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Climate|Coal Plant Ranked as Nation’s Dirtiest Asks for Pollution Exemption
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/02/climate/coal-plant-colstrip-epa-email-pollution-exemption.html
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The facility, in Colstrip, Mont., used a new E.P.A. system for requesting special waivers from President Trump.
April 2, 2025, 6:32 p.m. ET
The nation’s most polluting coal-burning power plant has asked President Trump to exempt it from stricter limits on hazardous air pollution after the administration recently invited companies to apply for presidential pollution waivers by email.
The aging Colstrip power plant in Colstrip, Mont., emits more harmful fine particulate matter pollution, or soot, than any other power plant in the nation, Environmental Protection Agency figures show. A new rule adopted by the Biden administration in 2023 would have compelled the facility — the only coal plant in the country to lack modern pollution controls — to install new equipment.
Now, the Colstrip plant has applied for a two-year exemption to those rules, according to Montana’s congressional delegation, which backed the request.
The new pollution standard “endangers the economic viability of the plant, which if closed, would undermine the region’s electric grid,” Senator Steve Daines and other members of the delegation wrote in a letter sent on Monday to the E.P.A. administrator, Lee Zeldin. “Without Colstrip, consumers would bear the burden of higher energy costs and grid unreliability, and its closure would stymie economic development in the region.”
Health experts noted that the letter didn’t address the health effects of the fine pollution particles. Numerous studies have shown the particles are small enough to penetrate deep into the lungs and enter the bloodstream, where they can travel to the heart and other organs, increasing mortality from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases.
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