Proclamation

1. Coal-fired electricity generation is essential to ensuring that our Nation’s grid is reliable and that electricity is affordable for the American people, and to promoting our Nation’s energy security. The Federal Government plays a pivotal role in ensuring that the Nation’s power supply remains secure and reliable. Forcing energy producers to comply with unattainable emissions controls jeopardizes this mission.

2. On May 7, 2024, the Environmental Protection Agency published a final rule titled National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants: Coal- and Oil-Fired Electric Utility Steam Generating Units Review of the Residual Risk and Technology Review, 89 FR 38508 (Rule), which amended the preexisting Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) rule to make it more stringent. The Rule’s effective date was July 8, 2024. Id. Its compliance date is July 8, 2027, 3 years after its effective date. See 89 FR 38519.

3. The Rule places severe burdens on coal-fired power plants and, through its indirect effects, on the viability of our Nation’s coal sector. Specifically, the Rule requires compliance with standards premised on the application of emissions-control technologies that do not yet exist in a commercially viable form. The current compliance timeline of the Rule therefore raises the unacceptable risk of the shutdown of many coal-fired power plants, eliminating thousands of jobs, placing our electrical grid at risk, and threatening broader, harmful economic and energy security effects. This in turn would undermine our national security, as these effects would leave America vulnerable to electricity demand shortages, increased dependence on foreign energy sources, and potential disruptions of our electricity and energy supplies, particularly in times of crisis.