US scraps limits on emissions from coal and gas power plants

ByMadeline Halpert and Mark Pontying, Climate reporter.

Key points

• According to The EPA, getting rid of most of the climate rules from President Joe Biden's era would save $310bn (£223bn) and reduce energy costs.
• Nathaniel Keohane, president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions – an independent environmental organisation – described the move as "a giant step backward".
• Rules aimed at limiting pollution from coal and gas power plants are being scrapped, the head of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has confirmed.
• Monday's announcement is the latest move by President Donald Trump's administration to walk back policies designed to combat global warming and climate change.
• Fossil fuels, which include coal and natural gas, are by far the largest driver of global climate change, according to the United Nations.

Meanwhile, the agency additionally stated it would take steps to prevent future administrations from regulating power plant emissions.

But environmental groups cautioned it would come at a enormous cost to Americans' health and the planet. The EPA's move is projected to face immediate legal challenges.

"The reality is that America produces energy better and cleaner than anywhere else in the world, and our power plants should not be unfairly targeted, " the head of the EPA, Lee Zeldin, remarked on Monday.

Notably, the EPA remarked in an official note that it identified the Biden-era rules on power plant emissions had "exceeded the agency's authority".

Notably, the agency remarked the regulations required "control technologies that are not adequately demonstrated, effectively forcing plants to retire rather than setting standards they could actually meet".

In practice, the EPA is additionally seeking to secure rid of all other greenhouse gas rules for the power sector.

Meanwhile, the changes, which will undergo public scrutiny, were proposed last year by Zeldin.

He remarked the new rules would "ensure affordable and reliable energy supplies and drive down the costs of transportation, heating, utilities, farming, and manufacturing while boosting our national security".

As well as vehicles and industrial facilities, the Biden-era regulations pressed a major reduction in carbon emissions from power plants. It was estimated that the measures would stop 4, 500 premature deaths annually.

But the EPA remarked on Monday: "Any potential public health harms are too uncertain, conjectural, remote, and convoluted to tie specifically to the US power sector."

Zeldin remarked to journalists that safeguards against "hazardous air pollutants" would remain in place "to safeguard human health".

"In repealing carbon pollution standards for power plants, EPA has ignored sound science and economics and abdicated its responsibility to protect public health and welfare, " Keohane continued.

In practice, the US is at present the second-biggest emitter of planet-warming greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, behind China.

And the power sector makes up regarding a quarter of US emissions, at roughly 1.5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent each year, according to the latest available estimates.

That means the US power sector emissions are higher than the total emissions of all but a handful of countries.

As coal employ has fallen, US power sector emissions have been generally falling over the past couple of decades, albeit with a slight uptick last year.

But Trump has long argued for a resurgence in coal power and has regularly criticised renewables such as wind and solar.

For context, the precise consequences of today's announcement for US emissions – and global climate change – are uncertain.

Some researchers question whether coal will ever create the resurgence that Trump hopes for. They point to the sharp falls in costs of plenty of clean technologies such as solar power over the past decade.

In 2022, the EPA lost some of its powers to limit greenhouse gas emissions when the Supreme Court ruled in favour of 19 states and some of the nation's largest coal firms. It were worried concerning the economic cost of the policy and argued the agency did not have the authority to limit emissions throughout whole states.

In February, the EPA reversed a landmark Obama-era scientific ruling. It held that greenhouse gases were a threat to public health. This was challenged by a number of states and local governments.

For now, US scraps limits on emissions from coal and gas power plants remains the part of the story worth watching, and further updates are likely as more details are confirmed.