LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday weakened limits on mercury and other toxic emissions from coal-fired power plants, the Trump administration’s latest effort to boost the fossil fuel industry by paring back clean air and water rules.
Toxic emissions from coal- and oil-fired plants can harm the brain development of young children and contribute to heart attacks and other problems in adults. The plants are also a major source of greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change. The EPA announced the repeal of the tightened Mercury and Air Toxics Standards rule, or MATS, at a massive coal plant next to the Ohio River in Louisville, Kentucky.
“EPA’s actions today rights the wrongs of the last administration’s rule and will return the industry to the highly effective original MATS standards that helped pave the way for American energy dominance,” said EPA Deputy Administrator David Fotouhi. The agency said the change should save hundreds of millions of dollars.
The final rule reverts the industry to standards first established in 2012 by the Obama administration that have reduced mercury emissions by nearly 90%. The Biden administration had sought to tighten those standards even further after the first Trump administration had moved to undermine them.
Operators of the Mill Creek Generating Station gave agency officials a tour of the coal plant before hosting the announcement inside.
Coal-fired power plants are the largest single human source of mercury pollutants. Power plants release the mercury into the atmosphere, which then falls in rain or simply by gravity, entering the food chain through fish and other items that people consume.
