Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter Celebrates New EPA Standards to Slash Power Plant Pollution, Advance Transition from Coal to Clean Energy

ALBANY, NY – In a major win for the climate and public health, the Environmental Protection Agency finalized four separate standards today that will slash air, water, and carbon pollution from power plants. These critically needed safeguards will improve air and water quality for families, particularly for New York communities suffering from air pollution produced by coal plants in neighboring states and regions, such as Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio.

In response, Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter Chair Kate Bartholomew released the following statement: 

“The Biden Administration is taking historic and decisive action to protect our health, clean air and water, and collective future. These new commonsense safeguards will directly benefit New York communities long forced to breathe in toxic air pollution from neighboring states’ coal power plants. These rules represent major progress in our movement’s fight to decarbonize the electric sector, protect public health, and help avert the worst of the climate crisis.

“This suite of rules marks the beginning of our next chapter in the fight to transition to a 100 percent clean energy economy. This future will be built on a reliable and affordable power grid that leaves no community saddled with the pollution that threatens their health and their futures. Slashing harmful emissions from the hundreds of fossil fuel power plants across the country is a critical part of that effort, and we look forward to continuing to work with our allies to ensure a clean energy economy for all New Yorkers.”

Background for standards:

Carbon Pollution Standards:

• These final federal carbon pollution standards, issued under section 111 of the Clean Air Act, will control carbon emissions from new gas-fired power plants and existing coal-fired plants. These safeguards are among the most significant tools ever developed for reducing climate-disrupting emissions from the power sector, driving near-term retirements of uneconomic coal plants and slowing the buildout of new gas power plants. Before now, there have been no federal limits at all on carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants and no meaningful limits for new sources.
• Today’s final rule does not address pollution from gas plants currently in operation. In February, the EPA announced the agency is currently working on issuing a new proposal to reduce carbon pollution from those sources along with safeguards against other harmful air emissions from gas plants.

Mercury and Air Toxic Standards (MATS): 

• These protections against heavy metals, mercury, and other hazardous emissions from coal-fired power plants will help protect vulnerable communities from some of the most dangerous types of air pollution, including cancer-causing agents and neurotoxins.
• The final updates to MATS will require the most polluting coal-fired power plants to reduce emissions of toxins such as chromium and arsenic by adopting cost-effective, readily available pollution controls. The updates also will finally require coal plants that burn lignite, or brown coal – almost all of which are located in Texas and North Dakota – to meet the same mercury standards as other coal plants for the first time, reducing their emissions by 70 percent.

Effluent Limitations Guidelines (ELGs), or coal wastewater standards:

• These updated standards will improve upon existing safeguards by requiring further reduction in toxic wastewater discharged by coal-fired power plants through cost-effective and readily available control technologies. These plants are among the largest sources of hazardous wastewater pollutants like arsenic and mercury in the nation. 
• The final guidelines also eliminate toxic scrubber and bottom ash wastewater discharges and address sludge collected at the bottom of coal ash landfills, which is often held for years and then released into nearby rivers.

Coal Ash Standards:

• These updated standards will protect the public from millions of tons of toxic coal ash sitting in old landfills and ponds across the country previously exempt from federal regulations. 
• The updates to federal standards for coal ash will regulate coal ash disposed of in old landfills and other fill areas at power plants, not just ash in “active” landfills. For the first time, the rule will also regulate the many coal ash ponds located at retired power plants, called legacy ponds.