Appeals Court Rejects Attempt to Block Mercury and Air Toxics Protections

(Washington, D.C. – August 6, 2024) The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit today denied a request by fossil fuel companies and a group of states, led by North Dakota and West Virginia, to block protections against mercury and other toxic pollutants emitted from coal-fired power plants.

“The court’s decision today means the strengthened Mercury and Air Toxics Standards will remain in place to protect people from dangerous coal-fired power plant pollution,” said Surbhi Sarang, senior attorney for Environmental Defense Fund, which is a party to the case. “EPA’s actions to strengthen the standards are carefully crafted, legally and scientifically sound, achievable and cost-effective.”

In April, the Environmental Protection Agency strengthened the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards – the successful clean air program limiting dangerous smokestack pollution. 

Coal-fired power plants emit mercury, which is linked to brain damage in children and heart disease in adults, and they emit cancer-causing arsenic, chromium and nickel. The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards were first adopted more than a decade ago, and since then they have saved more than 160,000 lives – at a fraction of what power companies initially claimed it would cost. 

EPA strengthened the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards to make them more protective in addressing cancer-causing toxics, require continuous monitoring systems for key toxic pollutants, and close a loophole that allowed power plants that burned one type of especially dirty coal – lignite coal – to emit three times more mercury than other plants.

Fossil fuel companies and their allies sued to overturn the strengthened Mercury and Air Toxics Standards and also asked the D.C. Circuit for a stay – which would have blocked the standards while the court was considering legal challenges. A coalition of environmental and public health groups – including EDF – and a coalition of states led by Minnesota and Massachusetts are defending EPA’s standards in court, and submitted briefs and factual declarations in opposition to the stay request. 

Today a unanimous three-judge panel on the D.C. Circuit denied the request for a stay, saying:

             “Petitioners have not satisfied the stringent requirements for a stay pending court review.”

The court also issued instructions to promptly begin briefing the case on the merits. 

EDF recently released an updated map of the top 30 mercury-polluting power plants in the country. You can see the map and read more in our blog post, We need to close a mercury pollution loophole for lignite coal plants