The Trump administration has found reason to praise landmark EPA regulations often blamed for hastening the coal industry’s decline, despite its fierce embrace of fossil fuels.
The 2012 Mercury and Air Toxics Standards have been “highly effective and robust” in slashing power plant emissions of acid gases and other hazardous air pollutants, EPA spokesperson Brigit Hirsch said in a statement last week to POLITICO’s E&E News that highlighted the administration’s decision to keep them in place.
“By doing so, EPA is fulfilling its core mission without compromising America’s energy or economic prosperity,” Hirsch said.
To one environmental lawyer, however, that rhetoric is a ploy to justify the recent repeal of a Biden-era update to the standards that would have further cut power sector pollution.
