US President Donald Trump’s administration today rolled back another air-pollution protection, this time for one of the most toxic substances on earth: mercury.
The action reverses then-President Joe Biden’s decision in 2024 to reduce the levels of allowable mercury air emissions for coal-fired power plants, restoring them to their previous levels. Trump had already given dozens of US power plants a presidential exemption, which environmental rights groups contend is illegal, to postpone attempts to meet the 2024 standards even before today’s repeal.
The previous policy increased monitoring and reporting requirements as well as restrictions on extra-toxic lignite, the most polluting form of coal. Lignite also contains the highest levels of mercury; microorganisms absorb mercury from air pollution, which then flows up the food chain as methylmercury. Studies show that even very low levels of methylmercury have “no threshold of safety.”
Because mercury is such a dangerous poison that needs regulation, Human Rights Watch has long done research and advocacy on the heavy metal and considers it a global rights concern. Mercury is a highly toxic substance that attacks the central nervous system and is particularly harmful to children. Exposure is also of concern to pregnant people as it is especially damaging to developing brains and the toxin crosses the placental barrier into the fetus. Mercury also passes through breastmilk and across the brain-blood barrier easily. The damage is irreversible and lasts a lifetime.
Reducing mercury pollution in the United States—which ratified the 2013 Minamata Convention on Mercury—has been a public health success and an important example of making regulation work. The Trump administration’s loosening of restrictions for the coal industry’s benefit won’t make all progress disappear, but it is an important loss.
While the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lee Zeldin, has publicly praised the administration’s deregulation campaign, these destructive actions are a setback for maternal and child health—among the most sensitive developmental stages, affecting people throughout their lives.
