Trump boosted half of US coal plants with taxpayer dollars and ‘free passes to pollute’, report says

Trump boosted half of US coal plants with taxpayer dollars and ‘free passes to pollute’, report says Environmental Defense Fund analysis shows administration handed out $950m and Clean Air Act exemptions

It’s a good time to be a coal plant in the US. The Trump administration has given support to almost half of the nation’s coal plants, helping them to continue operating despite economic and regulatory headwinds, according to a new analysis by the Environmental Defense Fund.

The analysis, which looked at the 184 operating coal plants that are connected to the grid, found that 90 received support from the Trump administration through “cash handouts, free passes to pollute, and requirements to stay online past their retirement dates”.

The administration provided $950m in taxpayer dollars to 24 coal plants and handed Clean Air Act exemptions from toxic pollution limits to 70 coal plants, according to the EDF analysis.

“It’s extending the life of these coal plants,” said Surbhi Sarang, director and senior attorney at the Environmental Defense Fund. “The administration has leveraged a multitude of tools to prop up coal plants, and ultimately all of that is harming Americans even more by increasing electricity costs, by increasing pollution – it’s like Americans are getting hit twice.”

In 2015, the EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards first took effect, driving down dangerous pollution from power plants by more than 90%. In 2024, the EPA updated the standards to further reduce harmful pollution from coal-fired power plants. In the early days of the second Trump term, companies were invited to email the administration to request an exemption from the 2024 standards. According to emails obtained by the EDF through Freedom of Information Act requests, companies expressed concern that the standards would cost them too much money.

The Colstrip plant in Montana has operated for more than 40 years, affecting nearby communities like the Northern Cheyenne reservation by releasing toxic chemicals like mercury, arsenic, lead and nickel. “That’s one of the dirtiest coal plants that’s still operating in the nation,” Sarang said.

In 2024, the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards for coal-fired power plants was strengthened in several ways. For example, the standard for fine particulate matter, or fPM, reduced allowable emissions of nickel, arsenic, lead and other toxic metals from coal plants by two-thirds. According to the EDF, NorthWestern Energy and Talen Energy, which own and operate the Colstrip plant, requested an exemption from the fPM requirement.

Brian Bird, president and CEO of NorthWestern, wrote an email to the Department of Energy in March 2025 asking for a 15-minute chat about the standards with administrator Lee Zeldin. In the email , obtained by EDF, he argued that it would cost $500m to comply with the new rule: “It is ludicrous that our customers would have to cover the costs of a $500m investment for such a slight improvement to particulate matter capture,” he wrote.