TUCSON, Ariz.— The Center for Biological Diversity sued the Trump administration today for failing to release the names of fossil fuel companies and other polluters seeking exemptions from life-saving Clean Air Act safeguards against hazardous pollution.
In March President Trump invited industrial polluters to apply for an exemption from rules that limit dangerous air pollutants, including mercury, lead and ethylene oxide.
“Trump has encouraged the nation’s dirtiest polluters to line up for a political handout and put their profits ahead of the health of millions of people,” said Ryan Maher, an attorney at the Center. “The polluter-in-chief is trying to sneak through this blatant law violation by hiding which industrial polluters are cashing in and increasing dangerous air pollution that Americans are forced to breathe.”
Past uses of this presidential exemption power included a detailed application process to determine whether the request was justifiable under the law. But Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency required polluters only to submit a simple emailed request for exemptions — many of which have already been approved.
A rarely used provision of the Clean Air Act allows the president to exempt industrial facilities from certain air pollution standards under narrow circumstances. The president has to determine that a polluting facility cannot meet the standard using presently available technology and that it would be harmful to national security interests to impose the standard on the facility.
Four weeks after the administration’s March 12 solicitation of exemption requests, the EPA determined that 66 coal-fired power plants would receive exemptions from a Biden-era rule limiting mercury and other hazardous air pollutants. But the agency has disclosed no information about additional coal plants that may have applied for exemptions or the status of exemptions offered to eight other industries. The nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund revealed that more than 500 facilities would be eligible to increase their pollution under this exemption.
The EPA has failed to share what information polluters have provided to justify their exemptions requests, despite claiming that the president would make individual determinations “on the merits” of each request.
In April 2024 the EPA concluded that the mercury air toxic rule’s pollution controls were technologically feasible and necessary to save lives and shield the most vulnerable Americans, especially children and people in environmental justice communities, from hundreds of tons of airborne pollutants that cause asthma, brain damage and cancer.
In March the Center filed a Freedom of Information Act request for information about the exemptions but has yet to receive any records not already publicly available. The act is meant to ensure public access to information about the functioning of federal agencies by guaranteeing disclosure within 20 business days of a request.
The Center has filed a dozen FOIA lawsuits this year seeking public records underlying the Trump administration’s anti-environment agenda. These records include emails and other documents detailing critical work abruptly ended by mass firings and layoffs across the federal government, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and funding cuts to international wildlife conservation programs.
Today’s lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona. The Trump administration should provide the requested records in the next two to three months.
