GARY — Natalie Ammons still isn’t used to waking up in the morning and finding a layer of film on her car and an oily residue covering the sidewalk in front of her home.
The 71-year-old radio show host lives just a few blocks from U.S. Steel Gary Works, the largest steel mill in North America and the third biggest polluter in Indiana, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxics Release Inventory.
The facility in 2023 spewed more than 13 million pounds of chemicals into the environment with potential health effects ranging from cancer, ulcers and respiratory illnesses.
“There’s some days when the pollution in the area is almost like soup,” Ammons said. “It’s just that thick, and it’s just that disturbing. You cough more and you sneeze more.”
For the past three years, the mill has been in “significant” violation of the Clean Air Act, the 1963 federal law that regulates all sources of air emissions. That’s led the EPA to fine the company more than $300,000 in the past five years, according to agency compliance records.
But Gary Works could soon be free to pollute even more.
President Donald Trump’s administration in March implemented a new policy allowing power plants and manufacturers to request an exemption from Biden-era clean-air rules, including regulations limiting air pollution from mercury, arsenic and benzene.
An Indiana coal plant has already received an exemption, and four other industrial plants have requested to be excused from clean-air rules, including Gary Works, according to the Environmental Integrity Project.
Indiana ranks second in the nation for the amount of toxic chemicals released per square mile, according to the EPA. The state is home to the most steel mills in the nation and has the eighth-most manufacturing facilities.
Now, environmental groups worry the exemptions, coupled with historic cuts to EPA enforcement staff, could lead to the release of even more harmful toxins that threaten Hoosiers’ health.
For Ammons, who said her three grandkids use breathing machines to recuperate after playing outside for too long, the prospect of Gary Works spewing more chemicals into the air is terrifying.
“That’s basically a death warrant,” she said. “The fact that you would even entertain such ideas tells me you’re bordering on insanity — for real.”
SEEKING A PASS
The EPA in March set up a new email account and invited eight industries, including manufacturers of steel, lime, rubber tires and synthetic chemicals, to send an email requesting a presidential waiver from the Biden-era updates to the Clean Air Act.
“The President will make a decision on the merits,” the EPA said in a release.
In Indiana, 16 facilities fall under the sectors the EPA has invited to seek a waiver including three chemical manufacturers located in Lafayette, Mount Vernon and Indianapolis. The 11 remaining facilities, including five coal plants, have all declined to say publicly whether they have requested an exemption.
In April, the administration quietly announced it was granting 68 coal-fired power plants spread across 23 states a two-year waiver from federal requirements implemented in 2024.
One of those plants is the Merom Generating Station in southwest Indiana about 7 miles west of Sullivan, a town of about 4,200 residents. The 1080-megawatt facility released more than 1.2 million pounds of pollutants in 2023, roughly 25% of which was released into the air, according to EPA data.
The coal plant had two “significant” violations of Clean Air regulations in the past three years, but the facility hasn’t faced any enforcement actions in at least five years and is currently in full compliance with EPA rules.
Hallador Energy Company, which owns the facility, did not respond to emails requesting information about the exemption.
The EPA said in a statement that the waivers “will bolster coal-fired electricity generation, ensuring that our nation’s grid is reliable, that electricity is affordable for the American people, and that EPA is helping to promote our nation’s energy security.”
Trump granted the waiver through Section 112(i)(4) of the Clean Air Act, which allows a president to exempt stationary sources of air pollution if the technology to implement federal standards is not available. The waiver must also be in the “national security interests of the United States.”
James Pew, director of federal clean air practices at Earthjustice, said Trump is twisting the 55-year-old statute — which has never before been used by a president — to give blanket exemptions to scores of polluters, even though the technology is available.
“This administration is quietly stripping clean air standards from us by presidential decree, shifting pollution costs from corporate profit balance sheets onto our lungs,” he said in a release.
Twelve environmental groups have now joined a lawsuit against the Trump administration over the coal-plant exemptions, arguing the waivers represent a “power grab” using a statue meant for “true national security emergencies where pollution controls are unavailable.”
‘PEOPLE WILL SUFFER’
Indiana is mimicking Trump’s efforts to limit regulations on pollution-generating facilities.
In March, Gov. Mike Braun signed an executive order that bars the state from implementing any policy more stringent than the federal rules unless explicitly required by Indiana law or “deemed necessary” by the governor’s office.
Braun argued in a release that states that go further than the federal standards “create a complex web of regulations for businesses and farmers to navigate, stifling innovation and raising the cost of living.”
Another executive order says Indiana, when issuing permits or enforcement decisions, will not consider environmental justice, a social movement that aims to protect poor and marginalized communities that are often disproportionately impacted by pollution.
Following the executive orders, the Indiana Department of Environmental Management invited Hoosiers to “provide input on environmental regulations and policies that may be overly burdensome to individuals, businesses, communities or industries across the state.”
The order directs IDEM to report “opportunities to revisit or rescind” certain environmental regulations and policies to the governor’s office by July 1.
Braun’s orders ramp up Indiana’s long-standing environmental policy that promotes business over health, argued David Van Gilder, senior policy director for the Hoosier Environmental Council.
“We want to attract industry and we want to attract jobs, but the downside is that unless these industries are regulated and asked or maybe forced to operate as good citizens, then people are going to suffer,” he said.
That’s especially true in areas like Gary. A high concentration of heavy manufacturing facilities has left the region far more polluted than other parts of the state, explained Ellis Walton, associate attorney at the Environmental Law & Policy Center.
Residents there need more regulations on pollution, not less, to help curb the life-threatening health effects caused by the slew of toxins released into the air, land and water, he asserted. As it stands, IDEM struggles to enforce the existing rules that aim to protect residents, Walton argued.
Ammons, the radio host who serves on the board of Gary Advocates for Responsible Development, said it often feels like a battle to hold manufacturers accountable for their pollution.
Now, with the prospect of companies like U.S. Steel Gary Works receiving a presidential pass to emit more chemicals, Ammons senses that the state and federal environmental agencies meant to protect residents have abandoned them.
“It seems as if they could care less about the people,” she said. “These companies are the big fish, and I don’t feel very comfortable that they’re looking out for the small fish anymore.”