The Environmental Protection Agency acted under President Trump’s orders and invited coal-fired power plants and other industrial polluters to seek to bypass key provisions of the Clean Air Act to limit hazardous emissions to limit the EPA’s anger this week. Send an email.
“The EPA has established an email address to allow regulated communities to request the [a provision] The agency announced the Clean Air Act on Monday. The announcement also contains a template for the applicant to use in their request.
Problematic regulations, Section 112(i)(4) of the Clean Air Actsuitable for the regulation of nearly 200 pollutants including mercury, arsenic, benzene and formaldehyde – known carcinogens, which are also associated with reproductive and developmental problems, respiratory diseases and other adverse health outcomes.
The EPA noted in the announcement that the Clean Air Act allows the president to exempt air pollution from “fixed sources” (i.e. not essentially the source of vehicles) from complying with the rules that last up to two years, “that can be done if the technology to implement the standard is unavailable and it is in the interests of the U.S. national security.”
Opponents say the plan equals polluters’ jail-free cards and adds to the Trump administration’s fierce attack on hard strike protection.
“This is an email inbox from Hell, and we breathe the important protection of the air and die,” Jason Rylander, legal director of the School of Climate Law at the Center for the Center for Nonprofit Biodiversity, said in a statement. “For the Trump administration, allowing polluters to release more brain toxins to our children by just sending emails is a real counterstatistic.”
The EPA’s exemption template requires applicants to explain why they are currently unable to achieve their emission reduction goals and why it is in the country’s national security interests.
EPA says that exemptions cannot be guaranteed by email alone. Instead, the president “will make a decision based on the merits of the case.”
“What they are doing is unprecedented,” said Adam Kron, senior attorney for EarthJustice, a nonprofit environmental law group. “There is a section in the Clean Air Act that provides the ability to seek presidential immunity, but to the best of our knowledge it has never been used – certainly not in the way they put it there extensively.”
According to his count, the exemption could apply to at least 764 pollution sources in nine industrial sectors, such as chemical manufacturing, copper smelting, steel production and coal-fired power plants, “a large number of very large and extensive and toxic facilities across the country,” Kron said.
Interested companies must email their waiver requests by March 31. The EPA says the exemption can be granted for up to two years and renewable if appropriate.
Fossil fuel companies and other regulated groups have long complained about the high and high cost of complying with the Clean Air Act. Earlier this month, when Trump’s EPA administrator announced plans 31 Regulations for Retreat Manage air and water quality standards to cut costs.
“President Donald Trump and EPA Chief Executive Lee Zeldin answered calls from manufacturers nationwide to rebalance and reconsider heavy federal regulations that undermine the ability of the U.S. to compete,” National Association CEO Jay Timmons. The manufacturer at the time said.
Trump – Get it Record donations During the presidential campaign of fossil fuel companies, they have also vowed in recent weeks. Increase coal production.
But environmental groups say the latest move marks a further erosion of safeguards aimed at protecting the health and well-being of communities across the country.
“This loophole, if saved in place, will kill Americans, is simple and simple,” Laurie Williams, director of the nonprofit Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal movement, wrote in a statement. “It’s totally inconsistent with the mission of the institution and everything Americans deserve.”
Multiple environmental groups have submitted Requirements for Freedom of Information Law Seek a list of applicants and their defense of presidential exemption from the Clean Air Act.
EarthJustice’s Kron said they could face legal opposition if the exemption takes effect. “We are ready to take all the steps to defend our customers and communities that really seek these rules to protect their health and livelihoods.”
