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In a last-ditch attempt to prop up the dying coal sector, the Trump administration on Tuesday finalized a rule that relaxes limits on heavy metal pollution from coal-fired power plants. The new EPA rule relaxes an Obama-era standard that would have required coal plants to treat wastewater to remove high levels of toxic chemicals, including selenium, mercury, lead, and arsenic.
Compared to the 2015 rule, the new limits will allow more than three times more selenium in wastewater, and E&E News reports that the rule includes loopholes that allows power plants to be exempted from even those higher limits. Power plants with "high flows" of wastewater that are only used during peak power demand can release ten times more mercury than other plants.
The new rule also pushes the deadline for implementing even the lower standards to 2025, and several dozen plants that are scheduled to be retired by 2028 will be exempt from the pollution limits entirely.
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Such dismal results are predictable, given the Trump administration’s baffling inability to read and respond to market conditions. This sale ended up being nothing but a massive give away to oil companies—one that comes at the expense of every other American and our national public lands.”
