President Donald Trump has granted two Louisiana coal-fired power plants two-year exemptions to new air pollution limits, delays that could signal more to come for other industries as his administration seeks to boost energy production.

Environmentalists and others say the coal plant exemptions allow the continued release of pollutants that cause illness and death — and could be part of broader plan to eliminate the new environmental rules permanently.

A unit at Entergy Corp.'s Roy S. Nelson plant in Westlake and another at Brame Energy Center west of Alexandria, run and partially owned by Cleco, are among 68 U.S. plants granted exemptions to limits on fine particulates from their coal-burning boilers, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says.

"At EPA, we are committed to protecting human health and the environment; we are opposed to shutting down clean, affordable and reliable energy for American families," Zeldin said in a statement in March.

Business and industry groups have cheered the effort to unwind Biden-era limits as a needed corrective of regulatory overreach.

Jay Timmons, CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers, said the administration has "answered the calls of manufacturers across the country to rebalance and reconsider burdensome federal regulations harming America’s ability to compete."

Phasing out coal

The coal plant exemptions come as increased electrical demand is expected from a large data center planned in north Louisiana, a steel furnace planned near Donaldsonville and billions of dollars in industrial growth aimed at reducing carbon emissions.

Yet Louisiana electric utilities say they are preparing for those energy demands while still turning away from coal in favor of natural gas or renewable energy sources.

Cleco and Entergy officials said their plants receiving the exemptions will stop using coal within five years: by October 2028 for Cleco's unit in the Brame Energy Center and by 2030 for all of Entergy's coal-fired generators.

Spokespeople for Entergy and Cleco said the utilities sought the exemption because they will be ending coal burning in a few years and don't want to pass on to ratepayers the long-term costs of new pollution controls. They added that the EPA has said preexisting air quality rules protect public health and the environment.

"This extension gives us time to responsibly plan for the future of the unit without placing undue financial burdens on customers," said Brandon Scardigli, an Entergy spokesman.

Cleco's Dolet Hills coal plant in DeSoto Parish was closed in 2021 and is being converted into a solar farm.

The state's other coal power plant, Big Cajun II east of New Roads, was not granted the two-year exemption, according to an EPA list. The plant was scheduled to transition the second of its three coal-burning boilers to natural gas this month.

Under a 2012 EPA consent decree to lower air pollution, Big Cajun II switched another boiler to natural gas in 2015, state permit papers show.

Officials at Big Cajun II declined to comment about whether they sought the exemption. The plant is owned by a private investment group transitioning other coal plants it owns to renewable fuels.

Mercury, other toxics

The exemption applies to a Biden-era revision known as the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards rule. The change, now paused for about a fifth of all coal plants nationwide, cuts the federal limit on particulate emission rates by two-thirds.

The rule also holds plants using a dirtier form of coal, lignite, to the same mercury pollution standard other coal plants have had for years.

The power plants emit not only carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, but also particulates that include toxic heavy metals such as mercury, cadmium, chromium and arsenic, along with the "acid gases" hydrogen fluoride and hydrogen chloride, according to the EPA.

Mercury builds up in the food web and is deposited in fish and other animals people eat, and can cause neurological damage. Some particulates cause heart and breathing problems.

One Louisiana environmental group called the coal exemption a "free pass" to pollute from the Trump administration.

"Our communities have raised their voices over and over again to demand clean air to breathe and clean water to drink — but this administration is only listening to corporate polluters," said Margie Vicknair-Pray, conservation coordinator with the Sierra Club's Delta Chapter. "These plants could still choose to curb how much they pollute, and we fully intend to hold them accountable if they do not."

The long game?

A former EPA official claims the two-year exemptions improperly shortcut federal rulemaking and came after a federal appellate court and the Supreme Court late last year refused to halt legal challenges by industry groups and some states.

Joseph Goffman, a former assistant administrator for air and radiation under President Joe Biden, said the coal and other exemptions may be the first in a two-step process to eliminate the new rules on toxins without forcing companies to comply.

He noted coal exemptions were offered under a Clean Air Act provision tied to national security and whether plants face technological challenges in meeting new rules. At the same time, he said, Trump EPA officials framed their broader review of the new rules on toxins as "major deregulatory" initiatives. Goffman asserts that "gave away the game."

"By the time we get to the end of the two-year extension, I think it's a safe bet they will have repealed the underlying rules," he said. "This is setting the stage for communities not to see a single pound more in reductions of toxic air emissions."

Half of the nearly 300 coal plants the EPA reviewed already hit particulate emissions rates that were 60% below the new standard. Agency officials suggested about a dozen plants would need major capital upgrades.

The total cost would be an estimated $880 million between 2028 and 2037 and return an estimated $390 million in health and other benefits, the EPA calculated.

Those limits affect 51 facilities in Louisiana.

In March, trade groups American Chemistry Council and American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers asked the EPA for a two-year exemption to that rule for "all sources."

Late last year, according to state records , several Louisiana chemical facilities asked the EPA for compliance extensions and were denied. The EPA, then under Biden, said the rule already had a time extension for compliance built into it.

David J. Mitchell can be reached at .