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Two Arkansas coal-fired plants win exemptions for monitoring toxic air particles

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arkansasadvocate.com – Ainsley Platt – 2025-04-24 05:00:00

by Ainsley Platt, Arkansas Advocate
April 24, 2025

Two coal-fired power plants in Arkansas are exempt from revised air pollution rules under a Trump administration rollback of environmental standards adopted last year, leaving some former EPA officials and environment groups concerned about prolonged exposure to unhealthy emissions.

The exemptions will last for two years, long enough to keep one plant already slated for closure from having to install equipment required by the new rules.

As part of its deregulation efforts, the Trump administration put out a call earlier this year for companies to request exemptions to several environmental rules finalized in Biden’s last year in office. The Clean Air Act allows the president to exempt pollution sources from compliance with any part of section 112 of the CAA if “the technology to implement the standard is not available and it is in the national security interests of the United States to do so.” 

Entergy Arkansas’ White Bluff 1 power station near Redfield and the Plum Point Energy Station near Osceola, which is owned by a consortium of utility companies, applied for the exemption.

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Had President Donald Trump not directed the Environmental Protection Agency to provide the exemptions, the plants would have been required to install continuous emissions monitoring systems (CEMS) to measure the amounts of particulates released into the air. The plants also would have been subject to stricter regulations for how much particulate matter they could release through their stacks.

Instead, the plants will only be subject to the version of the rule prior to the 2024 revisions. The plants now have until 2029 to comply with the requirements finalized last year — that is, if they remain in effect.

The Mercury and Air Toxics (MATS) rule is one of more than two dozen environmental and pollution regulations being targeted for rollbacks by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin. In a statement announcing the deregulation targets in March, Zeldin said the move was a push back against “destruction and destitution” caused by EPA rules enacted in the previous administration.

The White Bluff plant is scheduled to be shut down in 2028, an Entergy Arkansas spokesperson said.

“White Bluff 1 is the only affected unit in Arkansas that may require the installation of additional equipment to meet new MATS requirements coming into effect in 2027, and that same unit is also subject to a requirement to cease burning coal at the end of 2028 under a consent decree,” Matt Ramsey said in an emailed statement. “This exemption will avoid the need to make additional MATS-related investments that increase costs to our customers so close to the cessation of coal date.

“White Bluff 1 will continue to operate under the current MATS standards, which the EPA has determined to be protective of public health with an adequate margin of safety,” Ramsey added. 

MATS matters

The MATS rule was first issued in 2012 to reduce the amount of mercury and other toxics being emitted by coal power plants. Those rules were revised in 2024, during the final months of the Biden administration, requiring all facilities subject to the rule to install CEMS monitoring while tightening the amount of “filterable particulate matter” that a coal power plant could emit.

The revised requirements slashed the amount of particulate matter a coal plant could emit by two-thirds. A fact sheet issued by the EPA last year said that 93% of existing coal plants that were not already set to close already met the revised particulate matter standard.

Particulate matter is used as a surrogate for emissions of mercury, a heavy metal, and other pollutants designated as air toxics under the federal Clean Air Act. Heavy metals can be toxic to humans, and inhaling them can lead to respiratory issues such as asthma.

“Fine particulate matter in the rule and in the science is a proxy for these heavy metals,” explained Sierra Club attorney Tony Mendoza. “So if you’re limiting fine particulate matter to a certain level, EPA found you’re reducing your emissions of mercury and arsenic and nickel.”

Mendoza said he had been surprised that the Plum Point and White Bluff facilities had requested exemptions, saying that documentation put forth by the EPA during the rulemaking process led them to believe it would not be difficult for either plant to comply with the revised rule.

“It seems that they should have been able to comply and there is some non-public reason why they’re seeking that exemption,” Mendoza said. “We were frankly a little surprised to see them on that list.”

Frustration and concern

The chair of the Sierra Club’s Arkansas chapter expressed frustration and concern over the Trump administration’s move. The Sierra Club was one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit that resulted in the consent decree that requires Entergy to shut down White Bluff and its Independence coal plant within the next ten years.

“Environmental issues tend to work kind of like co-morbidities, where air quality issues on their own might not be causing huge issues for the average Arkansan,” Erica Kriner said, “but then you add poor drinking water from hog farms disposing waste into the Buffalo River; then you add an uptick of diseases that threaten agriculture; and suddenly all of these issues start to snowball with each other.”

Kriner said it was important that Arkansas communities understand the “larger context” of what these actions can mean. She compared the attempts to roll back regulations to a car in need of repair — perhaps it could continue to run at first, but it would eventually stop working.

“Chipping away at our clean air protections may not feel like it will lead to dire consequences, but the Trump administration, the [Sarah] Huckabee Sanders administration, they rely on people not understanding the long-term consequences of dismantling these regulations,” Kriner said.

The exemption from complying with the revised rule was particularly concerning for Joe Goffman, who oversaw the 2024 revisions as the head of the Environmental Protection Agency’s air office during the Biden administration and helped author the section of the Clean Air Act that gave the EPA the authority to regulate so-called “air toxics,” such as mercury, in 1990.

Goffman said the MATS rule exemptions for coal-powered plants would allow these facilities to continue using less frequent testing to demonstrate compliance with the pre-2024 version of the standards, which they are still subject to, if they had not already begun using CEMS.

Goffman said this leaves room for inaccuracies and potentially even manipulation.

“I can say from my many decades of experience in this area — if there was one pollutant” that Congress decided to regulate, “the pollutant to target is PM [particulate matter], because that’s the most dangerous pollutant that makes people sick,” Goffman said. 

That’s because harmful substances – like mercury – “ride” on fine particles.

“A lot of these substances are carried by fine particles,” Goffman said. “In other words, you don’t have these free floating nickel molecules or other heavy metal molecules. They ride on fine particles. That’s what makes them particularly lethal.”

Without a CEMS monitoring mandate for all coal plants, Goffman said, there could be “a lot” of particulate matter that is being emitted that isn’t necessarily reflected in reporting.

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Arkansas Advocate is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arkansas Advocate maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sonny Albarado for questions: info@arkansasadvocate.com.

The post Two Arkansas coal-fired plants win exemptions for monitoring toxic air particles appeared first on arkansasadvocate.com



Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Assessment: Center-Right

The article primarily discusses the Trump administration’s rollback of environmental regulations, particularly with regard to air pollution standards for coal-fired power plants in Arkansas. It presents the viewpoint of the administration’s policy as one focused on deregulation and reducing what is described as “burdensome” restrictions. This reflects a right-leaning stance, as the policy approach aligns with the traditional conservative emphasis on reducing government intervention in business and regulatory practices.

While the article includes criticism from environmental groups and former EPA officials, which represents a left-leaning perspective, the focus on the actions taken under Trump’s deregulation efforts and the framing of those actions as part of a broader conservative agenda signals a Center-Right bias in the overall tone and context. The criticisms of the exemptions are presented as concerns about the long-term impact, but the narrative is largely driven by the deregulation viewpoint associated with the Trump administration.

News from the South - Arkansas News Feed

Arkansans paying millions more in tariff costs compared to 2024

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arkansasadvocate.com – Ainsley Platt – 2025-07-01 16:20:00


At a July 1, 2025 town hall in North Little Rock, experts discussed the significant impact of tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on Arkansas’s manufacturing and agriculture sectors. Farmers for Free Trade reported Arkansans paid $3.5 million in vehicle parts tariffs by April 2025, a sharp increase from $747,700 in April 2024. Tariffs raise costs for items like car parts, hand tools, and agricultural inputs such as fertilizer, while retaliatory tariffs from countries like China have caused a 43.7% drop in Arkansas soybean exports. Panelists stressed that tariffs increase costs and uncertainty, with limited prospects for domestic manufacturing jobs returning due to workforce shortages.

by Ainsley Platt, Arkansas Advocate
July 1, 2025

Arkansans are paying millions more for daily necessities like car parts as a result of tariffs placed on imports by the Trump administration, according to a report from Farmers for Free Trade. 

The national nonprofit discussed the report during a town hall meeting Tuesday in North Little Rock. According to the report, Arkansans paid $747,700 in import taxes for vehicle parts in April 2024, with an average tariff rate of 7.3%. In April 2025, that number more than tripled to $3.5 million, with the average tariff rate reaching 27.3%.

Vehicle parts are especially exposed to the tariffs instituted by President Donald Trump in response to what he has described as unfair trade practices by other countries. American car manufacturers have increasingly turned to Canada and Mexico for manufacturing parts for their vehicles in recent years, with more than half of American vehicles and parts coming from those two countries.

But the tariffs — and the back-and-forth they have created for businesses as the administration announced new levies and then backed away from them in order to negotiate — don’t only affect car parts. Arkansas also imports hand tools and air pumps and fans from other countries, and paid large tariff costs as a result.

“Arkansas companies have already experienced sharp tariff increases in March and April of this year. But the breadth of these proposed trade actions — if fully enacted — could result in even more severe cost burdens in the months ahead,” the report said.

The broader trade war also poses risk for agriculture, the state’s largest industry. 

During a panel discussion at Tuesday’s town hall at Jenkins Enterprises, longtime farmer and Corning Republican Sen. Blake Johnson said he believed the tariffs could force 20-30% of U.S. farmers to close their doors by December if relief doesn’t come, even as he said that tariffs were necessary and needed “so we can sell and buy in a fair market.”

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Farmers face a double-whammy from tariffs. They have high input costs for items like tractor parts and fertilizer that could increase more because of tariffs. Johnson said fertilizer that cost $450 a ton last year now costs close to $650.

Tariffs imposed by other nations in retaliation for U.S. import taxes are another risk. For example, about half of the state’s soybean exports were sent to China last year, according to the report. But after Trump levied tariffs on Chinese goods, the east Asian country imposed reciprocal tariffs on American-grown crops. Soybean exports from the U.S. to China were down 43.7% in April compared to the same time last year.

“That’s why we see the 50% fall off in Arkansas exports of soybeans, because our soybeans now are more expensive when we’re trying to sell into overseas markets [as a result of reciprocal tariffs],” said Brian Kuehl, the executive director of Farmers for Free Trade. 

Trump has argued that businesses should absorb the tariff costs. Short-term pain is necessary for long-term gain, he and his allies have said, in order to bring back manufacturing jobs to the U.S.

However, Steve Jenkins, the owner of Jenkins Enterprises, which makes branded products such as Arkansas Razorbacks flags and coffee cups, said that while the administration’s goal was admirable, it was not necessarily possible.

“People will say to me, ‘Well, why don’t you just buy it in America?’ Because those products are no longer made in America, and one of the reasons for that is simply because we don’t have enough people to do it,” Jenkins said.

The issue, Jenkins said, was that even if manufacturing came back to the U.S., there wouldn’t be a workforce to fill those jobs. As America’s economy developed, he said, manufacturing of many goods was sent to Japan, then Taiwan. And as those countries’ economies developed and began focusing on more complex products, some of that manufacturing then made its way to China.

“We’ve got jobs in America, we don’t have workers…those jobs are not going to come back to America,” he said. “They’re not going to be available in America, and we just don’t have the workers to support it.”

The U.S. unemployment rate was 4.2% in May, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Meanwhile, existing U.S. manufacturing has continued to contract, according to the Institute for Supply Management. Respondents to its June survey said broad uncertainty as a result of the tariffs has impacted their orders.

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Arkansas Advocate is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arkansas Advocate maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sonny Albarado for questions: info@arkansasadvocate.com.

The post Arkansans paying millions more in tariff costs compared to 2024 appeared first on arkansasadvocate.com



Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

This article presents a balanced view of the impact of tariffs imposed during the Trump administration, reporting both the intended goals and the economic consequences. It includes perspectives from business owners, economists, farmers, and a Republican state senator, highlighting concerns about increased costs and retaliatory tariffs while acknowledging the rationale behind the trade policies. The tone remains factual and neutral, avoiding partisan language or ideological framing. The coverage focuses on the practical effects on Arkansas industries and does not overtly advocate for or against the tariffs, resulting in an overall centrist stance.

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News from the South - Arkansas News Feed

Beyoncé handles car tilting in air during Houston show

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www.youtube.com – THV11 – 2025-06-30 07:32:18

SUMMARY: During Beyoncé’s Houston show at NRG Stadium, a flying car she was riding in began to tilt dangerously mid-performance while she was singing “16 Carriages.” Calm but cautious, Beyoncé instructed the crew to stop and was safely lowered into the crowd, who cheered her on. No one was hurt, and the show continued after she thanked fans for their patience, noting Houston is her hometown and expressing trust in her fans. For her next show, the flying car stunt was dropped. The event was highly energetic, with fans dressed in elaborate outfits celebrating Beyoncé’s “Country Carter” tour.

Beyoncé faced a scary moment over the weekend when a flying car she was riding in tilted during her concert in Houston.

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Local Party Leaders Response to Trump's Bill

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www.youtube.com – 40/29 News – 2025-06-29 23:14:20

SUMMARY: Local party leaders in Arkansas express divided views on Trump’s bill advancing narrowly in the Senate. Republican Senator Bart Hester praises its progress, highlighting tax cuts and protections for Medicaid and SNAP benefits for vulnerable populations. In contrast, Arkansas Democratic Party’s Micah Wallace criticizes the bill for creating obstacles to healthcare and calls the slim margin a reflection of electoral stakes. Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders supports the bill overall but opposes the AI regulation section, which she says undermines state powers to control AI misuse. Leaders agree the bill holds significant consequences amid ongoing national debate.

Leaders in the Natural State speak out about the progress of President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.”

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