Trump Exempted Some of the Nation’s Biggest Polluters From Air Quality Rules. All It Took Was an Email.
White smoke rises from a Freeport-McMoRan copper smelter in eastern Arizona, one of more than 180 facilities granted exemptions to the Clean Air Act by the Trump administration. Roberto “Bear” Guerra for ProPublica In March 2025, President Donald Trump’s administration made a tantalizing offer to coal-fired power plants, chemical manufacturing facilities and other factories: Their operations could be exempted from key provisions under the Clean Air Act, the bedrock environmental law estimated to have prevented thousands of premature deaths. All they had to do was ask. No rigorous application was needed. An email, which they had until the end of the month to send, would suffice. Within two weeks, executives across major industries began flooding an inbox set up to receive and funnel requests from the Environmental Protection Agency to the White House. They asked that their facilities be excused from expensive Clean Air Act requirements, relief that would save their comp...
