⁍ The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday reversed a Clinton-era policy.

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⁍ The policy required major U.S. sources of hazardous air pollution like arsenic to maintain pollution control technology throughout the lifetime of their operation.

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⁍ The EPA said the change will ease costs for companies without undermining air quality.

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⁍ Environmental groups said the change creates a ‘loophole’ for big industrial plants to pollute more.

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– President Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency is rolling back former President Clinton’s policies on industrial plants and refineries, Reuters reports. According to the New York Times, the 1995 “once in, always in” policy mandated that pollution sources like refineries and industrial plants maintain pollution control technology throughout their operations to meet less stringent standards. The EPA says the change, finalized Thursday, will “reduce regulatory burden” and “provide a level of fairness and flexibility for sources that reduce hazardous air pollution below major source thresholds.” But environmental groups say the change creates a “loophole” for big industrial plants to pollute more. “The guidance was specifically designed to secure public protection from especially hazardous air pollutants—which in many cases are carcinogenic, or neurotoxic even in very small quantities—in keeping with the requirements of the Clean Air Act,” the Sierra Club says in a statement. The Environmental Defense Fund says it will sue the EPA after the new rule is signed. The EPA says the change will ease costs for companies without undermining air quality by holding their facilities to less stringent regulatory standards as soon as they have reduced pollution back below a certain limit. “This action reduces regulatory burden and provides a level of fairness and flexibility for sources that reduce HAP emissions below major source thresholds,” the EPA says in a statement.