The EPA says dropping its carbon limits on coal and gas power plants will save industry more than $300 billion, most of it money utilities would no longer spend cutting emissions. Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the rollback on Monday, September 14, at a G20 energy ministers’ meeting in Houston billed as a session on “energy abundance.”
The target is a 2024 rule from the Biden years. It would have required plants to capture and store at least 90% of the carbon they produced by 2032. The agency also proposed scrapping every other greenhouse gas standard for power plants, arguing that the Clean Air Act does not give it the authority to regulate those emissions as a climate matter.
“The Trump administration has come in to protect American energy and to make sure you can afford to keep the lights on,” Zeldin said. When the repeal was finalized, he added: “Americans will see a decrease in electricity prices.” The agency later put the savings at $310 billion.
Industry cheers, environmentalists object
Coal’s lobbyists were pleased. Michelle Bloodworth of America’s Power, a trade group for the country’s fleet of more than 400 coal-fired plants, said the repeal would help “preserve and strengthen the U.S. coal fleet” and protect grid reliability while demand climbs from data centers, artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing.
The Sierra Club’s climate policy director, Patrick Drupp, called it “full-throated climate denial.” He said it would bring more pollution, more extreme weather and higher electricity bills because the country would keep leaning on fossil fuels.
The Biden administration had argued its rule would pay for itself in health terms. By 2035 alone, it estimated, the rule would prevent 1,200 premature deaths, 360,000 cases of asthma symptoms and 47,000 lost workdays.
Power plants matter here because of their size. In 2022 the EPA estimated they produced 24% of domestic carbon dioxide emissions from burning coal, oil and natural gas. Only transportation, at 29% of greenhouse gas emissions, ranked higher. The agency’s own February moves covered that sector: it repealed vehicle greenhouse gas standards and the 2009 endangerment finding that underpins its duty to regulate such emissions. Environmental groups have already sued over that finding.
States go to court
On Thursday, October 1, a coalition of more than 20 Democratic attorneys general sued the EPA and Zeldin in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. New York, California and a long list of other states joined, along with the governor of Pennsylvania and the mayors of Chicago and New York City. The complaint says the repeal violates the Clean Air Act and asks the court to restore the standards.
“I’m suing to stop this administration from giving the nation’s biggest polluters a free pass to set our country back decades in the fight against climate change,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said. An EPA spokesperson told Spectrum News the agency does not comment on pending litigation.
Don’t expect a quick answer. Meghan Greenfield, a partner at Jenner & Block who oversaw the EPA’s Supreme Court rulemaking docket under Biden, said such cases “proceed relatively slowly in the courts of appeals.” She said it is not clear to her that this repeal will reach the Supreme Court before the end of the administration.
Sources
- Democratic AGs sue EPA over repeal of power plant emissions rules
- EPA to repeal limits on greenhouse gas pollution from power plants
