Trump Administration Rolls Back Mercury Pollution Regulations for Coal Plants

Mercury pollution from coal plants has been tied to serious neurological problems, especially in children and babies. On Friday the Trump administration officially rolled back a series of Biden-era environmental regulations on coal plants, including some intended to clamp down on mercury pollution. Environmental advocacy groups and experts have decried the decision as risking human health—mercury has been shown to cause serious neurological damage, especially in infants. The decision effectively reverts regulations to those set in 2012 by the Obama administration. Those earlier rules allowed power plants that burned a particularly dirty form of coal called lignite coal to emit more mercury than plants that burned other forms of the fossil fuel.

“The Biden-Harris Administration’s anti-coal regulations sought to regulate out of existence this vital sector of our energy economy. If implemented, these actions would have destroyed reliable American energy,” said Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin in a statement. The rolled back regulations also included emission standards for filterable particulate matter and required plants to use emission monitoring systems. The rules put “undue burdens” on companies, the EPA said last June.

“Today’s action by the Trump EPA moves us backward to weaker pollution protections and dirtier air. It will allow coal plants to pour more mercury and toxic pollution into our air, which will then get into our water, food and ultimately our children’s bodies,” says Surbhi Sarang, a senior attorney at the Environmental Defense Fund with expertise in power sector regulation, adding that the group plans to challenge the action in court.

The move is the latest in a string of actions by the Trump administration to prop up what has long been viewed as a moribund coal industry in the U.S. The administration has ordered the Department of State to run military facilities on coal power, funded renovations for coal-powered plants and even blocked plants from shutting down. At the same time, the administration is trying to ramp up power generation to support new artificial intelligence data centers and other energy-intensive infrastructure.

“Once again, the Trump administration is abandoning science and abandoning statute to give polluters a free pass,” said Julie McNamara, associate policy director of the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, in a statement. “And once again, the Trump administration is doing so at the expense of people’s health.”

Coal-fired power plants are the leading source of mercury emissions in the U.S., according to the EPA. When coal burns, it releases mercury into the atmosphere. Eventually, the heavy metal settles into soil and water, where it’s taken up by plants and animals—some of which we eat for food. Mercury contamination is especially dangerous for children and can cause neurological impairments in infants.

“The [EPA] Administrator’s legacy will forever be someone who does the bidding of the fossil fuel industry at the expense of our health,” said Gina McCarthy, who served as President Joe Biden’s national climate adviser, in a statement on Thursday, after news broke that the cuts were incoming.

Mercury pollution has been on the decline for years. Between 2010 and 2017, mercury emissions dropped by an estimated 86 percent, in part because of regulatory action that curbed coal burning. Regulations have had a direct impact on our food, too: in 2016, for instance, researchers determined that the decline in mercury emissions in North America led to a 19 percent decline in mercury levels in bluefin tuna samples tested between 2004 and 2012.

“By weakening pollution limits and monitoring for brain-damaging mercury and other pollutants, [the EPA administrator is] actively spiking any attempt to make America—and our children—healthy,” McCarthy said in the same statement.