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April 30, 2025 - North Dakota coal-fired plants will get more time to meet regulations meant to curb mercury and toxic air emissions.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on April 8 that exempts 68 coal-fired plants, including five in northwest North Dakota, from an Environmental Protection Agency regulation. The companies that operate the plants will have until July 8, 2029, to develop technology that will meet Mercury and Air Toxics Standards.
Former President Barack Obama’s administration created MATS in 2011 as a way to reduce coal plant emissions, and in turn, toxic air pollutants. The Trump administration said in a 2020 review that standards did not need to be changed, said Jonathan Fortner, interim president and CEO of the North Dakota Lignite Energy Council.
Former President Joe Biden’s administration conducted its own review and called for coal and new natural gas-fired plants to control 90% of their carbon pollution. The Biden administration also demanded that coal plants reduce toxic metal emissions by 67% and lignite-fire sources reduce mercury emissions by 70%.
The Biden administration said the benefits of implementing the changes would “substantially outweigh” costs. That would include preventing premature deaths and avoiding health issues caused by pollutants, the Biden administration said.
The rule targeted coal plants that emit the highest amounts of toxic pollutants, said Sanjay Narayan, a senior attorney for the environmental advocate Sierra Club. Mercury can be especially dangerous to pregnant women and children, he said.
Trump’s executive order is a “blatant disregard for public health,” said Holly Bender, chief program officer for the Sierra Club.
“By exempting the dirtiest power plants out there, Trump has robbed millions of Americans of a healthy future,” she said. “This is a direct attack on the health of our communities and our loved ones.”
Lignite coal
Coal plants initially needed to comply with the regulations by July 8, 2027. In his executive order extending the deadline by two years, Trump said implementing the rule would “place severe burdens” on the viability of the coal industry. It would also undermine national security by creating electricity shortages and increasing demand on foreign energy sources, the order said.
“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,” Trump wrote in the executive order. “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.”
Lignite, also called brown coal, is the lowest grade of coal with the least concentration of carbon, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It is mainly used to generate electricity.
It also burns off different emissions, Fortner said. Each plant in North Dakota has different boilers that require their own environmental assessments, he said.
The coal companies were concerned whether technology could work with lignite plants, Fortner said. Technology used on regular coal plants would “gum up” within months of being installed in lignite plants, meaning they would have to be replaced often, he said.
In 2024, North Dakota led a coalition of 23 states asking the U.S. Supreme Court to put the rules on hold, a move that the Lignite Energy Council and companies invested in the coal industry joined. The Supreme Court denied that request.
Narayan disputed claims that technology to reduce mercury does not exist. There are costs, but they are marginal compared to profits coal companies make, he said.
‘We’re doing our part’
The U.S. produced 578 million short tons of coal in 2023, less than half the amount mined in 2008 at the industry’s peak, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Coal plants generated more than 50% of the country’s electricity in 2000, but that has dropped to less than 20% as companies tap other sources, such as natural gas, nuclear power and renewable energy, according to the EIA.
Coal has declined because it has been unable to compete with cheaper forms of energy, Narayan said.
North Dakota’s coal industry produces 55% of the state’s electricity, has an economic impact of $5.5 billion and boasts more than 12,000 jobs, Fortner said. The state produces more than 20 million tons of coal each year, the Lignite Energy Council said.
The state ranks seventh in the nation for coal production, according to the EIA.
The North Dakota coal industry has made investments to keep air clean, Fortner said. North Dakota has some of the cleanest air in the country, Fortner said. It is one of four states that have never violated federal ambient air regulations, he said.
“We’re doing our part,” he said, adding it’s frustrating when people say otherwise.
Basin Electric Power Co-op owns two of North Dakota’s coal plants: Antelope Valley Station near Beulah and Leland Olds Station near Stanton. The Bismarck-based company said it invested more than $2 billion in environmental control technology last year.
“Since we began monitoring mercury in 2015, we have reduced mercury emissions intensity by 79.5%,” Basin Electric said in a statement to The Forum. “Additionally, compared to 2005 levels, our emissions intensity has also decreased by 33.5% for carbon dioxide equivalents, 82.2% for nitrogen oxides, and 88.2% for sulfur dioxide.”
The company said it is committed to environmental standards, but proven technology that would help it comply with the Biden rule does not exist.
“The timeline does not allow for necessary studies to find safe and effective solutions, and ongoing changes to the rule create uncertainty that makes it difficult to plan investments,” Basin Electric said. “Without this exemption, we could risk curtailing operations, putting the reliable electric service at risk for our 3 million member-owners served across the Midwest.”
The other three plants are Rainbow Energy Center’s Coal Creek Station, near Washburn; Minnkota Power Co-op’s Milton R. Young Station, near Center; and Coyote Station, located near Beulah and owned by Montana-Dakota Utilities, Northern Municipal Power Agency, Otter Tail Power Co. and NorthWestern Energy Group.
Fortner said the coal industry will do what it can to comply with standards, but those standards should be reasonable, not a means to shut down coal.
“Congress has basically said, … ‘Quit regulating when it affects one in 1 million people,’ ” he said.
Baseload energy has been retired too quickly without being replaced, Fortner said. Coal plants shutting down could threaten national security, he said.
Trump’s executive order shifts the clock on the rules, Fortner said. Trump also has signaled rescinding and replacing Biden’s rules, he said.
“This is a grid reliability issue,” he said.
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