Power companies would rather not clean their toxic messes. Trump’s EPA is granting their wish.

On January 15, a group of facilities companies wrote a letter To Li Zeldin, then President -elect Donald Trump’s candidate to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. “We offer electricity to millions of homes, companies and institutions across the United States, and we create thousands of good wage jobs, and we move US economic progress and prosperity,” the letter said.

After the polite opening, they reached their main request: “In particular, they call for immediate action: (1) The regulations related to greenhouse gas emissions (” “greenhouse gases” from natural and new energy generation plants that predict the carbon capture technology that has not been sufficiently clarified and (2) that is not next to the federal organization of federal aid.

Companies claim that the federal government has exceeded its power in enforcing them in these two areas of the organization. The message asked Zeldin to go easily – by returning the regulatory authority to the states and canceling the base of 2024 that imposed the cleaning ash of coal in inactive power plants.

What energy companies call “the remains of coal combustion”, and describes as “a natural secondary result to generate coal electricity … used for useful purposes in American construction and manufacturing”, more colloquially known as the ash of coal – it is often a toxic mixture of heavy metals such as arsenic and mercury, which is often built on a water body, and is often divided into the paid era. On the past A century and a half From American power generation, energy companies threw ash on hundreds of active and inactive power plants All over the country.

Zeldin is now the director of the Environmental Protection Agency, and it seems that energy companies get their desire. In the midst of a barrage of press release, on March 12, 31 procedures of interim procedures were suggested, and they are designed to weaken the enforcement of the coal venues.

Zealin called “the greatest day of the record cancellation of our nation.”

Initially, the Environmental Protection Agency Declare It will encourage countries to take over and enforce the base of coal. When the states are authorized by the Environmental Protection Agency to issue permits to get rid of their charcoal ash, they are supposed to adhere to the standards at least as strict like federal rules, but in some cases, environmental agencies in the United States were simply a corridor and raised this requirement.

Georgia, who obtained the authority to issue its own permits to get rid of coal ashes in 2019, Disadedly accredited plans In many coal factories for the Georgia’s utility to store millions of tons of coal ash in the burials of non -lined waste that is partially overwhelmed with groundwater, although it was notified by the Environmental Protection Agency that this violates the federal base. In the neighboring state of Alabama, government organizers sought the same authorized authority that were granted their counterparts in Georgia, but last year the Environmental Protection Agency And denied their application Because they planned to issue permits for the Alabama power that violates federal rules In the same way As Georgia.

Alabama was the first request for the coal program, which is run by the country, which was denied by the Environmental Protection Agency; yetJust Georgia, Texas and Akllahoma were approved. But the new approvals may be soon: “The Environmental Protection Agency will propose a decision on the Northern Dakota Declaration program during the next 60 days,” the statement said.

The Environmental Protection Agency also said it was “retreating” a base that was completed in 2024, during the era of President Joe Biden Close a long -term vulnerability By expanding the coal venues to cover the so-called “old” coal pools in closed power plants-which were not covered with a declared base 2015 that regulates the disposal of coal ash only in power plants in active use.

A review of the Environmental Protection Agency for the Old Fucharit base for the year 2024 will focus on whether the final dates for the base will be extended. Lisa Evans, the great chancellor at Earthjustice, said the time frames as they were written were already easier than it was necessary. She said: “The industry has already obtained great concessions from Biden, the Environmental Protection Agency to create long -term final dates.”

Due to the lack of levels of coal peak pollution until about 70 years after the dumping of waste, the longest -clean final dates can mean less effective. “The more these sites are ignored, the more pollution,” said Evans.

In the second announcement related to Coal ASH, the Environmental Protection Agency said it will review a list of its higher enforcement priorities that were announced in 2023 and applied to the financial years 2024 to 2027. Menu National enforcement and compliance initiatives, or NECI, included six “priority areas” for work, one of which is “protecting societies from coal ash pollution.”

The Environmental Protection Agency now intends to “align” the agency’s priorities with President Trump’s executive orders. He said that it will be completed by reviewing the NECI list “immediately” to ensure that the application is not distinguished based on race and social and economic situation (as in environmental justice initiatives) or stopping energy production and that it focuses on most health and safety issues. ”

No more details have been provided regarding what this means for the actual enforcement procedures for the agency. But a more completed image was found in an internal agency note, which was sent by Jeffrey Hall, Acting Head of the Acting and Compliance Department. The memo, which you see, selects the methods in which the NECI menu will be updated.

Hall’s note said that the priorities are under review “to ensure the compatibility between the NECIS and the priorities of the administration”, and it has developed a series of trends that apply “in the lower period” to all the enforcement of the Environmental Protection Agency. This includes a comprehensive guidance that “environmental justice considerations will not report the work of the Environmental Protection Agency and ensure compliance” and another announces that “procedures for ensuring execution and compliance do not close any stage of energy production stage (from exploration to distribution) or power generation in the absence of an imminent threat and health of human or legal or legal requirements for interviews.”

Regarding the coal, the memo argues that the NECI priority list “focuses in large part on the lack of compliance with the current performance standards and monitoring and testing requirements, which are largely driven by environmental justice considerations, which are not consistent with the president’s executive orders and the official’s initiative.” Accordingly, the memorandum states that “enforcing warranty and compliance with coal ashes in the active power plant facilities should focus on impending threats to human health.”

Because of the formulation of the memo, Evans said in an email message that “it will be completely possible for the Environmental Protection Agency to avoid any application at all from the gray base under the Neci.”

This will be a dramatic reflection of the growing enforcement that increased under Biden’s management. In 2024 – the first year of the priority of coal ashes – the Environmental Protection Agency conducted 107 compliance reviews From the sizes of coal in 18 states. Although only 5 enforcement (orders or agreements requires the Environmental Protection Agency to take certain measures) that year, Evans said it is possible that the Environmental Protection Agency will find a reason for law enforcement in many other sites if investigations are allowed to follow up.

Evans said that the condition of enforcement of the application exceeds only in cases of imminent threats to human health that effectively restricts the agency from the enforcement of aspects of the designer coal as “imminent threats” by requesting the appropriate management and monitoring toxic waste sites before damaging and spills.

For example, Evans said the guidance will prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from asking the tool to repair the defective groundwater control system. She said: “The facilities led to the system dumping in some plants by designing the surveillance systems that missed the purpose of discovering the leakage from the emptying of the ash of coal,” noting 2022 a report By Earthjustice and the ecological integrity project that claimed that the extensive practice between power companies of addressing monitoring data to reduce the extent of pollution.

Energy companies are supposed to dig wells to assess the quality of the groundwater in the coal ash dumps, and in order to measure the level of pollution, compare them to what should be samples of unpopular water nearby. But the 2022 report is documented examples like coal factories in Texas, Indiana and Florida, where the Environmental Protection Agency found that the “background” wells used for the purpose of providing basic samples of water quality were drilling in polluted areas near the emptying of coal ash. The report also documented the “intrawell” monitoring, or simply analyzing data from each well in isolation, in order to assess changes in pollution levels over time, instead of contradiction to unpopular wells. This method does not work unless the wells are not contaminated to start with it, and it is prohibited by the Environmental Protection Agency instructions – but the report was found that it was used in 108 coal factories at the country level.

These practices can be given mainly a free pass under new enforcement instructions. “Although these violations are very important (because pollution is not discovered and the cleaning has not been turned on), it may not rise to” an imminent threat “, especially if there are no data that reveals toxic versions,” Evans said.

The memorandum department, which deals with the ashes of coal, stipulated that “any matter or any other procedure that would be dramatically or disrupted by the generation of power” requires “prior approval” from the assistant official in the Office of Envoy and Compliance – the political appointed position that the hall is temporarily carried.

The memorandum justifies this requirement on the basis of the declared intention of the Trump administration represented in the “US Energy Launch”. But for Nick Toure, a prominent lawyer at the Center for Southern Environmental Law, has nothing to do with energy production – and more than that related to the statement of facilities.

“There is nothing about cleaning coal ash that affects energy generation; these two separate activities,” Tori pointed out. “So what seems that they are priority to the interests of the pollutants on people’s drinking water.”