Christine Ho, christine.ho@sierraclub.org
Washington, D.C. - Today, the Environmental Protection Agency created a new pathway for oil- and coal-burning power plants to evade air pollution standards: Just send an email.
The EPA notified big polluters with a completed email template, and let the fossil fuel companies know that once the administration receives the email, Donald Trump might grant companies permission to bypass existing pollution safeguards. This process applies to current safeguards limiting mercury, arsenic, and other carcinogens emitted from coal and oil plants.
The Clean Air Act provides a very narrow exemption from pollution standards in times of national emergency and where technology is not available. The vast majority of the industry is already complying with these standards, and those standards do not harm national security or electric generation.
In response, Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign Director Laurie Williams issued the following statement:
“This loophole, if kept in place, will kill Americans, plain and simple. It is reprehensible that Lee Zeldin’s EPA is offering Big Polluters an opportunity to evade well-established, life-saving air pollution standards that the vast majority of coal plants already comply with, under the guise of an invented national emergency. This is completely out of line with the mission of the agency and what Americans deserve from our government.
“These safeguards protect the health and wellbeing of our communities and there is no legitimate basis to suspend them. The EPA must abandon this ridiculous proposal now, and do its job of holding fossil fuel companies to current air pollution standards.”
Background:
The full language of 112(i)(4) states: "The President may exempt any stationary source from compliance with any standard or limitation under this section for a period of not more than 2 years if the President determines that the technology to implement such standard is not available and that it is in the national security interests of the United States to do so.”
About the Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with millions of members and supporters. In addition to protecting every person's right to get outdoors and access the healing power of nature, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org.