November 24, 2025 - President Trump is exempting coal used in steelmaking from Biden-era Clean Air Act regulations for two years.

Trump on Friday issued a proclamation exempting facilities known as coke ovens from a rule limiting their releases of pollutants, such as mercury, formaldehyde, soot and dioxins.

The rule that the facilities were exempted from also would have required them to monitor for a separate cancer-causing chemical called benzene at the fence line of their facility. 

Coke ovens are chambers where coal is heated to produce coke, which is a fuel that’s used in steelmaking. 

When it issued the rule, the EPA estimated it would apply to 11 facilities, costing them about $500,000 each for compliance. The Trump exemption applies to 11 facilities.

The Biden administration said its rule was not necessarily expected to cut pollution, but it could prevent future pollution increases. 

This is because all of the facilities in question have pollution levels below the limits set in the rule, but the rule would have been expected to require them to install technology to detect emissions that are over the limits, “allowing for earlier corrective action and thus preventing pollution increases that could otherwise occur.”

Trump, in his proclamation, argued that the technology required by the rule is not yet commercially viable and that steel production is important for the country.

“The Coke Oven Rule places severe burdens on the coke production industry and, through its indirect effects, on the viability of our Nation’s critical infrastructure, defense, and national security,” the proclamation said. 

“Specifically, the Coke Oven Rule requires compliance with standards premised on the application of emissions-control technologies that do not yet exist in a commercially demonstrated or cost-effective form,” it continued.

But observers criticized the exemptions.

“Here was a very low-cost, common-sense way for coke oven operators to make sure that they weren’t spewing benzene into the backyards of their neighbors,” Tosh Sagar, senior attorney at Earthjustice, told The Hill. 

“Rather than do this very low-cost, common-sense thing to protect people, these… companies went and lobbied the president for this unprecedented and unwarranted exemption,” Sagar added. 

Companies gaining exemptions under the proclamation are: EES Coke, ABC Coke, SunCoke Energy, U.S. Steel and Cleveland Cliffs.

The Environmental Protection Agency earlier this year set up a portal to make it easier for companies to request exemptions to Clean Air Act rules. 

Since that time, the Trump administration has exempted dozens of polluters from regulations, including oil refineries, coal plants and medical device sterilizers.