Trump administration aims to roll back limits on toxic wastewater from coal-fired power plants

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency moved Thursday to roll back limits that require coal-fired power plants to prevent the release of toxic heavy metals into streams and rivers through polluted groundwater, saying a three-year-old rule is unduly costly for the energy industry at a time when energy demand is spiking.

It is the latest step that President Donald Trump's administration has taken to pull back regulations on coal mining and coal-fired power and empower fossil fuels as a primary energy source to feed the rapid growth of artificial intelligence data centers.

In its proposed rule, the EPA said a 2024 rule under President Joe Biden misjudged the effectiveness and cost of the regulation, and had the effect of shutting down coal-fired power plants at a time when energy demand is spiking.

Changing the rule is critical to making electricity more affordable and reliable, while advancing the economy, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a statement.

“The AI and data center revolution is creating an electricity and baseload power demand that cannot be met under the overly restrictive policies of past administrations,” Zeldin said. “The Trump EPA will continue doing its part to address these burdensome regulations on the coal-fired power plant sector that hold American communities back from the new opportunities presented by this new 21st century energy reality.”

In 2024, the EPA strengthened wastewater rules over coal-fired power plants that keep coal ash — a byproduct of burning coal — in unlined, uncovered dumps that leach toxic heavy metals such as mercury, arsenic and selenium into groundwater.

In the rule, the EPA required plant owners to report whether the groundwater was contaminated and, if so, pump and treat the contaminated groundwater before discharging it into streams and rivers, Thom Cmar, an attorney for environmental advocacy group Earthjustice, said.

The EPA initially had given power plant owners until Dec. 31, 2029, to meet the new limits.

The EPA said the rule proposed Thursday, if finalized, would reduce power generation costs by as much as $1.1 billion a year. Coal and power industry trade associations cheered the EPA's move. Environmental groups slammed it as a public health danger and giveaway to the coal-power industry.

Earthjustice said the lakes, rivers and other waterways that will see more pollution as a result of the EPA’s proposal are often sources of drinking water that tens of millions of people rely on. Coal-fired power plants are by far one of the largest sources of toxic pollutants in America’s rivers, lakes and streams, Earthjustice said.

“This plan would eliminate safeguards on hundreds of millions of pounds of wastewater with neurotoxins and cancer-causing contaminants. It would allow coal power plants to avoid cleaning up contamination that threatens our drinking water sources," Cmar said.

The proposal unveiled Thursday would exempt contaminated groundwater seeping into waterways from the mandatory treatment requirements, Earthjustice said. Power plant owners would only be required to treat the contaminated groundwater if they were already complying with the 2024 rule to pump it to the surface to treat it, Earthjustice said.

States could, however, still investigate whether power plants are polluting the groundwater and, if they are, try to force owners to treat the polluted groundwater under federal clean water laws, Cmar said.

“The problem is, at the state level, many states are reluctant to use that tool that they all have to hold up the permitting process and force the companies to do an adequate job of documenting and limiting the pollution,” Cmar said.

The EPA said dozens of coal-fired power plants — likely up to 104 — are polluting groundwater through the uncontrolled runoff. It found seven plants were complying with the rule to pump and treat the groundwater, it said.

The EPA had estimated in 2024 that its new rule that year would reduce pollutant discharges by 660 to 672 million pounds per year, provide $3.2 billion in public health benefits each year and especially benefit “low-income communities and communities of color that are disproportionately impacted by pollution from coal-fired power plants.”

It had projected that electricity bills for the average residential household would increase by less than $3.50 per year.

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Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin, testifies to the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Interior, Environment and related agencies on the budget request for the EPA, on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, May 13, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Former Oklahoma death row prisoner Richard Glossip was released from incarceration for the first time in nearly 30 years Thursday after posting bond while awaiting retrial for a 1997 killing that put him on the brink of execution three separate times.

Glossip wore a gray short-sleeved shirt and jeans as he walked out of the jail hand-in-hand with his wife, Lea Glossip.

“I'm just thankful for my wife and my attorneys. Just thankful,” he said. "It's overwhelming, but it’s amazing at the same time.”

Earlier Thursday, Judge Natalie Mai issued an order setting bond at $500,000. Glossip must wear an electronic monitoring device and will not be allowed to travel outside Oklahoma. He also must not contact any witnesses in the case, or consume any drugs or alcohol.

His attorney Donald Knight had suggested Glossip was counting on contributions to raise the money.

“Mr. Glossip has many supporters and we are hopeful those supporters can afford the bail,” Knight said.

Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court threw out his conviction, and his longstanding claims of innocence have drawn support from Kim Kardashian and other prominent figures.

Glossip had been sentenced to death over the 1997 killing in Oklahoma City of his former boss, motel owner Barry Van Treese, who was beaten with a baseball bat in what prosecutors have alleged was a murder-for-hire scheme.

The Supreme Court ruled last year that prosecutors’ decision to allow a key witness to give testimony they knew to be false violated Glossip’s constitutional right to a fair trial.

Glossip has remained behind bars after Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond announced the state would seek to retry him on a murder charge but not pursue the death penalty again.

“The court fully expects that the state will rigorously prosecute its case going forward and the defense will provide robust representation for Glossip,” the judge wrote in the order. “The court hopes that a new trial, free of error, will provided all interested parties and the citizens of Oklahoma, the closure they deserve.”

During his time on death row, courts in Oklahoma set nine different execution dates for Glossip, and he came so close to being put to death that he ate three separate last meals. In 2015, he was even held in a cell next to Oklahoma’s execution chamber, waiting to be strapped to a gurney and die by lethal injection.

But the scheduled time for his execution came and went. Behind the walls of the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, prison officials were scrambling after learning one of the lethal drugs they received to carry out the procedure didn’t match the execution protocols. The drug mix-up ultimately led to a nearly seven-year moratorium on executions in Oklahoma.

“Mr. Glossip now has the chance to taste freedom while his defense team continues to pursue justice on his behalf against a system that the United States Supreme Court has found to be guilty of serious misconduct by state prosecutors,” Knight said.

Van Treese’s family had asked the Supreme Court to leave Glossip’s conviction and sentence intact. Attorneys for the family did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment.

Glossip’s case attracted international attention after actress Susan Sarandon — who won an Academy Award for her portrayal of death penalty opponent Sister Helen Prejean’s fight to save a man on Louisiana’s death row in the 1995 movie “Dead Man Walking” — took up his cause in real life. Glossip’s case also was featured in the 2017 documentary film titled “Killing Richard Glossip.”

“Both Richard and I are grateful for the court’s decision,” Glossip’s wife, Lea, said in a text to The Associated Press. “We have been praying for this day.”

FILE - Oklahoma County Sheriff's deputies lead longtime death row inmate Richard Glossip to a courtroom on June 9, 2025, at the Oklahoma County Courthouse in Oklahoma City. (AP Photo/Sean Murphy, File)