EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin on Monday signed documents eliminating greenhouse gas emission standards for coal and natural gas power plants, a move the agency says will cut at least $310 million in compliance costs for energy producers and could drive a tenfold rise in coal generation.
What the Regulations Do
Two rules entered the Federal Register the same day. The first partially undoes Biden-era Carbon Pollution Standards that had covered nearly every power plant in the country — wind, solar, and hydropower facilities being the main exceptions. The EPA argued those 2024 standards were never realistically achievable by their 2032 deadline and would have triggered widespread plant closures.
The second measure is a proposed rulemaking that would go further, potentially eliminating all federal greenhouse gas limits on fossil-fuel power plants stretching back to 2015 — a span that encompasses rules put in place under both the Obama and Biden administrations.
Zeldin said the action would reduce electricity prices for Americans, describing it as “just the beginning.”
Conflicting Claims on Climate Impact
The EPA’s accompanying release asserted that power plant greenhouse gas emissions have no meaningful effect on global climate. That position conflicts with data the agency itself publishes: an EPA webpage last updated in December identifies electric power generation as the second-largest source of carbon dioxide pollution in the United States.
Advocacy group Evergreen Action pushed back on the administration’s framing. Pete Wyckoff of the organization noted that “if the U.S. power sector were its own country, it would rank as the world’s fifth-largest emitter of climate pollution.”
The rollback extends work Zeldin began last year when he revoked the agency’s “endangerment finding” — the legal underpinning that had long justified federal authority to regulate greenhouse gases.
Political Response
Democratic lawmakers and environmental organizations condemned the action, arguing it would worsen air quality and accelerate climate change. Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse put a dollar figure on the cost of repeal, saying the Biden rule being dismantled would have generated roughly $20 billion per year in savings through avoided climate disasters and lower health care expenditures. Some critics also framed the rollback as a benefit to energy industry donors who backed Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican, was among the lawmakers identified in connection with the regulatory action.