EPA repeals climate pollution limits on power plants, drawing lawsuits and asthma warnings

The Environmental Protection Agency repealed rules limiting greenhouse gas emissions from coal and natural gas fired power plants on September 14, NPR reported. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the change at a press conference in Houston, where the agency was hosting a G20 Energy Summit on energy policy, and called it the largest deregulatory action of the U.S. power sector in history, according to NPR.

The repealed rules, finalized under the Biden administration in 2024, required existing coal plants and new natural gas plants to significantly cut their carbon dioxide emissions starting in the 2030s, NPR reported. The new rule strikes the majority of the 2024 Carbon Pollution Standards, which the EPA said violated the Clean Air Act, CBS News reported. People familiar with the proposal told the Associated Press it could also prevent future administrations from regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants at all.

“The days of Biden and Obama working to destroy natural gas and coal are over,” Zeldin said, according to NPR. He said the EPA was separately proposing to rescind all remaining greenhouse gas emissions standards for power plants. “All of them,” he said.

The EPA’s own 2023 data showed the power sector produced 31% of the carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels in the United States, the second-highest share of any industry after transportation, CBS News reported. The agency said coal production for power sector use is expected to increase by more than 10 times as a result of the rule change, per CBS News.

More than a dozen environmental and health groups have sued Zeldin and the EPA over the rollback, CBS News reported. “Tearing down our national protections against climate pollution from power plants will have enormous costs for the health, safety and well-being of families across the country,” said Vickie Patton, general counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund. “Americans everywhere are already suffering from record-breaking heat, more dangerous floods and storms, and skyrocketing insurance costs.”

Gudrun Thompson, a senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, said the rules were important “not just for our climate, but also to protect public health from the dangers of local air pollution,” per NPR.

An Associated Press examination cited by CBS News found the targeted rules could prevent an estimated 30,000 deaths and save $275 billion each year they remain in effect. Michael Gerrard, a law professor at Columbia University and director of its Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, told NPR that 2026 is “shaping up to be the warmest year in recorded history, and we ain’t seen nothing yet.”

The rollback has local consequences as well. In Arizona’s Pima County, which received a failing grade this year from the American Lung Association for ozone pollution, AZPM reported the announcement coincided with the start of the year’s peak-asthma week, the time of year that statistically sees the highest number of emergency room visits for asthma attacks. Zealan Hoover, a former senior EPA adviser under the Biden administration, told AZPM the rule “does a very good job at counting the dollars it saves industry and compliance costs, but is much less interested in counting how many asthma attacks and even deaths will be caused by the increased pollution.”

Pima County has no coal-fired power plants, but its two major gas-fired plants would no longer be subject to federal emissions limits under the new rule, according to AZPM. Hoover said Arizona is planning to build a large number of new power plants to serve data centers and other electricity demand, and that “there’s more than a million Arizonans who are vulnerable to air pollution.” Arizona is home to three of the nation’s 100 most polluting power plants, located in Apache, Maricopa and Navajo counties, AZPM reported.