Green groups sue over Trump's Clean Air Act exemptions for polluters

Environmental advocates sued President Trump on Wednesday over his move to exempt major polluters from Clean Air Act regulations.

Trump over the summer gave more than 100 industrial polluters a two-year break from Biden-era regulations that would have limited their releases of cancer-linked gases.

In their new lawsuit, national and local environmental organizations argued that the move is illegal — and that it will expose communities to toxic air pollution. 

“President Trump’s sweeping … Proclamation grossly exceeds the bounds of the [Clean Air Act]... exemption authority,” the suit states. “The Proclamation exempts nearly one-quarter of …facilities from complying with any part of the Rule without any standard- or facility-specific analysis to show that any of the 50 specific facilities meets the statutory standard.”

It also says that the Trump move gave “facilities in states from Louisiana to Michigan a free pass to continue to pollute and put communities at risk for an additional two years.”

The White House pushed back on the lawsuit. 

“The President used his lawful authority to grant these exemptions, which simply give facilities more time to abide by environmental standards,” said spokeswoman Taylor Rogers.

“Contrary to the lies peddled by far-left, Climate activists, the facts remain: US air quality is among the best of industrialized countries and our framework for environmental protection remains the gold standard across the world,” Rogers said.

Over the summer, Trump announced the exemptions for chemical manufacturers, oil refineries, coal plants, medical device sterilizers and more.

The rules that facilities are exempt from complying with include those aimed at reducing releases of ethylene oxide — a cancer-causing gas used in sterilization and chloroprene – which is used to make neoprene and is considered a likely carcinogen by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The EPA has separately said that it plans to overturn rules aimed at reducing pollution, so by the time the two-year exemptions expire, the rules in question may no longer be in place.