President Donald Trump is aiming to erase recently strengthened pollution limits for mercury and other toxic pollutants for the coal-fired power industry — moving beyond an earlier effort to provide compliance delays for dozens of plants.
Under a proposed rule that EPA hopes to make final by year’s end, the agency would rescind the strengthened emission limits issued last spring during President Joe Biden’s administration.
Flanked by Republican members of Congress, EPA chief Lee Zeldin publicly signed the proposal Wednesday at agency headquarters in tandem with a separate step to roll back climate pollution regulations for the power sector also set last year.
Zeldin framed the repeal bids as geared to scrapping regulations “that have been criticized as regulating coal, oil and gas out of existence.” If the proposals are made final, he added, they would save more than $1 billion annually in compliance costs.
