February 24, 2026 – The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last week repealed a 2024 rule that put stricter limits on mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants, the primary source of the mercury that accumulates in fish and leads to human health risks.
In a press release, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said that an earlier version of the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), finalized in 2012, was now back in effect, replacing the Biden administration rule. The earlier version of the MATS was already effective at reducing mercury emissions, Zeldin said, and the Biden administration’s tighter standards were burdensome for the coal industry.
“The Biden-Harris Administration’s anti-coal regulations sought to regulate out of existence this vital sector of our energy economy,” Zeldin said. “If implemented, these actions would have destroyed reliable American energy.”
But experts say the decision will halt progress being made to reduce exposure to methylmercury, the harmful form of mercury that is classified by the EPA as a possible human carcinogen. Methylmercury is linked to increased risk of cardiovascular disease in adults and can slow and damage brain development in infants.
Volcanoes are a natural source of mercury emissions, but a 2015 study found industrial sources contribute seven times more mercury to the environment. Gabriel Filippelli, a biogeochemist at Indiana University who studies mercury, said that close to 100 percent of the mercury that accumulates in the fish Americans eat comes from coal-fired power plants. “We know this because the same species of fish from very rural locations have almost no or no measurable mercury compared to their urban counterparts with lots of local coal inputs and elevated mercury,” Filippelli told Civil Eats.
In a statement released by the Environmental Protection Network Ellen Kurlansky, former Air Policy Analyst and Advisor in the EPA Office of Air and Radiation, criticized the repeal. “Mercury and other toxic air pollutants don’t just disappear—they accumulate in our communities, our food, and our children.” (Link to this post.)
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