Trump administration aims to relax limits on toxic wastewater from coal-fired power plants

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency moved Thursday to relax limits that require coal-fired power plants to prevent the release of toxic heavy metals into streams and rivers, saying a three-year-old rule is unduly costly for the energy industry at a time when energy demand is spiking.

It is the latest step that President Donald Trump’s administration has taken to pull back regulations on coal mining and coal-fired power and empower fossil fuels as a primary energy source to feed the rapid growth of artificial intelligence data centers.

In its proposed rule, the EPA said a 2024 rule under President Joe Biden misjudged the effectiveness and cost of the regulation, and had the effect of shutting down coal-fired power plants at a time when energy demand is spiking.

Changing the rule is critical to making electricity more affordable and reliable, while advancing the economy, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a statement.

“The AI and data center revolution is creating an electricity and baseload power demand that cannot be met under the overly restrictive policies of past administrations,” Zeldin said. “The Trump EPA will continue doing its part to address these burdensome regulations on the coal-fired power plant sector that hold American communities back from the new opportunities presented by this new 21st century energy reality.”

The wastewater rule was designed to require power plant owners to clean coal ash and toxic heavy metals such as mercury, arsenic and selenium from plant wastewater before it is dumped into streams and rivers.

In 2024, the EPA strengthened regulations over several types of plant wastewater, substantially reducing the amount of pollutants that power plant owners were allowed to dump into waterways. The EPA had given power plant owners until Dec. 31, 2029, to meet the new limits.

The EPA said the rule proposed Thursday, if finalized, would reduce power costs by as much as $1.1 billion a year. Coal and power industry trade associations cheered the EPA’s move. Environmental groups slammed it as a public health danger and giveaway to the coal-power industry.

Earthjustice, an environmental advocacy group, said the lakes, rivers and other waterways that will see more pollution as a result of the EPA’s proposal are often sources of drinking water. Coal-fired power plants are by far one of the largest sources of toxic pollutants in America’s rivers, lakes and streams, Earthjustice said.

The proposal would exempt contaminated groundwater seeping into waterways from mandatory treatment requirements, Earthjustice said. Power plant owners would only be required to treat the contaminated groundwater if they first decide to pump it to the surface as part of a groundwater cleanup, the group added.

“This is another example of the Trump administration endangering the health of Americans as a favor to corporate polluters,” Earthjustice attorney Thom Cmar said in a statement. “This plan would eliminate safeguards on hundreds of millions of pounds of wastewater with neurotoxins and cancer-causing contaminants. It would allow coal power plants to avoid cleaning up contamination that threatens our drinking water sources.”

The EPA said it remains committed to protecting water through “common-sense and workable limits” on wastewater discharges from power plants and said its new rule would “rescind certain one-size-fits-all limits” in favor of “case-by-case, data-driven discharge limits.”

The EPA had estimated in 2024 that its new rule that year would reduce pollutant discharges by 660 to 672 million pounds per year, provide $3.2 billion in public health benefits each year and especially benefit “low-income communities and communities of color that are disproportionately impacted by pollution from coal-fired power plants.”

It had projected that electricity bills for the average residential household would increase by less than $3.50 per year.

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