Want to avoid costly environmental regulations? Just email the EPA.

In its latest move to dismantle environmental regulation under the Trump Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency announced Monday that it would speed up the process by which industry can bypass provisions of the Clean Air Act and other rules designed to limit air pollution with a simple offer: email us for a presidential exemption.

Businesses that would like to avoid complying with certain EPA rules can email the agency with a reason justifying why it should be allowed an exemption and how it is in the best interest of the national security of the United States. According to the EPA website, all emails do not entitle the submitter to an exemption, but the president “will make a decision” based on the merits of the request.

The EPA said in a statement to CBS News that section 112(i)(4) of the Clean Air Act “specifically states that the President may exempt any stationary source ‘if the President determines that the technology to implement such standard is not available and that it is in the national security interests of the United States to do so.'”

But many in the environmental sector were stunned by the proposal. 

“This section of the Clean Air Act is designed to protect people from exposure to the most toxic chemicals — the ones that are dangerous in the smallest concentrations,” environmental law expert Michael Gerrard said in an email. “It’s shocking that EPA is now providing industries with a simple form they can use to get out of these rules and keep on emitting these harmful substances.”

For years, heavy industry has abided by rules and regulations set by the EPA to comply with the Clean Air Act, which has often led companies to invest heavily in expensive technology to reduce toxic air emissions, an expense critics have often derided as onerous. 

So, on March 12, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the “greatest day of deregulation” and said the agency was reviewing 31 rules that, he claims, amount to “trillions of dollars in regulatory costs and hidden taxes.” The mission of the rollback is to reduce costly regulations that burden the industry. By reviewing the rules, Zeldin said in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that “As we unleash American energy, revitalize domestic manufacturing, cut costs for families, and restore the rule of law, we do so with the firm belief that America’s greatest days lie ahead.”

The rollbacks were cheered by Republican leaders and industry alike, “The action taken by the Trump EPA today is exactly what needs to be done to secure American energy dominance and restore the communities who have been negatively impacted by regulations and overreach from the Biden administration,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) said in a statement. Capito is also the chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which oversees the EPA.

It could take years for the agency to finalize new rules to reduce the costs of environmental compliance, let alone the legal challenges it will face. In an attempt to fast-track this process, the EPA is offering this unique “hall pass,” as some describe the presidential exemption, to enable companies to stop complying now, rather than years later when the updated rules are complete.

“Under Administrator Zeldin, the EPA is now the Environmental Polluter Agency. His invitation for companies to put arsenic and mercury into the air if they claim it enhances ‘national security’ is a vast abuse of the President’s given authority,” Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) said in a statement to CBS News. Merkley also sits on the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works and its first priority is to review legislation on air pollution.

Merkley’s fellow committee member, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), had similar concerns, “Trump and his puppets at EPA are giving the most toxic polluters carte blanche to poison our air,” he said in an email to CBS News. ” As corrupt as this is, no one can have any confidence that either the technology or national security standards will be met.” 

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), the ranking member of the House Science Committee, said in a statement, “The idea that some obscure, rarely-used provision of the Clean Air Act empowers EPA to grant sweeping exemptions to polluting companies because they send an email is preposterous. It’s clearly illegal – no doubt there.”

Environmental law experts believe the policy will be challenged in court. “I’ve never seen anything like this before,” said Mary Nichols, a distinguished counsel for the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA Law School. Nichols says because the statute is so broad, it is subject to abuse. “I think the likely first lawsuit is a blanket challenge to the entire procedure,” she said.

CBS News asked the EPA if it could explain how all the emails will be processed and assessed, whether each one will be individually considered by President Trump, and how many emails the agency has already received, but the EPA did not address those questions.

But sending the email request to the EPA does create a paper trail that companies may want to consider. “This is something that we will fight to make public,” said Joe Bonfiglio, executive director of the U.S. region of the Environmental Defense Fund, a prominent environmental nonprofit. “For companies who take advantage of this hall pass, there are organizations like ours who will make sure communities around those facilities know about the requests.”

Companies have until March 31 to email the EPA with the required information for the president to consider.