EPA Power Plant Rollback To Add 123 Million More Tons of CO2

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced in September that it will relinquish its authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants, a regulatory tool used to set carbon pollution standards for coal and natural gas generators. The agency’s analysis estimates the regulatory change will allow about 123 million additional metric tonnes of CO2 to be emitted over the coming decade, and it projects roughly $370 million in avoided compliance costs for power plant operators. The rollback reverses standards adopted under the Biden administration in 2024, when the EPA projected the rules would cut roughly 1 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases by 2027 and yield about $370 billion in net benefits. At the time those standards were introduced, the agency also estimated substantial public-health gains—including preventing an estimated 1,200 premature deaths and 360,000 asthma attacks in 2035—by improving air quality. The change follows several other Trump-administration moves on climate policy, including an earlier decision this year to rescind the 2009 endangerment finding that concluded greenhouse gases pose a significant risk to public health and the environment, and the February repeal of pollution standards for cars and trucks. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin framed the power-plant rule change as ending a “war on coal,” saying Americans will see lower electricity prices and that the administration plans further measures to expand domestic energy production. Environmental groups quickly signaled legal opposition. Sierra Club chief program officer Holly Bender called the rollback “full-throated climate denial” and said the organization will challenge the proposal in courts and through advocacy. The policy shift comes amid scientific and international warnings: U.S. and global agencies have linked rising greenhouse-gas concentrations to higher global temperatures, altered precipitation, more extreme weather, and declining mountain snowpacks that threaten water supplies in parts of the western United States. The EPA’s statement accompanying the rulemaking also asserted that greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants have no material impact on global climate change and went so far as to say eliminating CO2 entirely would produce no meaningful climate effect—positions that conflict with findings cited by the U.S. Energy Information Administration and recent academic studies. Observers note the rollback is aligned with administration plans to support expanded natural gas development and preserve coal plants that had been scheduled to retire, at a time when the electricity sector accounts for roughly one-quarter of U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions and would rank among the world’s largest emitters if treated as a country.