A Free Pass to Polluters: Presidential Exemptions Using the Clean Air Act

Emissions rise from Dominion Resources’ coal-fired Mount Storm Generating Station on the west bank of Mount Storm Lake, West Virginia. — Emissions rising from Dominion Resources’ coal-fired Mount Storm Generating Station in Mount Storm Lake, West Virginia
Credit:
Eric Vance/EPA

The Trump administration is giving some of the nation’s most hazardous industries a free pass to spew toxic pollution. These exemptions are part of a broader pattern across the administration of eroding democracy by sidestepping Congress and federal agencies and shutting communities out of decisions that affect their health.

Using an obscure provision of the Clean Air Act, President Trump issued seven different presidential proclamations across six industries, exempting 180 facilities from hazardous air pollution standards. This is an aggressive, unlawful assertion of presidential power. President Trump’s exemptions apply not to individual facilities or specific standards under exceptional circumstances but to entire sectors or large segments of industries, covering:

One-third of all coal-fired power plants
One-quarter of all chemical manufacturers
Nearly half of the commercial sterilization industry
One of the nation’s two primary copper smelters
The entire taconite ore processing industry
The entire coke oven industry

These exemptions allow companies to evade existing air toxics standards for at least two years and continue to emit dangerous levels of cancer-causing pollutants, neurotoxins, respiratory irritants, and a range of other hazardous air pollutants. Without providing any explanation for the exemptions, the president vaguely cited technological unavailability and national security concerns to grant polluters a free pass. Even worse, to receive an exemption, facilities merely had to send an email to an inbox set up by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

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The narrow, never-before-used provision

To exempt these facilities, President Trump exploited a narrowly defined provision of the Clean Air Act: Section 112(i)(4) allows the president to grant exemptions from air toxics regulations in very limited circumstances. A president may only grant an exemption where he determines (1) that the technology to implement the standard is “not available” and (2) that an exemption “is in the national security interests of the United States.” In the 55 years since Congress enacted Section 112(i)(4), no president had exercised this exemption authority. But, in 2025 alone, President Trump invoked this authority seven times. And not one of the presidential proclamations provides a meaningful, legitimate technological or national security basis for the exemptions.

NRDC’s director of policy analysis, Amanda Levin, explains how coal plant pollution surged across the country last year, thanks to Trump’s presidential exemptions, and how that has subsequently created billions of dollars in public health costs for local communities.

A sweeping assertion of presidential authority

These exemptions are an abuse of executive authority. Regulations based on public comment, extensive scientific review, and technical agency expertise have been suspended via unilateral executive action—a presidential proclamation—without notice to nearby communities, without an opportunity for meaningful engagement, without scientific review, without any guardrails. 

The result is not just weaker environmental protection but also a fundamental breakdown in democratic governance. Instead of regulations developed by an expert agency through public notice and comment and a scientifically backed rulemaking process, pollution limits have been stalled by presidential fiat.

Repeatedly, President Trump has claimed national security reasons or cited emergency powers to justify draconian immigration measures, unprecedented tariffs, and even the deployment of the national guard in response to lawful protests. Invoking seldom-used, obscure statutory provisions, the president has pushed the bounds of executive power to further an extreme policy agenda. Now, President Trump abuses a limited authority under the Clean Air Act to support environmental deregulation and to side with polluters.

This is not a mere policy choice or a lawful exercise of executive authority. It is an illegal assertion of presidential power that sidelines congressional intent, bypasses administrative process, and exposes communities—often already overburdened by pollution—to increased health risks. By siding with polluting industries over the people that the Clean Air Act was designed to protect, President Trump transformed a public health statute into a tool of deregulation, abusing executive power and eroding democratic accountability in the process.

We’re taking action

NRDC and our partners are challenging these illegal, undemocratic exemptions in court to protect our communities and to uphold sound democratic governance. See below for more details on specific cases.