These federal rules were designed to reduce a wide range of pollutants, including nitrogen oxides, mercury, sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide, and toxic wastewater. The rollback of these protections threatens to not only increase environmental degradation, but also burden nearby communities with higher public health risks.
The Sierra Club’s dashboard breaks down pollution sources by facility and rule, mapping out which plants are affected and where regulatory gaps may occur. The five EPA standards tracked include:
If implemented fully, these five safeguards could have reduced the following in Indiana alone:
Each metric underscores the scale of pollution control now at stake.
Among the 12 plants listed in the dashboard, ownership spans major regional utilities including Duke Energy Indiana, AES, NIPSCO, Indiana Michigan Power, Alcoa, and the Indiana Municipal Power Agency. The dashboard identifies which rules would apply to each plant—and which would be sidestepped under the rollback scenario.
Notable examples include:
Duke Energy, which operates three of the named facilities, has been singled out by Sierra Club for advocating the most aggressively for these regulatory exemptions. Shortly after Trump’s inauguration, Duke reportedly signaled an intent to burn more coal and submitted a formal request to the EPA asking for multiple standards to be rescinded.
Duke Energy Indiana received the lowest grade of any major utility in the state on the Sierra Club’s most recent Clean Energy Transition Scorecard.
Sierra Club officials say the stakes go far beyond emissions data—they point to real-world public health consequences if utilities continue to externalize pollution costs.
“As a monopoly utility, Duke is using its influence to externalize the cost of pollution generated at existing coal plants into the lungs of hard-working Hoosiers throughout the state,” said Robyn Skuya-Boss, Director of the Sierra Club Hoosier Chapter. “The only way utilities will clean up their act is if we work together to demand clean air, clean water, affordable energy, and a habitable planet.”
“The Trump Coal Pollution Dashboard demonstrates clearly that with every executive order, Donald Trump is recklessly releasing tons and tons of toxic, deadly chemicals into our air,” said Laurie Williams, Director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign. “The American people should be outraged.”
The findings come at a time when investor and community scrutiny of fossil-fuel-heavy utilities is intensifying. Utilities failing to invest in clean energy and pollution controls risk reputational damage, investor pressure, and regulatory backlash at the state level—even as federal enforcement is pulled back.
Indiana’s energy sector is under growing pressure to modernize. As neighboring states accelerate renewable deployment and carbon-neutral targets, Indiana’s continued reliance on aging coal infrastructure may prove economically and politically untenable in the long term.
