The Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday that it will aim to eliminate existing limits on greenhouse gas emissions from coal- and gas-fired power plants, a move that would curb the agency’s ability to combat climate change under the Clean Air Act.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a news conference that Biden-era carbon pollution standards for power plants “suffocate” the economy in order to protect the environment. Zeldin, who was appointed by President Donald Trump in January, stated that the agency’s announcement was a huge step forward in energy dominance for the U.S., while promising that no power plants would emit more than they already do. Currently, the power sector accounts for a quarter of all U.S. emissions, according to the latest EPA emissions data.
Zeldin also said the EPA plans to weaken Biden-era regulations on mercury emissions from power plants.
Environmental advocates say the EPA’s proposal is an escalation in the Trump administration’s ongoing push against climate action across federal agencies, including at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Department of Energy and the National Weather Service. In 2024, the Biden administration finalized the most stringent carbon pollution standards for power plants to date in an effort to tackle the climate crisis — but now, those rules face an uncertain future.
Gina McCarthy, a former EPA Administrator under President Joe Biden, called Zeldin’s announcement a “political play” that defies “decades of science and policy review” in a statement on Wednesday.
“By giving a green light to more pollution, his legacy will forever be someone who does the bidding of the fossil fuel industry at the expense of our health,” McCarthy said.
Jill Tauber, the vice president of litigation for climate and energy at Earthjustice, a nonprofit currently suing the Trump administration over several environmental rollbacks said: “Eliminating pollution standards from the largest industrial source of greenhouse gas pollution in the United States flies in the face of what the law requires, what the science tells us, and what we’re seeing every day.”
Power plants in the U.S. are a huge contributor to global carbon emissions. A report published by the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law found that if the U.S. power sector were its own country, it would be the sixth-largest emitter in the world.
Under the first Trump administration, the EPA rolled back several Obama-era greenhouse gas standards on power plants, but this recent announcement marks the first time the agency has suggested outright repeals. Zeldin’s move on power plants follows his promise in March to tackle the “climate change religion” by reconsidering or repealing 31 regulations surrounding tailpipe emissions, coal ash regulations and oil and gas wastewater management.
The proposed rule, which will now move into its comment period, will face scrutiny from legal advocates and environmental nonprofits like Earthjustice and the Natural Resources Defense Council, which say the EPA is obligated to regulate greenhouse gas emissions by law — citing seminal cases like the 2007 Massachusetts v. EPA lawsuit, which determined that greenhouse gases must be regulated by the EPA under the Clean Air Act.
“We’ll be watching closely to see if the EPA proceeds with repealing these life-saving standards based on a legal theory that doesn’t pass the laugh test,” said Meredith Hawkins, the federal climate legal director at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “The NRDC stands ready to defend the public’s right to breathe in court if needed.”
Cutting historic limits on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants would impact global climate change, but it could also cause ripple effects on human health and the economy.
Harvey Reiter, an energy and utilities lawyer and a law professor at George Washington University, says that if the EPA moves forward with its planned repeals, he expects some energy companies and utilities that have retooled operations and made long-term investments in renewable energy to sue the Trump administration.
“The biggest impacts of the proposed rules are uncertainty and instability,” he said. “Nobody knows what to do next. It makes investment decisions harder. It makes decisions about hiring, staff and employees harder. It creates a lot of uncertainty in the market.”
Greenhouse gas emissions from power plants are not just a climate issue. Burning fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide as well as other air pollutants, including nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, mercury and fine particulate matter, which are linked to increased risk of respiratory issues and cardiovascular disease. Regulating carbon emissions from power plants broadly reduces other air pollution for communities living near power plants, said Laura Kate Bender, the vice president of nationwide advocacy and public policy at the American Lung Association.
“It works both ways. On the one hand, power plants burning fossil fuels contribute to climate change and cause health problems at the same time,” said Bender. “And then climate change, in many cases, contributes to extreme heat, or more wildfire smoke, or more ozone smogs. Climate change is a health emergency, and cutting carbon in the power sector is a critical tool in the toolbox for fighting climate change.”
