Fossil Fuel Coal Burning Electrical Power Plant
WASHINGTON – While at Mills Creek Power Plant in Kentucky, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the finalization of a deregulatory action to ensure affordable, dependable energy for American families and restore American energy dominance. In today’s final action, EPA repealed the Biden Administration’s 2024 amendments to the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants: Coal- and Oil-Fired Electric Utility Steam Generating Units (EGUs) – a rule commonly known as the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards for power plants, or simply MATS. By doing so, EPA will enforce existing, highly effective and robust MATS requirements, which will ensure public health and the environment are protected without compromising America’s energy or economic prosperity. The final rule is expected to save an estimated $670 million, savings American families will see in the form of lower everyday living costs.
Interview with EPA Region 8 Administrator Cyrus Western…
“The Biden-Harris Administration’s anti-coal regulations sought to regulate out of existence this vital sector of our energy economy. If implemented, these actions would have destroyed reliable American energy,” said EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin. “The Trump EPA knows that we can grow the economy, enhance baseload power, and protect human health and the environment all at the same time. It is not a binary choice and never should have been.”
“The 2012 MATS Rule—reaffirmed by the Trump EPA in 2020—is fully protective of human health risks. Although the Biden-Harris EPA agreed with this conclusion, they charged ahead with a slew of unnecessary, costly, and burdensome new requirements based in part on incomplete information,” said EPA Deputy Administrator David Fotouhi. “That mistake ends today. The Trump EPA’s action follows the rule of law and will reduce the cost of generating baseload power, lowering costs and improving reliability for consumers.”
“I applaud the Trump EPA’s continued efforts to overturn burdensome Democrat regulations that have placed lasting hardship on American families and workers. The Obama Administration’s 2012 MATS rule was one of the biggest blows against West Virginia in the war on coal, putting an indescribable strain on our dedicated coal miners, their families and communities and our entire state. The Biden Administration only made matters worse when it included an even more stringent MATS rule in its package of regulations aimed at eliminating coal from our nation’s energy mix. Building on last week’s announcements, this latest action from the Trump EPA further demonstrates President Trump’s and EPA Administrator Zeldin’s support of the affordable and reliable electricity that coal provides,” said Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV).
“The EPA’s decision to repeal the 2024 MATS revisions is a victory for American energy dominance. The Biden-Harris Administration’s liberal regulatory agenda would have raised costs, created standards that were impossible to meet, and hurt energy reliability. To strengthen and secure our grid America must depend on reliable and affordable energy, so we cannot afford regulations that drive power plants offline. Thank you to Administrator Zeldin for addressing this burdensome overreach and restoring standards that protect both public health and the affordable and reliable energy American families and businesses depend on,” House Energy and Commerce Chairman Brett Guthrie (R-KY-02).
“Reliable baseload power is essential to keeping energy affordable for families and businesses across Southern Indiana and the country. The Biden Administration’s war on coal drove up costs and threatened grid reliability. Today’s action will reduce costs, strengthen American energy dominance, and protect the workforce, all while maintaining strong environmental standards,” said Representative Erin Houchin (R-IN-09).
The 2024 MATS regulation was another notch in the Biden-Harris Administration’s war on coal. The rule imposed massive costs and red tape on coal-and oil-fired power plants, driving up the cost of living for American families, jeopardizing our grid reliability and national security, and limiting American energy and manufacturing dominance. The move was made despite the increased demand for baseload power across the nation; a demand which continues today.
The repeal of the 2024 MATS amendments will relieve all facilities of the unnecessary revised filterable particulate matter (fPM) emission standard for coal-fired power plants, the updated mercury standard for lignite-fired power plants, and the requirement for all power plants to use PM Continuous Emissions Monitoring Systems (CEMS)–which was shown to result in net costs, not benefits to the American people. This final rule reverts required compliance back to the existing 2012 standards that have driven sharp reductions in harmful air toxic pollutants from coal- and oil-fired power plants. In fact, in 2021, under the original standards, mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants were already 90 percent lower than pre-MATS levels. And since the 2012 MATS rule was put into place, acid gas hazardous air pollutant emissions have been reduced by over 96 percent, and emissions of the non-mercury metals – including nickel, arsenic, and lead – have been reduced by more than 81 percent. The Biden-Harris Administration reaffirmed the success of these changes when finding the existing 2012 standards provided an ample margin of safety to protect public health.
Coal is an essential source of baseload power needed to power both the American economy and American homes. Ensuring affordable and reliable energy supplies drives down the cost of living across the board. Americans will see the expected $670 million in savings in the form of lower costs of transportation, heating, utilities, farming, and manufacturing, and more reliable energy. As part of EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s Powering the Great American Comeback Initiative, Administrator Zeldin pledged to restore American Energy Dominance. Today’s action will further this goal without compromising EPA’s core mission of protecting human health and the environment.
To read the final rule, please visit EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards website.
