Lawsuit challenges rollback that allows more mercury, lead, and other toxic pollution from fossil fuel power plants
Augusta, ME (March 30, 2026) – The Natural Resources Council of Maine (NRCM) joined a lawsuit filed today by a national coalition of public health, environmental, and community advocates, challenging the Trump Administration’s repeal of standards that limit toxic mercury, lead, and other hazardous air pollution from coal-fired power plants nationwide. NRCM is the only Maine-based organization to join the lawsuit.
“We will not accept a future where polluters and their profits are considered more important than the health of Maine people and wildlife,” said Anya Fetcher, NRCM’s Federal Policy Advocate. “The EPA’s repeal of these common-sense pollution standards threatens our health, dirties our air, and harms Maine’s iconic wildlife like loons and freshwater fish.”
Since EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) went into effect in 2015, they have reduced dangerous mercury pollution from power plants by more than 90%. The standards have also delivered significant public health benefits, lowering the risk of cancer, heart and lung disease, and premature death.
Prior to the repeal, the Trump Administration granted a two-year exemption to many coal plants from the 2024 MATS, despite 93% of coal-fired capacity already meeting or on track to meet those standards. Since giving the country’s dirtiest coal plants a free pass, neurotoxic mercury emissions have risen 9% nationally, and sulfur dioxide emissions have increased 18%.
Today’s lawsuit also challenges EPA’s rollback of real-time continuous emissions monitoring at power plants, which would have given communities accurate real-time data on the pollution they’re breathing and a stronger tool for enforcing compliance. The repeal violates the Clean Air Act, ignores the scientific record, and abandons safeguards that protect communities living near coal plants and downwind of their pollution.
Coal-fired power plants are the biggest source of airborne mercury, and exposure to the toxin causes serious health effects such as neurological and reproductive disorders in humans and wildlife. The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention has warned Mainers – especially pregnant women, nursing mothers, and children under eight – to avoid eating freshwater fish caught in our thousands of lakes and ponds. Mercury levels in Maine fish, loons, and eagles are among the highest in North America.
There are no coal-fired power plants in Maine, but the state’s waters, lands, and wildlife face higher-than-average rates of mercury contamination because prevailing winds carry the pollution here from coal plants in other states. Since mercury does not break down in the environment, it remains a significant health threat to humans and wildlife.
NRCM will be represented by the Clean Air Task Force in the lawsuit. The following is a statement from the coalition challenging the repeal in court:
“The repeal of these protections will mean more asthma attacks, emergency room visits, and premature deaths. This administration is not just rolling back rules, it is eliminating the monitoring infrastructure needed to know what is coming out of these smokestacks in the first place. It is allowing coal plants to spew out more neurotoxic mercury into our air and food supply, while simultaneously keeping the communities most at risk in the dark about how serious that threat is. This is a betrayal of the EPA’s core mission.”
In 2019, under the first Trump Administration, the EPA proposed a similar rollback to MATS. In response, the Maine Legislature unanimously passed a bipartisan resolution urging the President to direct the agency to drop its planned rollbacks of mercury pollution protections. Maine’s Congressional delegation has consistently supported the mercury pollution standards.
