Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, joined by several Republican lawmakers, announced on Wednesday the agency’s plan to repeal two landmark power plant emission regulations.
During a press conference at EPA headquarters, Zeldin called it “a historic day at the EPA” and said the agency’s actions were designed to “both protect the environment and grow the economy.”
“We are proposing to repeal Obama and Biden rules that have been criticized as regulating coal, oil and gas out of existence—from the so-called Clean Power Plan to the 2024 Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, or MATS,” said Zeldin. “Together, if finalized, these actions would result in saving over a billion dollars per year,” he said.
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The first rule being targeted by the EPA focuses on carbon emissions, requiring existing coal-fired and new natural gas plants to cut 90% of their carbon pollution using technologies like carbon capture. The second rule strengthened the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), tightening limits on hazardous metals such as mercury from lignite coal-fired power plants. Both rules were part of a broader EPA effort finalized last April to reduce pollution from fossil fuel-fired power plants.
Zeldin said the EPA will decide if fossil fuel power plants are significant contributors of greenhouse gas emissions and if those emissions are dangerous to public health or the environment, key determinations for rolling back the regulations under the Clean Air Act.
Existing coal-fired power plants are the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector, according to the EPA, and new natural gas-fired combustion turbines are some of the largest new sources of these emissions being built today.
Zeldin said he is not prejudging a decision on the environmental and health impacts of fossil fuel power plants and that the repeal is still a proposal and yet to be finalized. Zeldin said the public will have an opportunity to comment on the changes.
“We’re not eliminating MATS. We’re proposing to revise it to remove the gratuitous requirements added by the Biden administration in 2024,” said Zeldin.
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He added that “If finalized, no power plant will be allowed to emit more than they do today or as much as they did one or two years ago.”
Zeldin announced in March that the EPA would reconsider the regulations on power plants put in place by the previous administration, citing that the previous administration did not have the legal authority to enact the rules in the first place.
In a statement to ABC News, Gina McCarthy, a former EPA administrator and White House national climate advisor during the Biden administration, wrote “The key rationale Zeldin is using to justify the dismantling of our nation’s protections from power plant pollution is absolutely illogical and indefensible.”
She added, “It’s a purely political play that goes against decades of science and policy review. 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.”
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What do the current EPA emissions rules do?
The current rules require existing coal-fired power plants and new natural gas plants to control 90% of their carbon pollution through technologies like carbon capture. An administration regulatory impact analysis conducted during the Biden Administration found that by 2047, this new standard will avoid 1.38 billion metric tons of carbon pollution, the equivalent of 328 million gas-powered cars’ annual emissions.
They also strengthen Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) for coal-fired plants by tightening the emissions standard for toxic metals by 67% and requiring a 70% reduction in the mercury emissions standard specifically from lignite coal-fired power plants. By 2028, the EPA estimates the new rule will result in 1,000 pounds of mercury emissions reductions in addition to seven tons of other hazardous air pollutant emissions, 770 tons of fine particulate matter pollution and others.
What would change if the power plant regulations are rolled back?
The EPA is proposing the repeal of the 2015 and 2024 emissions standards for new and existing fossil-fuel powered plants including rules that govern CO2, mercury and air toxins emissions.
The Sierra Club estimates that these changes would allow some power plants to release nearly seven times as much CO2 as they currently put into the atmosphere.
The EPA says the changes would lower electricity costs for consumers and increase the supply of energy.
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The impacts of power plant pollution
Environmental organizations nationwide were quick to express their concerns about the Trump administration’s proposal. They’ve told ABC News that they plan to sue the administration to stop any rollbacks of the pollution standards.
In a statement to ABC News, Ryan Maher, an environmental health attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity said, “They had to fire hundreds of scientists to advance these destructive policies because they know the facts are indisputable. If these reckless rollbacks are allowed to stand they’ll only fan the flames of extreme heat and wildfires, and they’ll trigger more child deaths, more cancers, more lung diseases and more heart attacks.”
The Sierra Club’s climate policy director, Patrick Drupp, wrote in a statement to ABC News, “It’s completely reprehensible that Donald Trump would seek to roll back these lifesaving standards and do more harm to the American people and our planet just to earn some brownie points with the fossil fuel industry. This repeal means more climate disasters, more heart attacks, more asthma attacks, more birth defects, more premature deaths.”
“In repealing the carbon standards, Administrator Zeldin is flagrantly disregarding incontrovertible evidence and long-standing precedent, intentionally sidelining EPA from the climate fight and letting fossil fuel companies freely pollute,” Julie McNamara, associate director of policy for the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, wrote in a statement to ABC News. “There’s no meaningful path to meet U.S. climate goals without addressing carbon emissions from coal- and gas-fired power plants—and there’s no meaningful path to meet global climate goals without the United States. This repeal would condemn people across the country and around the world to a future of worsening climate impacts and devastating costs.”
Power plants will not be able to admit any more emissions than they are currently allowed to under the new proposals, an EPA spokesperson said in a statement to ABC News on Thursday.
“Unlike other air pollutants with a regional or local impact, greenhouse gas emissions are global in nature. As a result, any potential public health harms have not been accurately attributed to emissions from the U.S. power sector,” the EPA spokesperson said. “In light of this, EPA is proposing that the Clean Air Act requires the agency to make a finding that the targeted emissions from fossil fuel-fired power plants significantly contribute to dangerous air pollution before regulating these emissions from this source category.”
In response to opposition from environmental groups, the EPA spokesperson said, “many of those same groups were ecstatic when the Obama administration implemented the 2012 MATS rule.”
“Unlike the previous administration that tried to ram through regulations to destroy industries that didn’t align with their narrow-minded climate change zealotry, the Trump EPA is committed to EPA’s core mission of protecting human health and the environment,” the spokesperson said.
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Decade-long process
In August 2015, the EPA established the first nationwide limits on greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants under a rule known as the “Clean Power Plan.” This initiative aimed to position the U.S. as a leader in addressing climate change and to help fulfill international commitments to reduce carbon pollution. The rule required each state to submit a plan to the EPA outlining how it would meet the specified emission reduction targets for its power sector.
However, in 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to stay the EPA’s Clean Power Plan. The order responded to a request from several states, utilities, and other industry groups asking the high court to put the rule on hold while legal challenges were decided in a lower court.
On March 28, 2017, President Trump signed an Executive Order to reevaluate the Clean Power Plan final rule and eliminate other federal initiatives addressing climate change.
Then in June 2019, the EPA adoped the “Affordable Clean Energy” (ACE) rule to replace the Clean Power Plan. This was struck down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Jan. 19, 2021.
In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Clean Power Plan, ruling that the EPA lacked authority under section 111 of the federal Clean Air Act to require existing power plants to shift generation from more polluting sources to less polluting sources as it had done in the Clean Power Plan.
In response, the Biden administration EPA announced a suite of final rules to reduce pollution from fossil fuel-fired power plants to protect communities from pollution and improve public health in 2024.
After President Trump began his second term, Zeldin announced the EPA would reconsider the regulations on power plants put in place by the previous administration, citing that the prior administration did not have the legal authority to enact the rules in the first place.
ABC News’ Julia Jacobo contirbuted to this report.
EPA proposes rolling back clean air rules for power plants: What to know originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
