Trump’s EPA Proposes to Reward States for Being Bad Neighbors

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Washington, D.C. — Today, the Trump administration released yet another coal industry handout by proposing to undo the Environmental Protection Agency’s previous disapproval of State Implementation Plans from states failing to meet their Clean Air Act obligations under the federal ozone air quality standard. Previously in 2023 the EPA had determined that most of these states had failed to meet their obligation to protect downwind states from significant smog-causing pollution, and had in 2024 proposed making the same determination for the others. The states covered in today’s proposal are Alabama, Arizona, Kentucky, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, and Tennessee.

Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA can and must issue federal plans to protect downwind states from upwind states’ pollution when those upwind states fail to adequately control emissions. Today’s proposal, if finalized, would prevent EPA from reducing harmful smog-causing pollution from the covered states that flows into other states. This would be a harmful development: in the Biden-era Good Neighbor Plan, the EPA found that mitigating interstate ozone pollution could prevent 1,300 premature deaths, more than 7,100 cases of onset asthma, more than 2,100 hospital emergency room visits for breathing problems, and almost 1.3 million asthma attacks every year.

Sierra Club’s Trump Coal Pollution Dashboard provides estimates of how much more pollution would be emitted without safeguards like the Good Neighbor Plan. According to the dashboard, holding states accountable to the Good Neighbor Plan’s requirements would have reduced NOx emissions by 19 million pounds per year.

In response, Sierra Club Senior Attorney Zachary Fabish issued the following statement: 

“Once again, Donald Trump and Lee Zeldin are choosing to protect aging, dirty and expensive coal plants and other industrial polluters over strong federal clean air protections that address interstate pollution problems. Letting states off the hook while their pollution continues harming air quality in neighboring states is dangerous. Nothing that Donald Trump’s EPA has done thus far in this administration has made Americans healthier or safer. Instead, Donald Trump is focused on creating shortcuts and cheat codes for his fossil fuel executive buddies, and making Americans sicker and pay more for energy while doing so.”

About the Sierra Club

The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with millions of members and supporters. In addition to protecting every person’s right to get outdoors and access the healing power of nature, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org.