The Biden administration has called for coal and oil-fired power plants to significantly reduce the emissions of toxic chemicals, including mercury.
Today, the Trump administration offers an extraordinary outing for businesses. You could send an email and be granted permission from President Trump to bypass new restrictions and other major clean air rules.
This week, the Environmental Protection Agency said that an ambiguous section of the Clean Air Act allows the president to temporarily exempt industrial facilities from the new regulations if the technology needed to meet these regulations is not available or is for national security.
In notifications to businesses, the agency provided templates for businesses to use to obtain approval, such as what they write in the subject line of an email. “The president will make a decision on merit,” a notice issued by the EPA on Monday said.
Joseph Goffman, former executive director of the Harvard Law School Environment and Energy Law Program, who served as the EPA assistant administrator for air pollution under President Joseph R. Biden Jr., said he fears President Trump is “setting up a rubber stamp process.”
He said that government agencies have generally set more specific standards for exemptions from the regulations. He also said Congress clearly intended to exempt the Clean Air Act with conditions that ensure at least some pollution restrictions.
“It's a strong suggestion that decisions will be ad hoc at best because it doesn't exist,” Goffman said. “It opposes Congress' intentions, ignores the public health needs of affected communities and opposes EPA's past practices.”
EPA spokesman Molly Vaseliou disagreed with the view, saying there is no explicit requirement for such conditions anywhere in the law. “This type of 'legal analysis' appears to be consistent with those responsible,” she said in an email about the interpretation of the law that the Supreme Court collapsed.
The latest policies allow businesses to apply for up to two years of exemptions for ethylene oxide, a carcinogen widely used to sterilize medical disorders and carcinogen, from numerous new restrictions on the emission of toxic chemicals such as mercury and arsenic.
Zeldin, a former New York Congressman, also said he would allow coal-fired power plants to apply for exemptions from new regulations requiring them to address the health risks of coal ash, a toxic substance created by burning to produce electricity.
The agency says it intends to eventually rewrite many of these same rules. This is a difficult process that is expected to take time. So, while the EPA appears to be pursuing a “two-stage process where it takes years for a two-stage process to roll back rules”, companies are avoiding having to meet one of them during that time.
“It's hard to imagine how these exemptions are legal,” Pugh said. For example, for all the new rules, the Biden administration had already identified available and affordable alternatives. He said it is also difficult to buy the idea that the ability to contaminate is in the national interest.
As of Thursday it was unclear whether the agency began to start applying for exemptions, whether it was granted, or whether they would be disclosed. Companies must apply for the exemption by the end of the month, the EPA said.
“We appreciate Trump EPA's willingness to consider exemptions from manufacturers that have been adversely affected by these regulations,” the industry group's National Manufacturers Association said in a statement. “NAM is ready to work with the administration to provide a durable solution that protects the environment and maintains manufacturers' ability to compete on the global stage.”
The US Petroleum Research Institute and the American Chemical Council, which represents the major regulated industries, did not immediately respond to comments.
