Environmental groups were outraged this week after the Environmental Protection Agency, acting under orders from President Trump, invited coal plants and other industrial polluters to seek to bypass key provisions of the Clean Air Act that limit hazardous emissions by sending an email.

“EPA has set up an electronic mailbox to allow the regulated community to request a Presidential Exemption under [a provision] of the Clean Air Act,” the agency announced Monday. The announcement also contained a template for applicants to use in their requests.

The provision in question, Section 112(i)(4) of the Clean Air Act, applies to the regulation of nearly 200 pollutants, including mercury, arsenic, benzene and formaldehyde — known carcinogens that have also been linked to reproductive and developmental issues, respiratory illnesses and other adverse health outcomes.

In its announcement, the EPA noted that the Clean Air Act allows the president to exempt “stationary sources” of air pollution — that is, sources that are not vehicles, essentially — from compliance with the rules for up to two years “if the technology to implement the standard is not available and it is in the national security interests of the United States to do so.”

Opponents said the plan amounts to a get-out-of-jail-free card for polluters and adds to the Trump administration’s onslaught against hard-won protections.

“This is the email inbox from hell, where vital protections for the air we breathe go to die,” Jason Rylander, legal director of the Climate Law Institute at the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. “It’s truly dystopic for the Trump administration to allow polluters to unleash more brain-damaging toxins on our kids just by sending an email.”

The EPA’s exemption template asks applicants to explain why they can’t currently meet the emissions reduction goals, and why an extension is in the national security interests of the country.

An email alone does not guarantee an exemption, the EPA said. Instead, the president “will make a decision on the merits,” according to the agency’s announcement this week.

“What they are doing is unprecedented,” said Adam Kron, a senior attorney with the nonprofit environmental law group Earthjustice. “There is a section in the Clean Air Act that provides the ability to seek this presidential exemption, but to our knowledge, it has never been used — and certainly not in a way where they are broadly putting it out there.”

By his count, the exemption could apply to at least 764 pollution sources across nine industrial sectors such as chemical manufacturing, copper smelting, steel production and coal-fired power plants — “just a whole host of really large and widespread and toxic facilities across the nation,” Kron said.

Interested companies have until March 31 to email their requests for exemptions. Exemptions may be granted for up to two years and can be renewed, if appropriate, the EPA said.

Fossil fuel companies and other regulated groups have long complained that complying with the Clean Air Act is unduly costly and onerous. Earlier this month, many celebrated when Trump’s EPA administrator announced plans to roll back 31 rules and regulations that govern air and water quality standards in an effort to cut costs.

“President Donald Trump and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin have answered the calls of manufacturers across the country to rebalance and reconsider burdensome federal regulations harming America’s ability to compete,” Jay Timmons, chief executive of the National Assn. of Manufacturers, said at the time.

Trump — who received record donations from fossil fuel companies during his presidential campaign — in recent weeks has also vowed to ramp up the production of coal.

But environmental groups said the latest move marks the further erosion of safeguards intended to protect the health and well-being of communities across the nation.

“This loophole, if kept in place, will kill Americans, plain and simple,” Laurie Williams, director of the nonprofit Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign, wrote in a statement. “This is completely out of line with the mission of the agency and what Americans deserve from our government.”

Multiple environmental groups have already filed Freedom of Information Act requests seeking out the list of applicants and their purported justifications for the presidential exemptions to the Clean Air Act.

Should the exemptions go into effect, they will probably face legal opposition, said Kron, of Earthjustice. “We’re prepared to take all steps to defend our clients and communities who really look to these rules to protect their health and their livelihood.”