The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday repealed rules that limit planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from power plants fueled by coal and natural gas, an action that Administrator Lee Zeldin has said would remove billions of dollars in costs for the industry and help “unleash” American energy.
The rule change, proposed last year, represents a fundamental shift from efforts by Democratic Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama to address climate change and clean up industrial pollution, often in low-income and majority Black or Hispanic communities.
In a statement, the EPA said this rule strikes the majority of the 2024 Carbon Pollution Standards, the greenhouse gas requirements passed in the Biden administration, which the agency claimed violated the Clean Air Act.
The EPA said coal production for power sector use is expected to increase by more than 10 times.
The rule, which is expected to face immediate legal challenges, also could prevent future administrations from regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, people familiar with the proposal told The Associated Press. They spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of the rule being made public.
The EPA said last year it would publish a finding that greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel power plants “do not contribute significantly to dangerous air pollution,” although the agency’s own data from 2023 showed that the power sector produced 31% of carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels, the second-highest of all industries.
More than a dozen environmental and health groups have sued Zeldin and the EPA after rolling back fundamental steps taken by United States leaders to curb fossil fuel pollution for most of the last two decades.
Zeldin, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Energy Secretary Chris Wright are hosting a G20 ministerial meeting on “energy abundance” in Houston, where the rule change is set to be announced. The site is both a nod to the important role the oil-rich state plays in the energy industry and a potential snub of European and other international allies in attendance who have pursued environmentally friendly policies that the Trump administration has moved to undo.
Republican President Trump called climate change “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world” at a speech to the United Nations last year, and his administration withdrew the U.S. — for the second time — from the 2015 Paris climate accord that sets voluntary goals to curb planet-warming emissions.
Mr. Trump has boasted of U.S. energy abundance even as the Iran war continues to disrupt global fuel markets and gas prices top $4.31 a gallon, up more than a dollar from a year ago.
The plan to make the power plant rule final was first reported by The New York Times.
The rollbacks are meant to fulfill Mr. Trump’s repeated pledge to “unleash American energy ” and make it easier for utilities to supply electricity for homes and businesses.
The power plant…
Read More: EPA to eliminate limits on climate pollution from power plants
