FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 5, 2025
CONTACT: Aaron Bharucha, Public Relations Associate
(509) 429-1699 and epn-press@environmentalprotectionnetwork.org
EPA Moves Put Industry Polluters First, Public Health at Risk, Experts Warn
Washington D.C. – Environmental Protection Network experts have issued a call for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to reverse two decisions that would put the health and safety of American families at risk.
In comments submitted to the public docket, EPN, a nationwide network of former EPA experts and bipartisan appointees, urged EPA to withdraw its proposal to halt the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program and to reverse its decision to delay limitations on toxic pollution from coal-fired power plants under what are known as Effluent Limitation Guidelines.
“These two decisions are part of current EPA political leadership’s pattern of sacrificing Americans’ health and safety to the interests of politically powerful corporations,” said Peter Murchie, EPN Senior Director. “To delay restrictions on toxic chemicals from coal plants is literally giving an OK to poison the waters Americans depend on. And ending the GHG Reporting Program blinds us to the pollution that is heating the planet and contributing to extreme weather, heat waves, and other health and safety risks.”
EPN’s public comments cite several shortcomings in the coal plant pollution decision, which would delay for a decade requirements that coal plants stop sending wastewater containing toxic metals and other harmful pollutants into America’s lakes and streams. EPN notes the fact that EPA failed to account for the higher energy bills consumers will pay because the decision encourages utilities to keep expensive coal plants online, and that it provides no explanation of why utilities can’t comply with the original deadline.
EPA also failed to consider the impact of continued pollution on tribal communities, falsely asserting that the decision won’t affect tribal nations whose members rely on fishing for food and income.
The effort to weaken protections against toxic chemicals from coal-fired plants comes at the same time that the U.S. Department of Energy announced it would spend $100 million to keep coal plants open longer.
“The government is spending taxpayer money to keep these coal-fired power plants operating, essentially paying these polluting facilities to keep contaminating our drinking water and fisheries, while EPA delays critically needed wastewater treatment. That’s dangerous,” said Dr. Betsy Southerland, EPN volunteer and former director of the Office of Science & Technology in the EPA Office of Water. “Communities near these plants have already lived with contamination and health risks. They deserve clean water and real protection, not more delays that keep pollution in their backyard.”
In opposing the end of the GHG Reporting System, EPN points out that halting monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions will not just blind the federal government, but state and local policymakers, nonprofits and others to pollution that is warming the planet. The decision also failed to comply with requirements that it conduct sound economic analysis of the costs and benefits of the decisions or to consider other alternatives.
- You can read EPN’s comments on the coal plant effluent guidelines here.
- You can read EPN’s comments on the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program here.
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Founded in 2017, Environmental Protection Network harnesses the expertise of more than 700 former EPA career staff and confirmation-level appointees from Democratic and Republican administrations to provide the unique perspective of former scientists and regulators with decades of historical and subject matter knowledge. Find all of EPN’s recent press statements here.