June 26, 2025
The Center for Biological Diversity has sued the Trump administration in an effort to learn which power plants have sought exemptions to Clean Air Act pollution standards, according to a June 26 story from Politico.
In March, the Trump administration invited polluters to submit requests for “presidential exemptions” to nine air pollution rules. Roughly a month later, EPA revealed it would exempt 68 coal-fired power plants from mercury emissions rules, but the agency has not provided any information about other emitters that may have applied for exemptions from those regulations or others.
The lawsuit, filed in the Tucson Division of the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, alleges that EPA violated the Freedom of Information Act when it neglected to search its records in response to a request from the CBD for data about which companies have asked for the exemptions.
“Trump has encouraged the nation’s dirtiest polluters to line up for a political handout and put their profits ahead of the health of millions of people,” CBD attorney Ryan Maher said. “The polluter-in-chief is trying to sneak through this blatant law violation by hiding which industrial polluters are cashing in and increasing dangerous air pollution that Americans are forced to breathe.”
In the lawsuit, the CBD says that having the requested information would allow the environmental nonprofit group to “inform its members and the public about areas around the United States that are likely to experience hazardous air pollution that would otherwise be regulated under the Clean Air Act.”
“Absent this information, the Center cannot fully advance its mission to protect air and water, wildlife and nature, public lands, the climate, and vulnerable communities,” the complaint says.
The known exemptions include almost all the nation’s lignite coal-fueled plants, which EPA previously had predicted would need to increase their pollution controls in order to meet mercury emission rules.
Those plants now will get years’ worth of more time to comply with the rules.
EPA said it would not comment on pending litigation.