EPA seeks to roll back regulations that limit greenhouse gas emissions from power plants
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- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday announced a proposal to roll back Obama- and Biden-era regulations designed to address mercury air pollution and carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.
- EPA administrator Lee Zeldin said the changes would reduce costs and ramp up American energy dominance.
- Opponents said they would contribute to climate change and worse public health outcomes.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday announced plans to roll back Biden-era regulations designed to address mercury air pollution and carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.
If approved, the proposals would repeal federal limits on greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel-fired power plants — one of the leading drivers of human-caused climate change. The plan also would loosen the EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxic Standards, which govern emissions of mercury and other hazardous air pollutants.
The proposed changes at the nation’s top environmental agency follow the Trump administration’s previously announced plans to unwind as many as 31 environmental regulations in what it says is an effort to reduce regulatory costs and “unleash American energy.”
“Since President Trump was sworn in for this term, we here at the EPA have been taking actions to end the agency’s war on so much of our U.S. domestic energy supply,” EPA administrator Lee Zeldin said during Wednesday’s announcement. He was joined by Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.); six Republican representatives from Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania; and Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren.
Zeldin said the previous Democratic administrations presented a “false binary choice” between protecting the environment and growing the economy, and that the existing rules would effectively regulate the coal, oil and gas industries “out of existence.” The changes announced Wednesday would result in savings of more than $1 billion per year, Zeldin said.
The EPA administrator says he is rolling back dozens of environmental rules, including those crucial to California programs on climate change and electric vehicles, and closing offices that worked to lower pollution in poor communities.
Multiple environmental groups condemned the plan, which they said would not only worsen global warming but also make more people vulnerable to air pollution and associated health risks. Fossil-fueled power plants often are disproportionately located in low-income communities and communities of color.
“These are astoundingly shameful proposals,” read a statement from Julie McNamara, associate director of policy for the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “There’s no meaningful path to meet U.S. climate goals without addressing carbon emissions from coal- and gas-fired power plants — and there’s no meaningful path to meet global climate goals without the United States. This repeal would condemn people across the country and around the world to a future of worsening climate impacts and devastating costs.”
The EPA’s own 2024 analysis found that the rules currently on the chopping block would deliver $390 billion in total climate and health benefits. By the agency’s accounting, that is more than 20 times the amount that those same rules would cost the industry to comply with the laws. The power plant rules alone were projected to reduce 1.38 billion metric tons of planet-warming CO2 from entering the atmosphere by 2047, according to the agency.
What’s more, the existing rules would prevent an estimated 1,200 premature deaths, 360,000 cases of asthma symptoms, 48,000 school absence days and 57,000 lost work days by 2035, according to the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University. Repealing them “will cause significant harm to the public,” said Richard Revesz, the institute’s faculty director.
Zeldin’s supporters argue that the changes would remove burdensome regulations and compliance costs imposed upon the power plants.
“While we are reviewing the full proposal, the voiding of the prior rule would remove a barrier to producing the electricity generation needed to maintain our domestic energy security and our competitive edge in critical fields like artificial intelligence,” said Marty Durbin, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Energy Institute.
“These rules force power plants into premature retirement and handcuff how often new natural gas plants can run,” Jim Matheson, chief executive of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Assn., said in a statement.
The agency’s plan to repeal or weaken more than two dozen environmental regulations could deliver a direct blow to causes close to the heart of Californians — including air and water quality standards, electric vehicle initiatives and efforts to curb planet-harming greenhouse gas emissions.
The proposal would undo a 2024 rule instituted by the Biden administration, which set stricter limits and more robust monitoring requirements on hazardous pollutants such as mercury, fine particulate matter and heavy metals. It also would repeal standards dating to the Obama administration that require coal- and gas-fired power plants to reduce their carbon emissions.
The plan could have ramifications in California, which already suffers from some of the worst air quality in the country and has seen other federal challenges to its environmental authority — including the Trump administration’s recent move to overturn the state’s landmark ban on new gas cars.
The federal rollback of power plant rules also could undermine the state’s efforts to pursue clean energy and reduce emissions, including its goal to reach carbon neutrality by 2045.
The rule changes are likely to face legal challenges from opponents, with groups such as the Environmental Defense Fund and the Natural Resources Defense Council vowing to sue.
“Power plants are the largest industrial source of carbon emissions, spewing more than 1.5 billion tons of greenhouse gases annually,” said a statement from Manish Bapta, president and chief executive of the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council. “The EPA claims this pollution is insignificant — but try telling that to the people who will experience more storms, heat waves, hospitalizations and asthma attacks because of this repeal.”
The rules will undergo a public comment period, Zeldin said, and the agency aims to finalize them by the end of the year.
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