The Trump Administration Takes a Dangerous New Path in Proposing Changes to EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Rule

The Clean Air Task Force criticizes the Trump EPA's plan to revise the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), asserting that the administration is intentionally ignoring the vast health benefits of the rule—such as 11,000 fewer premature deaths annually—to justify a rollback. The author contends that by limiting the benefit-cost analysis to mercury alone, the EPA is abandoning established regulatory principles to serve the interests of private coal company owners, despite the rule's high cost-effectiveness and the opposition of the utility industry that has already implemented the controls.

• The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) have already been fully implemented, resulting in a 90 percent reduction in mercury emissions and a 70-80 percent reduction in other toxic metals, acid gases, and particulate matter precursors.
• EPA data indicates that the emission controls required by MATS provide significant public health benefits, including the prevention of 11,000 premature deaths, 4,700 heart attacks, and 130,000 asthma-related hospitalizations every year.
• MATS is described as the most cost-effective regulation ever issued, with estimated health benefits between $37 billion and $90 billion compared to an industry implementation cost of roughly $2 billion.
• The Trump EPA intends to undermine the rule's justification by adopting a narrow regulatory assessment that considers only the health benefits of reducing mercury, ignoring the broader benefits of reducing other air toxics.

APA

Weeks, A. (2018). The Trump Administration Takes a Dangerous New Path in Proposing Changes to EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Rule. Clean Air Task Force. https://www.catf.us/2018/10/proposed-changes-epas-mercury-air-toxics-rule/

Chicago

Weeks, Ann. The Trump Administration Takes a Dangerous New Path in Proposing Changes to EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Rule. Clean Air Task Force, 2018. https://www.catf.us/2018/10/proposed-changes-epas-mercury-air-toxics-rule/.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=Weeks |first1=Ann |title=The Trump Administration Takes a Dangerous New Path in Proposing Changes to EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Rule |publisher=Clean Air Task Force |date=24 October 2018 |url=https://www.catf.us/2018/10/proposed-changes-epas-mercury-air-toxics-rule/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{weeks2018trump, author = {Weeks, Ann}, title = {{The Trump Administration Takes a Dangerous New Path in Proposing Changes to EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Rule}}, publisher = {Clean Air Task Force}, year = {2018}, month = oct, url = {https://www.catf.us/2018/10/proposed-changes-epas-mercury-air-toxics-rule/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }