Trump Administration Handed Out Sweeping Free Passes to Pollute, More Extreme and Dangerous Than What Coal Plants Requested

(Washington, D.C. – February 19, 2026) The Trump administration handed out expansive, illegal Clean Air Act exemptions allowing coal plants to ignore essential limits on hazardous air pollutants such as mercury and other heavy metals – granting exemptions even in cases where coal plant operators had not asked for them or had stated they could comply, according to records obtained by Environmental Defense Fund.

These exemptions unlawfully allow 71 coal-fired power plants in 24 states to get out of complying with the 2024 Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, which strengthened emission standards and monitoring requirements for toxic pollution emitted by coal-fired power plants – including mercury, arsenic, chromium and nickel – that can cause brain damage in babies, cancer, and heart and lung diseases. 

“The Trump administration illegally handed out free passes to pollute for nearly a third of the country’s coal-burning power plants, despite operators of many of these facilities admitting that they already have the technology to reduce their pollution,” said EDF Senior Attorney Surbhi Sarang. “This is only going to make people sicker. Pollution standards protect us and our families from dangerous, life-threatening pollution from aging, unreliable coal plants. Letting coal plants off the hook from following clean air laws – handing them a free pass to do more damage than what they’ve even asked for – is just another sign that the Trump administration puts the interests of large polluters over the health of Americans.”

Last March, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin invited corporations to email the agency to request exemptions from clean air standards. Corporations were told they could cite “national security” or “lack of available technology” as justifications. EDF filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking all records related to the offer of exemptions-by-email and then filed a lawsuit in April after the agency failed to produce the records or otherwise respond to the FOIA request by the legal deadline. 

The exemption application requests from specific facilities are now available via the Trump EPA Pollution Pass Map, a tool developed by EDF and Environmental Integrity Project and recently updated with records EDF obtained through the FOIA litigation. The map shows the more than 500 industrial facilities invited to apply for presidential exemptions from air pollution limits.

An analysis of the exemption requests from coal-fired power plants finds that every coal plant that requested an exemption from any part of the 2024 Mercury and Air Toxics Standards received a sweeping exemption from the entirety of the rule’s requirements – regardless of how narrow the facility’s request. 

Key findings from the records include:

• The president gave coal plants broader exemptions from pollution standards than they themselves asked for. Every coal plant that requested an exemption from any of the 2024 rule’s requirements received an exemption from all of the 2024 rule’s requirements.
• Many of the coal plants’ requests for exemptions admitted that they already had the control technologies needed to lower their pollution to the tighter limits for mercury and other toxic metals – but they still got a pass.
• Every coal plant that asked for an exemption received the same two-year free pass (the maximum allowed by law) – even coal plants that asked for shorter exemption periods and plants with formal plans to retire their coal units on quicker timelines.
• Once the first presidential proclamation was released, additional plants that had not initially requested an exemption wrote in to demand one also – without even attempting to assert that relevant technology was not available or that they met the Clean Air Act’s criteria. They were quickly also granted exemptions.
• None of the exemption requests included any meaningful analysis of how this additional pollution would threaten Americans’ lives or health.

More details are available in this fact sheet.

Background on the 2024 Mercury and Air Toxics Standards
Before the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards were established in 2012, there were no federal limits on how much mercury and toxic air pollution coal power plants could emit. The standards led to a 90% reduction in mercury emissions, 80% drop in emissions of other dangerous metals, and helped save up to 11,000 lives each year. In 2024, EPA strengthened the standards to ensure they reflected the latest developments in pollution control and monitoring technologies, building on what has become one of the agency’s most effective air pollution rules. 

EPA’s own analysis of the 2024 rule found: 

• At least $33 million in health benefits every year from reductions in illnesses linked to coal plant pollution
• It maintains electricity reliability, with no expected plant retirements
• Only 33 plants of 275 would require upgrades to meet non-mercury metal standards