The head of the United States Environmental Protection Agency has announced the repeal of rules limiting greenhouse gas emissions from coal and gas power plants, in what the agency described as the largest deregulatory action in the history of the US power sector.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin made the announcement at a press conference in Houston on Monday, on the sidelines of a G20 energy ministerial meeting. The EPA said eliminating the majority of Biden-era climate rules would save more than $300 billion and reduce energy prices.
"The reality is that America produces energy better and cleaner than anywhere else in the world, and our power plants should not be unfairly targeted," Zeldin said.
"Americans have been demanding more common sense at federal agencies under President Trump's leadership. That means cutting red tape so we can build new power-generating infrastructure," he added.
The repealed rules, finalized under the Biden administration, required existing coal plants and new natural gas-fired power plants to significantly reduce their carbon dioxide pollution, with reductions set to begin in the 2030s. The EPA said those regulations had "exceeded the agency's authority" and required "control technologies that are not adequately demonstrated, effectively forcing plants to retire rather than setting standards they could actually meet."
The agency is also seeking to rescind all remaining greenhouse gas emissions standards for the power sector. A separate rule has been proposed that, if finalized, could prevent future administrations from reinstating greenhouse gas regulations on power plants.
Zeldin said the new approach would "ensure affordable and reliable energy supplies and drive down the costs of transportation, heating, utilities, farming, and manufacturing while boosting our national security." He added that safeguards against "hazardous air pollutants" would remain in place "to safeguard human health."
The Biden-era regulations had been estimated to prevent 4,500 premature deaths annually. The EPA said on Monday that "any potential public health harms are too uncertain, conjectural, remote, and convoluted to tie specifically to the US power sector."
Environmental and public health groups condemned the decision and said it would harm Americans' health and accelerate environmental damage.
"Denying the existence of a quarter of the country's climate pollution is utterly reckless. It will lead to more lost lives and suffering from intense heatwaves, drastic storms and destructive wildfires," said Maggie Coulter, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity's Climate Law Institute.
"These rules are really important, not just for our climate, but also to protect public health from the dangers of local air pollution," said Gudrun Thompson, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center.
Democratic Senator Patty Murray of Washington state said: "Trump wants to let power plants pollute as much as they want. This will result in serious health risks for families, our water and air, and the entire planet."
Environmental groups said they plan to challenge the decision in court. The move is expected to face immediate legal challenges, following a pattern set by earlier EPA rollbacks under the Trump administration.
In February, the EPA revoked a 2009 scientific finding that determined carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare — the legal foundation that had enabled regulation of power plants, motor vehicles, and other industrial sources of air pollution. Health and environmental groups filed a lawsuit challenging that revocation at the time.
The legal basis for regulating power plant emissions dates to a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that required the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The Obama administration subsequently proposed the Clean Power Plan in 2014, which faced legal challenges and never took effect. The Trump administration replaced it with a less restrictive rule, and the Biden administration later introduced more ambitious standards aimed at eliminating climate pollution from the power sector by 2035.
Power plants are the second largest source of carbon dioxide emissions in the United States, behind transportation. Carbon dioxide from human activity is widely identified as the main driver of global warming.
President Trump has repeatedly rejected the scientific consensus on climate change, calling it "the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world." His administration has also withdrawn the United States from the 2015 Paris climate accord for the second time.
