Trump Administration Offers Two Year Reprieve From EPA Regulations To Coke Oven Facilities

On Nov. 21, President Donald Trump signed a proclamation granting two years of regulatory relief from an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule that was issued in 2024 and that was designed to oversee coke oven facilities. As a White House fact sheet explained, and as Metals Service Center Institute members know, this sector is a vital component that drives U.S. steelmaking capacity.

The proclamation, available at this link, said the 2024 regulation “requires compliance with standards premised on the application of emissions-control technologies that do not yet exist in a commercially demonstrated or cost-effective form” and, as such, “many coke production facilities are in the impossible position of designing and engineering novel systems with unproven technology within a short time frame.”

Because sufficient technology is not yet available, the proclamation said the 2024 regulation “raises the unacceptable risk of threatening facility closures, production halts, and lasting harm to the domestic coke production industry.” Such closures and production delays “would undermine” U.S. “national security, as these effects would substantially impact local and national economies and would undermine the coke and steel sectors’ vital role in producing the iron and steel needed to support critical infrastructure and defense,” the proclamation said. The proclamation allows certain facilities — those listed in the proclamation — to instead comply with an earlier, less stringent EPA standard.

The fact sheet concluded that, “without this relief, the United States would face weakened steel capacity, increased reliance on foreign adversaries for critical metals, reduced military readiness, and threats to construction, infrastructure, transportation, and manufacturing sectors.”