EPA Power Plant Rollback To Add 123 Million More Tons of CO2
Natural Gas Prices Felicity Bradstock is a writer and journalist based in Mexico City.
She writes for energy websites and covers several other industries, as well as writing… The U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced in September that it will relinquish its authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants under the Clean Air Act, a tool previously used to tackle climate change.
This effectively removes any limits on emissions from coal and gas plants and reduces the government’s ability to curb this pollution.
When the carbon pollution standards for power plants were introduced under the Biden administration in 2024,the EPA saidit expected the new rules to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 1 billion tonnes by 2027 and provide $370 billion in net benefits.
The stricter standards were also expected to prevent 1,200 premature deaths and 360,000 asthma attacks in 2035 alone by improving air quality.
The EPA expects the new move to result in an additional 123 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere over the next decade.
The new EPA analysis does not factor in the financial benefit of lives saved through reduced air pollution in its calculations; therefore, it estimates the move will save power plant operators $370 million in direct compliance costs, demonstrating where the Trump administration’s priorities lie.
The decision followed President Trump’s earlier-in-the-year move tooverturnthe foundational 2009 EPA endangerment finding that greenhouse gases pose a significant threat to public health and the environment.
In February, the EPA alsoscrapped pollution standards for cars and trucks.
EPA administrator Lee Zeldin said the Trump administration made the rule change to end the “war on coal”.
Zeldin said, “Americans will see a decrease in electricity prices, but this is just the beginning,” during a G20 meeting in Houston in September.
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