June 15, 2025 - A coalition of environmental groups has sued the Trump administration for exempting dozens of power plants from federal air pollution rules, including three in West Virginia.

The groups filed the lawsuit in U.S. district court in Washington Thursday over an exemption to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s updated rule on mercury and air toxics.

The Biden administration made the rule final last year. In April, the Trump administration granted the exemption to 68-coal burning power plants nationwide. Three of them are in West Virginia.

Two are owned by FirstEnergy, the Harrison and Fort Martin plants, and one is owned by Dominion Energy, the Mount Storm plant.

The exemption delays their compliance with the updated rule from July 2027 to July 2029.

The environmental groups say in their complaint that many of these plants already meet the new standards or it would not cost them much to achieve them.

Earlier this week, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced that the agency would roll back the rule to the standard set by the Obama administration in 2012.