EPA announces stricter rules for heavy-metal pollution from coal-fired power plans, another reversal from Trump era

“The Environmental Protection Agency announced Monday it will set stricter requirements for how coal-fired power plants dispose of wastewater full of arsenic, lead and mercury — a major source of toxic water pollution in rivers, lakes and streams near electric generators across the country,” reports Dino Grandoni of The Washington Post.

“Biden’s team is aiming to undo one of the Trump administration’s major regulatory rollbacks. Last year, the Trump EPA weakened rules forcing many coal plants to treat wastewater with modern filtration methods and other technology before it reached waterways that provide drinking water for thousands of Americans,” Grandoni reports. “The power-plant wastewater rule is among dozens of Trump administration rollbacks the Biden team is seeking to reverse in its effort to tackle climate change and reduce pollution that often overburdens the poorest communities in the United States.

However, “The decision upset some environmental advocates who say the Biden team is not working fast enough. The EPA will not try to revert immediately to the stricter standards set under President Barack Obama in 2015, allowing the weaker Trump-era rule to remain in effect," Grandoni writes. “The Biden EPA saw a legal risk in asking a court to pull the Trump administration’s wastewater rule too quickly, because doing so could end up forcing the agency to revert to even more-outdated pollution standards written four decades ago.”