Admin set up an EPA address where companies could get compliance pause simply by sending an email Published May 10, 2026 6:00AM (EDT) Smoke billows from one of many chemical plants in the area of Baton Rogue, Louisiana. (Giles Clarke/Getty Images) This article originally appeared on ProPublica . In March 2025, President Donald Trump’s administration made a tantalizing offer to coal-fired power plants, chemical manufacturing facilities and other factories: Their operations could be exempted from key provisions under the Clean Air Act, the bedrock environmental law estimated to have prevented thousands of premature deaths. All they had to do was ask. No rigorous application was needed. An email, which they had until the end of the month to send, would suffice. Within two weeks, executives across major industries began flooding an inbox set up to receive and funnel requests from the Environmental Protection Agency to the White House.…