February 7, 2026 - The Trump administration on Friday unveiled a final rule to delay cleanup of coal ash dump sites that gives companies more than twice as long an extension as EPA initially proposed last year.

The deadline extension chips away at one of the Biden administration’s signature efforts to curb pollution from power plants.

Rather than comply with impending deadlines set by the Biden administration, coal plant owners can now wait an additional 33 months to begin monitoring for groundwater pollution at hundreds of coal ash dump sites. That’s more than double the amount of extra time, 15 months, that EPA last year proposed giving operators.

After hearing from industry, EPA said the initial 15-month proposed extension it had contemplated was “not feasible” because it did not provide enough time for facilities to design and install groundwater monitoring systems and then properly analyze samples from monitoring wells.

Owners now have until Feb. 10, 2031, to comply with the requirements, a timeline based on the time previously given to existing coal ash units and an additional six months because of labor shortages and backlogs.