Forty-seven power producers will benefit from President Donald Trump’s unprecedented decision allowing coal-fired plants to sidestep compliance from updated air toxics regulations, according to a roster posted on an EPA website.
Among them is the Colstrip Generating Plant, a Montana facility that ranks among the nation’s top polluting electricity generators. Others are located in states from Alabama to North Dakota. The exemptions also apply to four Tennessee Valley Authority operations.
The White House had not released the list last week when Trump allotted each of the plants another two years to comply with EPA regulations issued last year seeking to further cut their emissions of mercury, a brain-damaging neurotoxin, and other hazardous air pollutants. EPA had previously referred a request for the list back to the White House before quietly releasing it online, apparently on Monday.
Trump announced the compliance extensions — fiercely criticized by environmental advocates — in the course of a flurry of measures to boost the coal industry. Trump is leaning on an obscure provision in the Clean Air Act to allow the exemptions on the grounds that they will both benefit national security and that the technology needed to meet the regulations is not available.
