Trump is making coal plants even dirtier as AI demands more energy
Trump’s wave of deregulation aims to make it easier to quickly build new data centers and fossil fuel infrastructure to power them.
“The Trump administration is removing health protections critical to protecting children from toxins like mercury, simply to save the coal industry money,” Nicholas Morales, an attorney with the nonprofit environmental law group Earthjustice, said in a press release today.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized the repeal of the mercury and air toxics standards that the Biden administration strengthened in 2024. The Trump administration is returning the standards to where they were in 2012, when the Obama administration initially instituted them. Easing regulations is expected to save $78 million each year starting in 2028, according to an EPA fact sheet.
