The Trump administration is directly or indirectly keeping 90 of the country’s 184 grid-connected coal plants running, through taxpayer money, pollution exemptions and emergency orders, according to a new analysis by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). For six of those plants, the group puts the health damage at up to $860 million.
Coal plants do not sit evenly across the map. A 2012 NAACP report that ranked 378 plants found that 39% of the roughly 6 million people living within three miles of them were people of color, and that at the 75 plants it rated as failing, nearly 53% of nearby residents were. We found no newer breakdown of the 90 plants in this analysis by the race of their neighbors, so the 2012 figures show the pattern that existed, not a count of who lives beside these particular plants.
EDF’s numbers are specific. Seventy plants have received exemptions from the 2024 federal limits on mercury and toxic metals, which would have cut mercury by 70% and toxic metals by two thirds. EDF estimates the exemptions forgo $430 million in health benefits through 2037. Another 24 plants are slated to receive a combined $950 million from the Department of Energy: $525 million announced in September 2025 to refurbish up to 11 plants, and $425 million announced in June for 13 more.
The third tool is the emergency order. Six plants have been forced to stay open since mid-2025 instead of retiring. A federal court ruled the May 2025 order unlawful, EDF notes, and the orders kept coming. The group says keeping the six running through June 2026 cost utility customers up to $593 million.
EDF says every coal facility that asked for relief from any part of the 2024 rule received relief from all of it. “The Trump administration illegally handed out free passes to pollute for nearly a third of the country’s coal-burning power plants, despite operators of many of these facilities admitting that they already have the technology to reduce their pollution,” EDF senior attorney Surbhi Sarang said when the group first reported the exemptions in February.
Earthjustice, which represents community groups suing over the exemptions, says many of the exempted plants are in or near working-class communities and communities of color already carrying heavy pollution.
The market has moved the other way: coal supplied nearly half of U.S. electricity capacity in 2011 and about 15% in 2024, as gas, solar, wind and batteries got cheaper.
Earthjustice and other groups have sued over the exemptions.
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