• The Trump administration has continued to hand out illegal Clean Air Act exemptions allowing industrial facilities to ignore vital clean air protections
• Records recently obtained by Environmental Defense Fund show a close degree of collaboration between EPA political appointees and the White House in facilitating companies' exemption requests
• President Trump has also continued to grant exemptions to companies that asked for them after EPA's deadline

WASHINGTON - The Trump administration has continued to hand out expansive, illegal Clean Air Act exemptions allowing industrial sources to ignore vital limits to protect public health from hazardous air pollutants, including mercury and cancer-causing ethylene oxide, according to records recently obtained by Environmental Defense Fund.

The records, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, show that political officials in the Trump EPA with previous ties to regulated industries asked the agency's enforcement office not to enforce certain Clean Air Act standards for highly potent cancer-causing ethylene oxide pollution. President Trump has also continued to grant exemptions to companies that asked for them after EPA's deadline.

While EPA has insisted it played no role in the process, the records show a close degree of collaboration between EPA political appointees and the White House in facilitating companies' exemption requests. A former White House official, when asked about the exemptions, offered a political official within EPA as "the best person to talk to," according to this weekend's New York Times investigation into how the Trump administration has abused these exemptions to give a free pass to some of the country's worst polluters.

"The Trump administration is continuing to operate behind closed doors to help large industrial emitters evade vital limits on the most toxic pollution," said Erin Murphy, Lead Counsel and Director, Clean Air and Energy Markets at Environmental Defense Fund. "Giving companies a pass to delay long-needed, commonsense pollution controls puts more Americans in harm's way. We will continue to shine a bright light on how this administration is working behind the scenes to tear down lifesaving limits on toxic pollution."

Key findings from the latest set of records include:

• Companies have continued to submit requests for exemptions long after EPA's deadline: Industry had advance knowledge of upcoming new rounds of presidential exemptions and assumed their exemptions would ultimately be granted, despite missing the application deadline.
• In addition to the presidential exemptions, the Trump EPA has also explored other ways to help companies evade pollution limits: Former EPA Assistant Administrator Aaron Szabo, a political appointee and former lobbyist for the energy and sterilizer industries, requested a nationwide non-enforcement guarantee for some key air pollution standards for sterilization facilities while EPA pursued a rollback of the relevant pollution limits. It is not clear whether the enforcement office acted on this request, which only became public as a result of EDF's request for agency records.
• EPA has undersold its involvement in the exemptions process: EPA political appointees regularly assert that the White House is handling any presidential exemption requests. However, EPA continues to be extensively involved in processing the exemption applications and in interfacing with exemption applicants.
• The National Energy Dominance Council has taken the lead on Clean Air Act exemptions for the White House, alongside EPA: EPA staff indicated that the National Energy Dominance Council led the presidential exemption process within the White House, specifically directing industry to John Reiten, NEDC Deputy Executive Director, as the "best contact."
• Industry representatives continued to meet with political appointees at EPA: At least 14 meetings occurred between industry representatives and Trump EPA political officials about the presidential exemptions or the underlying pollution regulations since March 2025.

A detailed explanation of the records is available in this fact sheet. The full set of records is available here.

Note that Environmental Defense Fund has redacted, in blue, the names and identifying information of EPA career staffers from the records obtained via FOIA. Civil servants are under unprecedented attack by the Trump Administration.

Background:

President Trump has made expansive use of an obscure Clean Air Act provision that allows the president to temporarily exempt sources of pollution from air quality standards in narrow circumstances carefully delineated by the plain terms of the law: when the technology to implement a standard is not available and when doing so would protect national security interests. But in a series of presidential proclamations, President Trump has repeatedly invoked this authority - which no previous president had ever used - to grant roughly 200 industrial facilities sweeping waivers from Clean Air Act protections against highly toxic pollutants.

Through the Freedom of Information Act, Environmental Defense Fund has obtained over 5,000 pages of records related to the Trump EPA's actions to provide industry with presidential exemptions. Records previously released by Environmental Defense Fund show how Trump EPA political appointees with ties to industry scrambled to set up the exemption application process in March of 2025 and that the administration ultimately granted pollution exemptions for coal-fired power plants that were even more sweeping than what the companies had requested.

Environmental Defense Fund tracks these harmful exemptions from compliance with vital clean air standards through its Trump EPA Pollution Pass Map. The map has been updated to reflect the latest records. EDF is also challenging in court the Trump administration's presidential exemptions from toxic air pollution limits for chemical manufacturing plants.