Trump EPA to weaken rule limiting harmful mercury, air toxics from coal plants

[groundloop]

Source: Reuters

The Trump administration announced on Friday it will roll back air regulations for power plants limiting mercury and hazardous air toxics at an event in Kentucky, a move it says will boost baseload energy but that public health groups say will harm public health for America's most vulnerable groups.

President Donald Trump's EPA has said that easing the pollution standards for coal plants would alleviate costs for utilities that run older coal plants at a time when demand for power is soaring amid the expansion of data centers used for artificial intelligence.

The Biden-era Mercury and Air Toxics Standard, which updated standards set in 2012 under the Obama administration, had still been in force after the Supreme Court declined to put the rules on hold after a group of mostly Republican states and industry groups led a legal challenge to suspend it.

That rule would reduce allowable mercury pollution from the coal plants by  70%, emissions of nickel, arsenic, lead and other toxic metals from coal plants by  two-thirds and result in health cost savings of  $420 million  through 2037, according to the Environmental Defense Fund.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/trump-epa-weaken-rule-limiting-harmful-mercury-air-toxics-coal-plants-2026-02-20/

[orangecrush]

1. How much did that bribe cost?

[Playingmantis]

2. Can he think of anything else to screw us?

He must stay up at night thinking of more shit he can throw..

[mdbl]

5. It's more like can he think of anything else to kill us?

[turbinetree]

3. This orange hair a**hole along with that Burgum a**hole ever hear of ACID RAIN...............and then there is this ....

Coal Power Killed Half a Million People in U.S. over Two Decades
November 25, 2023 • by Marc Airhart
Deaths from coal were highest in 1999, but by 2020 decreased by about 95%, as coal plants have installed scrubbers or shut down.

It’s no secret that small particles in the air from coal-fired power plants are harmful, but a new paper published in Science shows these particles are more than twice as harmful as previously thought. In fact, since 1999 coal-fired power plants in two states—Ohio and Pennsylvania—caused more than 103,000 deaths nationwide.

A team of researchers from six universities, including The University of Texas at Austin, examined data from the United States’ 480 coal-fired power plants and found that from 1999–2020, approximately 460,000 deaths in the Medicare population were attributable to coal electricity-generating emissions, a number far higher than previous estimates. The researchers also ranked coal plants and found the 10 deadliest were each associated with more than 5,000 deaths. The research does not account for any additional deaths among individuals under age 65 or among uninsured people.

Senior author Cory Zigler, an associate professor in UT’s Department of Statistics and Data Sciences and founding member of the UT Center for Health & Environment: Education and Research, conceived of the overall analysis strategy of developing a new air quality model and deploying it for large-scale epidemiological studies. He noted one bit of good news: Deaths from coal were highest in 1999 but by 2020 decreased by about 95%, as coal plants installed scrubbers or shut down.



https://cns.utexas.edu/news/research/coal-power-killed-half-million-people-us-over-two-decades

[Clouds Passing]

4. He acts like he's been drinking mercury for years

[Ray Bruns]

6. Eh. Breathing is overrated anyway.

[Bayard]

9. Our lungs relish this air!

Especially the asthmatics among us.

[ananda]

7. I assume all the poor miners voted for Trump...

and now their jobs wlll make them sick and die.

[BidenRocks]

8. Bring back leaded gas and paint!

Put the sudsy phosphate foam back cleaning our rivers, and then a sterilization by fire.

People really need to study the history we lived!

Fresh water mercury laden bass from a downwind lake. Love that 'clean' coal!