The Sundarban
February 20, 2026
3 min read
Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAmMercury pollution from coal plants has been tied to serious neurological considerations, especially in adolescents and infants
By Jackie Flynn Mogensen edited by Claire Cameron
Mill Creek Producing Build, a coal-fired vitality plant in Louisville, Ky.
Jon Cherry/Getty Photography
On Friday the Trump administration formally rolled encourage a series of Biden-generation environmental regulations on coal plants, including some intended to clamp down on mercury pollution. Environmental advocacy groups and experts believe decried the willpower as risking human health—mercury has been confirmed to state off serious neurological wound, especially in infants.
The willpower effectively reverts regulations to these state in 2012 by the Obama administration. These earlier principles allowed vitality plants that burned a in particular dirty possess of coal called lignite coal to emit extra mercury than plants that burned other forms of the fossil gasoline.
“The Biden-Harris Administration’s anti-coal regulations sought to control out of existence this a must believe sector of our energy economy. If applied, these actions would believe destroyed legit American energy,” mentioned Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin in an announcement.
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The rolled encourage regulations additionally incorporated emission standards for filterable particulate topic and required plants to make use of emission monitoring methods. The principles keep “undue burdens” on corporations, the EPA mentioned closing June.
“This day’s movement by the Trump EPA strikes us backward to weaker pollution protections and dirtier air. This might maybe maybe well allow coal plants to pour extra mercury and toxic pollution into our air, that can then get into our water, meals and finally our kids’s our bodies,” says Surbhi Sarang, a senior attorney on the Environmental Protection Fund with skills in vitality sector regulation, adding that the crew plans to scenario the movement in court.
The glide is the most contemporary in a string of actions by the Trump administration to prop up what has long been viewed as a moribund coal substitute in the U.S. The administration has ordered the Division of Bid to speed militia services on coal vitality, funded renovations for coal-powered plants and even blocked plants from shutting down. At the equal time, the administration is attempting to ramp up vitality generation to red meat up new synthetic intelligence recordsdata services and other energy-intensive infrastructure.
“Once extra, the Trump administration is abandoning science and abandoning statute to present polluters a free pass,” mentioned Julie McNamara, companion policy director of the Climate and Energy Program on the Union of Keen Scientists, in an announcement. “And all once more, the Trump administration is doing so on the expense of participants’s health.”
Coal-fired vitality plants are the leading provide of mercury emissions in the U.S., in accordance with the EPA. When coal burns, it releases mercury into the atmosphere. At closing, the heavy metal settles into soil and water, the keep it’s taken up by plants and animals—a pair of of which we eat for meals. Mercury contamination is especially hazardous for adolescents and might maybe maybe well even state off neurological impairments in infants.
“The [EPA] Administrator’s legacy will eternally be somebody who does the bidding of the fossil gasoline substitute on the expense of our health,” mentioned Gina McCarthy, who served as President Joe Biden’s nationwide climate adviser, in an announcement on Thursday, after recordsdata broke that the cuts had been incoming.
Mercury pollution has been on the decline for years. Between 2010 and 2017, mercury emissions dropped by an estimated 86 percent, in segment resulting from of regulatory movement that curbed coal burning.
Regulations believe had a order impact on our meals, too: in 2016, as an instance, researchers certain that the decline in mercury emissions in North The US led to a 19 percent decline in mercury phases in bluefin tuna samples tested between 2004 and 2012.
“By weakening pollution limits and monitoring for mind-adverse mercury and other pollutants, [the EPA administrator is] actively spiking any strive to plan The US—and our kids—wholesome,” McCarthy mentioned in the equal assertion.
Editor’s Uncover (2/20/26): Here’s a breaking recordsdata myth and might maybe maybe well even be up up to now.
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