Taxpayer Dollars and Pollution Exemptions Are Keeping Nearly Half of US Coal Plants Alive, EDF Analysis Finds

The Trump administration has helped almost half of the United States' coal plants keep operating, according to a new analysis by the Environmental Defense Fund. The EDF said the administration used cash support, exemptions from pollution limits and requirements to stay online past retirement dates to prop up plants facing economic and regulatory headwinds.

The analysis reviewed the 184 operating coal plants connected to the grid. Of those, 90 received some form of support from the Trump administration, the EDF found.

According to the EDF, the administration provided $950 million in taxpayer dollars to 24 coal plants. It also handed Clean Air Act exemptions from toxic pollution limits to 70 coal plants.

Surbhi Sarang, a director and senior attorney at the Environmental Defense Fund, said the measures are extending the life of the plants. She said the administration has leveraged a multitude of tools to prop up coal plants, ultimately harming Americans by increasing both electricity costs and pollution — as if Americans are being hit twice.

The EPA's Mercury and Air Toxics Standards first took effect in 2015 and drove down dangerous pollution from power plants by more than 90 percent. The standards were updated in 2024 to further reduce harmful pollution. In the early days of Trump's second term, companies were invited to email the administration to request exemptions from the 2024 standards; emails obtained by the EDF through Freedom of Information Act requests showed companies arguing the standards would cost them too much.

The Colstrip plant in Montana has operated for more than 40 years. The EDF described it as one of the dirtiest coal plants still operating in the nation, releasing toxic chemicals such as mercury, arsenic, lead and nickel and affecting nearby communities including the Northern Cheyenne reservation.

The strengthened 2024 standards cut the allowable limit for fine particulate matter, or fPM — emissions of nickel, arsenic, lead and other toxic metals — by two-thirds. Colstrip's owners, NorthWestern Energy and Talen Energy, requested an exemption from the fPM requirement. NorthWestern president and CEO Brian Bird wrote to the Department of Energy in March 2025 that complying with the new rule would cost $500 million, calling it ludicrous for customers to cover such an investment for so slight an improvement in particulate capture.

The Trump administration gave NorthWestern an exemption from the updated 2024 standards, which it later repealed in February. Sarang said Colstrip had not installed modern pollution controls; had it been required to comply with the 2024 standards, it would have had to upgrade its equipment, with significant impacts on air pollution.

NorthWestern disputes that picture. It describes Colstrip as a dependable bridge to a cleaner energy future and says its sulphur dioxide removal technology is state of the art and 99.6 percent efficient at removing filterable particulate emissions. The company said the 2024 standards would have required 99.8 percent efficiency by 2028 at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, and that its mercury controls meet current state and federal requirements.

Another plant given a pass is the WA Parish plant outside Houston, Texas, whose owner NRG asked the Department of Energy for exemptions for all its coal-fired facilities, arguing they would have to derate — taking megawatts off the grid in critical areas — in order to comply. A 2018 Rice University study found the plant may be responsible for as many as 177 premature deaths each year from PM 2.5 pollution.

Rice professor Daniel Cohan said plants across the country were supposed to meet the more stringent 2024 standards and that Trump is letting them off the hook. He said the exemptions let plants stay open longer, noting that many coal plants barely break even, so regulations forcing them to spend more on cleaning up pollution would likely cause some to retire and be replaced by cheaper, cleaner sources.

The administration defended its support for coal in a statement. White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said Democratic energy-subtraction policies had shuttered coal plants that provided reliable, affordable power, that President Trump promised to revive the coal industry, and that the administration has backed and saved more than 100 coal plants this term, preventing the retirement of more than 17 gigawatts of power.