Trump EPA Website Offers to Help Sources Emit Pollution Instead of Complying with Standards

(Washington, D.C. – March 27, 2025) A new Trump EPA website is offering to help industrial sources emit hazardous air pollution instead of complying with existing clean air standards. 

The website, which was launched earlier this week, encourages the “regulated community” to apply for special Presidential exemptions to safeguards that keep toxic and hazardous pollution out of the air we breathe. The site has step-by-step instructions on how to apply for the exemptions and a deadline of March 31^st – just four days from today. 

“EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s action is an extreme and improper abuse of Clean Air Act authorities that only allow for exemptions from vital pollution protections in very narrow circumstances,” said Environmental Defense Fund’s General Counsel Vickie Patton. “This is a Trump EPA-led effort to evade established limits on toxic pollution that protect millions of people across the U.S.”

EDF filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) today for all records related to the website, including which entities are requesting the exemptions and any records related to Administrator Zeldin’s reckless invitation to industrial emitters of toxic pollution. EDF will go to court to obtain these records if necessary and will make them public. 

“We are filing a FOIA request to obtain every application submitted so far and all related documents, because the American public deserves to know what the Trump EPA and polluters are doing to the air they breathe,” said Patton.

The Trump EPA website offers potential Presidential exemptions for nine major protections at the same time, including limits on the mercury from power plants that causes brain damage in young children and the limits on hazardous pollution from more than 200 of the largest and most polluting petrochemical facilities around the country.

Historically, the use of special Presidential exemptions to EPA protections are rare, made transparent through a public decision-making process, and issued after careful consideration that they meet the requirements – which are both that necessary technology is not available and that there is a national security threat as a result.