Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

“Trump is illegally delaying clean air laws from his desk because polluters make more money when they just dump their toxic chemicals in our air,” said one critic.

Continuing a trend of prioritizing polluters over public health and the planet, U.S. President Donald Trump late Thursday signed a series of proclamations to provide what the Republican called “regulatory relief” to various industries.

While the names of Trump’s four proclamations suggest they are intended to promote American “security” regarding energy, chemical manufacturing, iron ore processing, and sterile medical equipment, what they actually do is allow over 100 facilities across the country to not comply with rules put in place under Democratic former President Joe Biden.

A Trump White House fact sheet describes the rules from Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as “burdensome.” Meanwhile, environmental and health advocates blasted Trump over his new exemptions for coal-fired power plants, ethylene oxide commercial sterilizers, and facilities that manufacture chemicals and process taconite iron.

“If your family lives downwind of these plants, this is going to mean more toxic chemicals in the air you breathe.”

Patrice Simms, vice president of litigation at Earthjustice’s Healthy Communities Program, said in a Friday statement that “Trump is illegally delaying clean air laws from his desk because polluters make more money when they just dump their toxic chemicals in our air.”

“Trump’s action on behalf of big corporate polluters will cause more cancer, more birth defects, and more children to suffer [from] asthma,” Simms warned. “The country deserves better.”

The proclamation is not the first handout Trump has given the coal industry since returning to office in January. As Earthjustice noted:

In April 2025, the Trump administration exempted 68 coal-fired power plants from pollution limits set in the strengthened MATS rule, even though pollution controls are widely available and already in use. These came after EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin invited corporations to email the agency to request exemptions from clean air standards. Companies were told they could cite “national security” or “lack of available technology” as justification.

John Walke, clean air director for the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council, told The Associated Press that Trump’s claims about national security concerns and technology issues were “pretexts” to further enrich large corporations.

“President Trump just signed a literal free pass for polluters,” Walke said of the new proclamations. “If your family lives downwind of these plants, this is going to mean more toxic chemicals in the air you breathe.”

The AP reported that “in a related development, the EPA said Thursday it will give utility companies an additional year to inspect and report on contamination from toxic coal ash landfills across the country,” which Zeldin also called “regulatory relief.”

Earthjustice senior counsel Lisa Evans told The New York Times on Thursday that while it may not seem like a lengthy delay, “a year’s time is not irrelevant when you are living next to a coal plant.”

“It’s one more year of hazardous contaminants getting into the groundwater,” Evans said. “And the more chemicals that get into the groundwater, the more difficult and expensive it is to remediate.”

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