Believer, and Sierra Magazine, and she holds master\u2019s degrees in journalism and creative writing from Columbia University. She is based in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last week, when the Environmental Protection Agency finalized its repeal of tightened 2024 air pollution standards for power…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496800,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[11455,27982,198363,118317,192,2286,16407,227095,97992,79,644],"class_list":["post-496799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-air-pollution","tag-coal","tag-coal-plant","tag-coal-plants","tag-environment","tag-environmental-protection-agency","tag-epa","tag-mercury-and-air-toxics-standards","tag-natural-resources-defense-council","tag-science","tag-trump-administration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}