Trump Administration Backed 90 of 184 US Coal Plants, EDF Finds

By Grace Kim

The Trump administration has funneled support to 90 of the 184 coal plants connected to the US grid — nearly half the national fleet — through $950 million in taxpayer dollars and exemptions from federal toxic pollution limits, according to a new analysis by the Environmental Defense Fund.

The EDF review, covering all operating coal plants on the grid, found the administration propped up the facilities with what the group describes as "cash handouts, free passes to pollute, and requirements to stay online past their retirement dates." Specifically, 24 coal plants received a combined $950 million in taxpayer money, and 70 received exemptions from Clean Air Act toxic pollution limits.

"It's extending the life of these coal plants," said Surbhi Sarang, director and senior attorney at the Environmental Defense Fund. "The administration has leveraged a multitude of tools to prop up coal plants, and ultimately all of that is harming Americans even more by increasing electricity costs, by increasing pollution – it's like Americans are getting hit twice."

How did the exemptions come about?

The story starts with the EPA's Mercury and Air Toxics Standards. The rules first took effect in 2015 and cut dangerous power plant pollution by more than 90%. In 2024, the EPA strengthened them further. The updated standard for fine particulate matter, or fPM, would have reduced allowable emissions of nickel, arsenic, lead and other toxic metals from coal plants by two-thirds.

Early in the second Trump term, companies were invited to email the administration and request exemptions from the 2024 standards. Emails obtained by the EDF through Freedom of Information Act requests show companies argued the standards would cost them too much money. The administration went on to repeal the 2024 standards in February.

What happened at Colstrip?

The Colstrip plant in Montana has run for more than 40 years, releasing toxic chemicals including mercury, arsenic, lead and nickel, and affecting nearby communities such as the Northern Cheyenne reservation.

"That's one of the dirtiest coal plants that's still operating in the nation," Sarang said.

NorthWestern Energy and Talen Energy, which own and operate Colstrip, requested an exemption from the fPM requirement. Brian Bird, president and CEO of NorthWestern, emailed the Department of Energy in March 2025 asking for a 15-minute chat about the standards with administrator Lee Zeldin. In the email obtained by EDF, Bird argued compliance would cost $500 million.

"It is ludicrous that our customers would have to cover the costs of a $500m investment for such a slight improvement to particulate matter capture," Bird wrote.

The administration granted NorthWestern the exemption. Sarang said Colstrip has not installed modern pollution controls that could reduce emissions, and that forcing compliance with the 2024 standards would have required equipment upgrades. "It would have had pretty significant impacts on air pollution," she said.

NorthWestern, which became Colstrip's majority owner earlier this year, calls the plant a "dependable bridge to a cleaner energy future" supplying reliable energy "until viable, equivalent, carbon-free energy resources are commercially available."

Responding to the EDF report, NorthWestern said its Colstrip technology is "state of the art" for removing sulphur dioxide and is 99.6% efficient at removing filterable particulate emissions. The company said the 2024 standards would have required 99.8% efficiency by 2028, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. It said its mercury emission controls meet current state and federal requirements.

What about the WA Parish plant?

Another beneficiary is the WA Parish coal plant outside Houston, Texas. Community members have called for its shutdown over its planet-heating CO2 emissions and what they describe as "hazardous" levels of particulate matter.

Owner NRG asked the Department of Energy for exemptions for all of its coal-fired facilities, arguing they couldn't comply with the new standards and would need to "derate in order to comply" — taking megawatts off the grid in "critical areas." NRG wrote that complying "with razor thin margins" would risk grid affordability and reliability. The company did not respond to a request for comment.

A 2018 Rice University study found WA Parish causes as many as 177 premature deaths each year from PM 2.5 — particles small enough to enter the bloodstream through the lungs, driving respiratory disease, heart attacks and strokes.

"Our research has shown that WA parish is the deadliest power plant in Texas," said Rice professor Daniel Cohan.

What does the support mean for coal's future?

Cohan said plants nationwide were supposed to meet the 2024 standards. "Trump is letting them off the hook from the more stringent version of the standard," he said.

"It lets them stay open longer," Cohan explained. "Many coal plants in this country are barely on the edge of breaking even, and so any regulations that force them to spend more money to clean up their pollution is likely to cause some of them to choose to retire and be replaced by cheaper and cleaner sources."

The White House defended the policy. "The Democrats' energy-subtraction policies shuttered American coal plants that provided reliable, affordable power to families and businesses when they needed it most. President Trump promised to revive America's coal industry, and the Trump Administration has backed and saved more than 100 coal plants this term. By championing beautiful, clean coal, President Trump has prevented the retirement of more than 17 gigawatts of power and saved lives during heightened demand periods," spokesperson Taylor Rogers wrote in a statement.

The divergence between those two framings — saved capacity versus subsidized pollution, in EDF's telling — is the policy fight that will shape how many of the 184 plants are still running when the next round of standards is written.