Trump's Clean Air Act Exemptions Cover 202 Industrial Facilities, New York Times Review Finds
Since April 2025, President Trump has issued eight proclamations under a little-used Clean Air Act provision, Section 112(i)(4). They exempt coal plants, chemical makers, medical sterilizers, steel and mining operations from 2024 air toxics rules for two years. The proclamations cite unavailable technology and national security. Environmental groups are suing, and they argue the technology exists and the health risks are real.
The Overview
The facts, straight
Since April 2025, President Trump has signed eight proclamations that exempt industrial facilities from federal air toxics rules adopted in 2024. The facilities include coal-fired power plants, chemical plants, commercial medical-device sterilizers, taconite iron ore plants, a copper smelter and coke ovens. Each proclamation gives covered facilities two more years beyond the rule's compliance deadline, during which they may keep following the older standards.
The count. An investigation by The New York Times, published Oct. 24, 2026, by Eric Lipton, Maxine Joselow and Mira Rojanasakul, found that the president exempted "202 facilities in 39 states and Puerto Rico." The Times also reported that about 3.3 million Americans live within three miles of at least one exempted facility. Radio Purple did not do its own full count, because two of the facility lists are published only as scanned images. In March 2026, before the eighth proclamation, the Natural Resources Defense Council counted 180 facilities under the first seven.
The legal basis. Every proclamation cites Section 112(i)(4) of the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. 7412(i)(4). It reads: "The President may exempt any stationary source from compliance with any standard or limitation under this section for a period of not more than 2 years if the President determines that the technology to implement such standard is not available and that it is in the national security interests of the United States to do so." The law allows extensions of up to two years each and requires the president to "report to Congress with respect to each exemption."
How facilities applied. In March 2025, the EPA set up an email address where companies could request a presidential exemption. The agency's exemption page listed nine 2024 rules eligible for requests, with a March 31, 2025, deadline. It says, "An exemption may be extended for up to two additional years and can be renewed, if appropriate."
Has this been done before? The Times reported that before 2025 the provision "had never been invoked." Others describe the history a little differently. President Biden used the provision in a Jan. 16, 2025, memorandum that set up a process for sterilizer companies to request exemptions, "the duration of which shall be as short as possible and no longer than two years." He granted none. The Institute for Policy Integrity at NYU School of Law wrote that the provision "has been invoked by a President only once before and appears to have never been used to grant an exemption." NRDC says no president had exercised the authority in the 55 years since Congress enacted it.
The eight proclamations, with Federal Register citations:
| Proclamation | Signed | Covers | Federal Register |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10914, "To Promote American Energy" | April 8, 2025 | Coal-fired power plants (2024 Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, or MATS, 89 FR 38508) | 90 FR 16777 |
| 10956, "To Further Promote American Energy" | July 17, 2025 | Additional MATS units in Ohio, Colorado and Illinois | 90 FR 34583 |
| 10957, "Chemical Manufacturing Security" | July 17, 2025 | Chemical plants (2024 HON rule, 89 FR 42932) | 90 FR 34587 |
| 10958, "Iron Ore Processing Security" | July 17, 2025 | Taconite plants in Minnesota and Michigan (89 FR 16408) | 90 FR 34743 |
| 10959, "Sterile Medical Equipment" | July 17, 2025 | Ethylene oxide commercial sterilizers (89 FR 24090) | 90 FR 34747 |
| 10987, "American Mineral Security" | Oct. 24, 2025 | Copper smelting, Freeport-McMoRan's Miami smelter in Arizona (89 FR 41648) | 90 FR 49211 |
| 10993, "Coke Oven Processing Security" | Nov. 21, 2025 | Coke ovens (89 FR 55684) | 90 FR 54517 |
| 11041, "Chemical Manufacturing Security" | July 9, 2026 | Additional HON chemical plants | 91 FR 44719 |
Since then, the EPA has moved to roll back some of the underlying 2024 rules. On Feb. 20, 2026, it announced it had repealed the 2024 MATS amendments. In March 2026, it proposed reconsidering the 2024 sterilizer rule.
In court. Environmental and community groups have sued in federal court in Washington, D.C. The first suit, Air Alliance Houston v. Trump, was filed June 12, 2025, and challenges the power-plant exemptions. Court records show the court paused that case at the government's request, and the plaintiffs asked it to reconsider. Later suits were consolidated under Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services v. Trump, No. 1:25-cv-03745, before U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman. As of the docket's last entry on Sept. 9, 2026, the government's motion to dismiss and both sides' motions for summary judgment had been filed, with no ruling shown.
What the Left Says
The progressive and Democratic case
Environmental groups say the exemptions let the largest sources of cancer-causing pollution keep emitting while control technology is already in use.
Health risk, in EPA's own words. When it finalized the sterilizer rule in 2024, the EPA said: "Commercial sterilizers are one of the nation's leading sources of EtO, a potent cancer-causing air pollutant." The agency projected the rule would cut EtO emissions by more than 90 percent and the number of people facing elevated cancer risk by about 92 percent. For chemical plants, the EPA said its 2024 rule would keep "more than 6,200 tons of air toxics out of the air each year." That rule also required fenceline air monitoring for chemicals that include EtO and benzene. The EPA classifies benzene as a "known human carcinogen for all routes of exposure."
The technology argument. In their complaint, a dozen groups including Air Alliance Houston, the Environmental Defense Fund, NRDC and the Sierra Club argue: "Many of the exempted power plants have already installed and are actively using the technology sufficient to meet the targeted mercury and other toxic air pollution standards." They say that technology is what "EPA itself determined was available in a final rule issued just over a year ago."
The security rationale. NRDC calls the exemptions "an aggressive, unlawful assertion of presidential power." It also says "not one of the presidential proclamations provides a meaningful, legitimate technological or national security basis for the exemptions." James Pew, a senior attorney at Earthjustice, wrote that Congress meant the provision "to be used only in extraordinary circumstances, where a specific facility, vital to national security, cannot meet emission standards because the necessary pollution control technology is unavailable." He added: "This isn't actually about national security."
Where Reality Likely Sits
Radio Purple's analysis
Both sides want things that do not have to conflict: sterile medical supplies and a reliable grid, and lower cancer risk for people who live near these plants, including near homes and schools.
What both sides accept. The administration says ethylene oxide may be the only way to sterilize many medical devices without damaging them, and the 2024 EPA record describes the same chemical as a potent carcinogen. Both can be true. The open question is whether specific plants can install controls on a set timeline without supply disruptions. The statute itself contemplates that kind of targeted approach, with time limits, renewals and reports to Congress.
What could narrow the gap.
- Plant-by-plant timelines. Compliance schedules tied to specific facilities, rather than whole sectors.
- Fenceline monitoring. Keeping or publishing air monitoring at plant boundaries during any exemption.
- Transparency. Public lists of every exempted facility in readable form. Each exemption must also be reported to Congress under the law.
What to watch.
- A ruling from Judge Friedman on the consolidated lawsuits.
- Whether the first two-year exemptions are renewed as they approach expiration.
- Final EPA action on its proposed reconsideration of the 2024 sterilizer rule.
What the Right Says
The conservative and Republican case
The administration's reasoning is set out in the proclamations themselves. Each one makes the two findings the statute requires.
Power plants and the grid. The April 2025 proclamation says: "Coal-fired electricity generation is essential to ensuring that our Nation's grid is reliable and that electricity is affordable for the American people." It says the 2024 rule "requires compliance with standards premised on the application of emissions-control technologies that do not yet exist in a commercially viable form." It warns that the rule "raises the unacceptable risk of the shutdown of many coal-fired power plants, eliminating thousands of jobs, placing our electrical grid at risk." It concludes: "The technology to implement the Rule is not available," and "It is in the national security interests of the United States to issue this Exemption." A White House fact sheet said the move "ensures these plants are not prematurely forced offline due to unattainable compliance requirements under the new rule."
Medical supplies. The sterilizer proclamation says "ethylene oxide may be the only method of sterilizing many medical devices without damaging them." It says the 2024 rule "risks making critical sterile medical devices unavailable to care for patients in our civilian and military medical systems." It adds that the rule "will likely force existing sterilization facilities to close down, seriously disrupting the supply of medical equipment," and concludes: "In short, the current compliance timeline would undermine our national security." The EPA's 2026 proposal fact sheet says "EtO is used to sterilize 50 percent of all medical devices in the U.S. every year—that's 20 billion medical devices."
Steel, copper and chemicals. The coke oven proclamation says "approximately 70 percent of all steel is made using metallurgical coke." It says the 2024 rule relies on "technologies that do not yet exist in a commercially demonstrated or cost-effective form." The copper proclamation says, "Copper is essential to America's energy, defense, and manufacturing sectors." The July 2026 chemical proclamation says: "Many of the testing and monitoring requirements outlined in the HON Rule rely on technologies that are not practically available, not demonstrated at the necessary scale, or cannot be implemented safely or consistently under real-world conditions."
EPA on the power-plant rule. When the EPA repealed the 2024 MATS amendments, the agency said the change returns plants to the 2012 standards, which it called "fully protective":
Post: U.S. EPA (@EPA) on X, Feb. 20, 2026, 12:39 p.m. ET.
"🚨Just now, at a power plant in Louisville, Kentucky, @epa_fotouhi announced that EPA has repealed the 2024 amendments to the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) for power plants promulgated under the previous administration, which needlessly put grid reliability and affordable power for American families at risk. This action—estimated to save $670 million—simply returns MATS requirements to the existing and fully protective standards promulgated in 2012, which the Trump EPA reaffirmed in 2020. Today's action defines EPA's mission to protect human health and the environment, while also promoting affordability for all Americans."
Sources & Citations
- Federal Register, “Regulatory Relief for Certain Stationary Sources To Promote American Energy (Proclamation 10914), 90 FR 16777”, April 21, 2025.
- The White House, “Regulatory Relief for Certain Stationary Sources to Promote American Energy (Proclamation text)”, April 8, 2025.
- The White House, “Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Lifts Burdensome EPA Restrictions on Coal Plants”, April 8, 2025.
- Federal Register / govinfo, “Proclamation 10959, Regulatory Relief for Certain Stationary Sources To Promote American Security With Respect to Sterile Medical Equipment, 90 FR 34747”, July 23, 2025.
- The White House, “Regulatory Relief for Certain Stationary Sources to Promote American Chemical Manufacturing Security (Proclamation, July 2026)”, July 16, 2026.
- Legal Information Institute (U.S. Code text), “42 U.S.C. § 7412, Hazardous air pollutants”, October 24, 2026.
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Clean Air Act Section 112 Presidential Exemption Information”, October 24, 2026.
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Fact Sheet: Final Rule, Ethylene Oxide Emissions Standards for Sterilization Facilities (2024)”, March 14, 2024.
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “2026 Proposal Fact Sheet, Ethylene Oxide Commercial Sterilizers”, March 12, 2026.
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Chemical Sector Final Rule: Key Things to Know (2024)”, April 9, 2024.
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Benzene hazard summary”, September 1, 2016.
- Federal Register, “Orderly Implementation of the Air Toxics Standards for Ethylene Oxide Commercial Sterilizers (Memorandum of Jan. 16, 2025), 90 FR 6773”, January 17, 2025.
- X, “U.S. EPA post on X”, February 20, 2026.
- CourtListener (RECAP), “Air Alliance Houston v. Trump, No. 1:25-cv-01852 (D.D.C.), complaint (Doc. 1)”, June 12, 2025.
- CourtListener, “Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services v. Trump, No. 1:25-cv-03745 (D.D.C.), docket”, September 9, 2026.
- Natural Resources Defense Council, “A Free Pass to Polluters: Presidential Exemptions Using the Clean Air Act”, March 3, 2026.
- Earthjustice (James Pew), “Polluters can now email their way out of clean air laws, courtesy of Trump”, May 2, 2025.
- Institute for Policy Integrity, NYU School of Law, “Pollution by Proclamation: How the Air Toxics Exemption Ignores the Facts and Misuses the Law”, May 1, 2025.
- The New York Times, “5 Takeaways From Our Investigation of Trump's Waivers for Polluters”, October 24, 2026.
- The New York Times, “How Trump Gave the Worst Polluters a Free Pass”, October 24, 2026.
Positions above are attributed to the public statements and published reporting cited here. Quotations are taken from these sources; Radio Purple does not publish unattributed or invented quotes. See an error? Request a correction.
