EPA is poised to withdraw a stopgap rule that granted a high-polluting coal products industry a break on compliance with strengthened air toxics regulations, according to five people familiar with the matter.
That decision would mark at least a temporary retreat from the Trump administration’s use of procedural shortcuts to aid select industries without first allowing the public a chance to weigh in.
The interim final rule released in July gave 11 coke plants until mid-2027 to begin monitoring for cancer-causing benzene around their facilities and also delayed other pollution control measures embedded in the tightened regulations released by the Biden administration last year.
Coke is used as blast furnace fuel by the handful of remaining “integrated” mills that process iron ore into finished steel. Besides benzene, coke plant emissions may include cyanide compounds, ammonia and hydrochloric acid, according to the most recent final numbers available from EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory.
