Report: Trump Administration Backed 90 of 184 US Coal Plants

The Trump administration has supported 90 of the 184 grid-connected coal plants in the United States, according to a new analysis by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). The group says the help came as "cash handouts, free passes to pollute, and requirements to stay online past their retirement dates."

The administration paid $950m in taxpayer money to 24 plants. It gave Clean Air Act exemptions from toxic pollution limits to 70 plants, EDF says.

"It's extending the life of these coal plants," said Surbhi Sarang, EDF's director and senior attorney. She said the policies raise electricity costs and pollution, so Americans are "getting hit twice."

How the exemptions worked

The EPA's Mercury and Air Toxics Standards took effect in 2015. The agency tightened them in 2024. Early in Trump's second term, companies were invited to email the administration and ask for an exemption from the 2024 version. Emails that EDF obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests show firms worried about the cost.

One example is the Colstrip plant in Montana, which has run for more than 40 years. Sarang called it one of the dirtiest coal plants still operating in the country and said it has not installed modern pollution controls. Meeting the 2024 limits would have forced an equipment upgrade, she said. NorthWestern Energy and Talen Energy, which run the plant, asked for relief from the updated limit on fine particulate matter, which would have cut allowed emissions of toxic metals such as nickel, arsenic and lead by two-thirds.

NorthWestern chief executive Brian Bird wrote to the Department of Energy in March 2025. He said it would be "ludicrous" for customers to cover a $500m investment "for such a slight improvement to particulate matter capture." The plant received an exemption. The administration then repealed the 2024 standards in February.

NorthWestern, which became Colstrip's majority owner earlier this year, calls the plant a "dependable bridge to a cleaner energy future." It says its equipment is "state of the art" and removes 99.6% of filterable particulate emissions. Under the 2024 rules it would have needed 99.8% by 2028, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.

The WA Parish plant outside Houston, Texas, also got a pass. Its owner, NRG, asked for an exemption for all its coal facilities. NRG argued that complying would force plants to "derate" and take megawatts off the grid. NRG did not respond to a request for comment.

A 2018 Rice University study linked the plant to as many as 177 early deaths a year from fine particles. "Our research has shown that WA Parish is the deadliest power plant in Texas," said Rice professor Daniel Cohan.

Cohan said plants nationwide were expected to meet the 2024 standards, and the exemptions let them stay open longer. Many are barely breaking even, he said, so rules that force extra spending on cleanup could push some to retire and be replaced by cheaper, cleaner sources.

The White House said the administration has "backed and saved more than 100 coal plants this term." Spokesperson Taylor Rogers said this prevented the retirement of more than 17 gigawatts of power.

Source: the Guardian