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Washington, D.C. — Today, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed rolling back protections that stop coal-fired power plants from dumping toxic wastewater—including arsenic, mercury, selenium, and lead—from coal ash waste landfills into U.S. waterways.
In September 2025, Donald Trump’s EPA gave coal plant companies a pass by delaying enforcement of long-overdue wastewater protections from coal plant waste. Today’s proposal would allow coal plants to dump even more coal ash landfill waste into surface waters under even weaker standards.
According to the Sierra Club’s Trump Coal Pollution Dashboard, the Biden-era EPA’s updates to the technology-based effluent limitation guidelines can reduce wastewater pollution by up to 64 percent nationwide, eliminating over 325,000 tons of toxic pollution in public waterways every year. Wastewater pollution from coal plants can cause increased risk of liver and kidney damage, cardiovascular illnesses, cancers, and developmental delays in children.
In response, Sierra Club Climate Policy Director Patrick Drupp issued the following statement:
