About 200 industrial plants have received presidential exemptions from Biden-era air rules

About 200 industrial facilities have received presidential exemptions from nine Clean Air Act rules finalized under the Biden administration, according to a Harvest Public Media report published October 7. The exemptions cover coal plants, chemical plants, coke ovens and other sources, and they delay compliance by up to two years.

The authority comes from section 112(i)(4) of the Clean Air Act. The EPA’s explanation says the provision “allows the President to exempt stationary sources of air pollution from compliance with any standard or limitation under section 112.” Two conditions apply: the technology needed to meet the standard must not be “available,” and the exemption must be in “the national security interests of the United States.” An initial exemption lasts “for up to two years” and “may be extended for up to two additional years and can be renewed, if appropriate,” the agency says.

The nine rules cover mercury and air toxics from power plants, synthetic organic chemical manufacturing, ethylene oxide sterilizers, rubber tire manufacturing, primary copper smelting, integrated iron and steel, lime plants, coke ovens and taconite iron ore processing. The EPA asked facilities in March 2025 to submit information on why they qualify, with requests due March 31, 2025.

How many plants applied

The Environmental Defense Fund and the Environmental Integrity Project estimate that about 400 facilities applied for some exemption and that about half received one, Harvest Public Media reported. Texas has the most exempted facilities of any state, with 28, most of them in coastal cities such as Houston.

Seventy petrochemical facilities in 17 states received a two-year pass from the chemical plant rule, and about half of them are along the Gulf Coast. The Biden EPA estimated that rule would lower by 96 percent the number of people with an elevated cancer risk from living near these plants. It required fenceline monitoring for six air pollutants. Sites named in the report include an Occidental Chemical Corp. plant in Wichita, Kansas, the Phillips 66 Wood River Manufacturing Complex in Roxana, Illinois, and a Trinseo facility in Midland, Michigan.

Residents and the coal plant in Labadie

In Missouri, the Labadie Energy Center is the state’s largest coal plant and was the fifth-largest mercury emitter among U.S. power plants as of 2024. The 2024 mercury rule gave coal plants until July 2027 to meet stricter limits on heavy metals and fine particulate matter. The EPA excused Labadie and similar plants until July 2029 and then repealed the 2024 mercury rule, Harvest Public Media reported.

Patricia Schuba, president of the Labadie Environmental Organization, lives a few miles from the plant. Her group has pushed for tighter controls for more than 15 years. “You can actually see the pollution,” she said of soot from the plant. “We’re being sacrificed for profits of corporations and the energy industry.”

Craig Giesmann, director of environmental services at Ameren Missouri, said the exemptions “helped protect customers from paying for significant expenditures.” Ameren’s application said they would avoid “very costly and cost-ineffective control retrofits” at Labadie and the Sioux Energy Center in West Alton, Missouri. Giesmann described both plants as “critical to maintaining reliability.”

Steel and coke ovens in the Midwest

Two coke ovens in northwest Indiana received exemptions, and five more waiver requests in the area, tied to iron ore-to-steel processing and lime manufacturing, are pending. Lisa Vallee, organizing director of Just Transition Northwest Indiana, said “industry is obviously being kind of given the golden ticket here.” She added that the rules “were put in place for a reason, and that was to save lives.”

A study by Nicholas Muller, a Carnegie Mellon economist, was commissioned by the group. It estimates more than $3 billion a year in public health and economic damages from 20 industrial sites in the region and attributes 124 premature deaths annually to the Cleveland-Cliffs Burns Harbor facility. The company did not respond to a request for comment.

Lawsuits and industry cost estimates

Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services and the Environmental Defense Fund are plaintiffs in lawsuits over the exemptions. An October 2025 EDF announcement described a suit challenging a presidential proclamation that exempted 50 chemical manufacturing plants from the 2024 chemical plant rule, and said the Clean Air Act provision had never been used before. Rosalie Winn, EDF’s lead counsel, said at the time: “The Trump administration is illegally offering chemical plants a free pass to pollute toxics.” In the Harvest Public Media report she said, “We think that what the president has done here is illegal,” and that “there’s a ton of evidence that shows the technology is available.”

Nalleli Hidalgo of the Texas group said, “You’re seeing decades of work being swept away and protections stripped away from communities.”

The American Chemistry Council and the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers estimate that compliance with the chemical plant rule would cost “tens of billions” of dollars. The American Chemistry Council said the “two-year exemptions that have been granted offer a pathway for relief.” The Trump administration has said the decision will “ensure affordable, dependable energy for American families and restore American energy dominance.”

An EPA press office spokesperson told Harvest Public Media that the exemptions are the president’s prerogative and that the agency did not review them.