Published: July 21, 2025 |

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President Donald Trump signed four proclamations granting two years of regulatory relief to coal-fired power plants, among other industries.

The relief allows coal plants to comply with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards that were in place prior to the Biden Administration’s emission standards. The current administration has called the Biden-era rules costly and, “in some cases, unattainable.”

“These sectors are critical to maintaining national security and economic stability. Shutdowns could compromise our grid and lead to electricity shortages and reliance on foreign energy,” the White House said in a fact sheet.

Trump’s EPA has already proposed rolling back several regulations that would affect coal-fired generation. Notably, this includes the EPA power plant rule, which would require the longest-running existing coal-fired units and most heavily utilized new gas turbines to implement carbon capture and sequestration/storage (CCS) by various compliance dates in the 2030s.

Under that requirement, coal plants which plan to stay open beyond 2039 would have to reduce or capture 90 percent of their carbon dioxide emissions by 2032. Coal plants that are scheduled to close by 2039 would have to cut their emissions 16 percent by 2030, while those that are set to retire by 2032 would be exempted from the new rule. Opponents of the EPA power plant rule have argued that its implementation would jeopardize grid reliability and that the emission reduction technologies proposed by the Biden EPA aren’t ready for prime time.

The EPA also proposed weakening a regulation that requires power plants to reduce emissions of mercury and other toxic (MATS) pollutants. The Trump administration has already granted exceptions to 47 companies (representing at least 66 coal plants) from MATS standards. The exemption runs from July 8, 2027, to July 8, 2029. Many coal-fired plants added pollution-control systems in the previous decade to comply with MATS regulations.

Some operators have already delayed retirements of their coal-fired plants due to concerns about grid reliability. For example, Talen Energy recently agreed to delay retirement of its Brandon Shores coal-fired power plant in Maryland until 2029. Talen Energy had previously planned to retire Brandon Shores in June 2025.

In May, the U.S. Department of Energy also ordered a 90-day delay of the planned retirement of Consumers Energy’s J.H. Campbell plant in Michigan.

Trump has long promised to boost what he calls “beautiful” coal to fire power plants and for other uses. While some plants may stay open longer than originally anticipated, most others still have plans to retire or be repowered to natural gas.

As of May, the operating capacity of U.S. coal-fired power plants is scheduled to fall from 172 gigawatts (GW) to 145 GW by the end of 2028, according to what owners and operators have told the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Source: Power Engineering

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