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.
