EPA eliminates rule that limits planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions
from power plants
[September 15, 2026] By
MATTHEW DALY
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency said Monday it is
repealing rules that limit planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from
power plants fueled by coal and natural gas and announced it is taking a
separate but related step to prevent future administrations from
regulating climate pollution from power plants.
The rule change, first proposed last year, represents a fundamental
shift from efforts by Democratic Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama
to address climate change and regulate carbon dioxide and other
greenhouse gases that trap the sun’s heat.
Environmental groups decried the change, saying it would come at a cost
to Americans' health and further degrade the environment.
Revoking the Biden-era power plant rule would save industry more than
$300 billion in costs and help “unleash” American energy, the EPA said.
The change will allow utilities to “make the best decision for the
ratepayers based on cost and cost savings, instead of being required to
shut down facilities,'' said EPA Assistant Administrator Aaron Szabo.
The power plant rule, to take effect soon after publication in the
Federal Register, is expected to face immediate legal challenges.
Environmental groups also are likely to challenge the separate rule
proposed Monday that could prevent future administrations from
regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. The proposal,
expected to be made final next year, follows on EPA's action earlier
this year revoking a scientific finding that long has been the central
basis for U.S. action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight
climate change.
The February action eliminated all greenhouse gas emissions standards
for cars and trucks. The new plan would apply similar logic to a broader
undoing of climate regulations on stationary sources such as power
plants.
Announcements coincide with gathering of G20 energy officials
The announcements came as EPA chief Lee Zeldin, Interior Secretary Doug
Burgum and Energy Secretary Chris Wright host a G20 ministerial meeting
on “energy abundance” in Houston. The announcement of the rule, coming
on the same day, is both a nod to the important role oil-rich Texas
plays in the energy industry and a potential snub of European and other
international allies in attendance who have pursued environmentally
friendly policies that the Trump administration has moved to undo.
Republican President Donald Trump called climate change “the greatest
con job ever perpetrated on the world” at a speech to the United Nations
last year, and his administration withdrew the U.S. — for the second
time — from the 2015 Paris climate accord that sets voluntary goals to
curb planet-warming emissions.
Trump has boasted of U.S. energy abundance even as the Iran war
continues to disrupt global fuel markets and gas prices top $4.31 a
gallon, up more than a dollar from a year ago.
The rollbacks are meant to fulfill Trump’s repeated pledge to “ unleash
American energy ” and make it easier for utilities to supply electricity
for homes and businesses.
Former Vice President Al Gore said the EPA's action moves the United
States “in the exact opposite direction of the rest of the world. With
ongoing disruption in global energy markets, the clear answer to rising
costs and energy security is clean energy."
Even as the Trump administration “is dragging the U.S. backwards,” the
transition to clean energy “will continue to take hold ... both in the
U.S. and globally,” Gore said Monday in a email to The Associated Press.
“That’s because clean energy is cheaper, creates more jobs and bolsters
energy security.”
The administration has been undoing dozens of environmental
regulations
The power plant rule is among nearly three dozen environmental
regulations that Zeldin targeted in early 2025 when he announced what he
called the “most consequential day of deregulation in American history.”
Zeldin said Monday that the Trump administration “has come in to protect
American energy and to make sure you can afford to keep the lights on.”
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A barge on the Ohio River moves past the Mountaineer Power Plant, a
coal-fired power plant near New Haven, W.Va., March 13, 2026. (AP
Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
 Environmental and public health
groups called the new rollbacks dangerous and vowed to challenge the
rules in court.
“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.”
The EPA has a legal responsibility to protect the public from
harmful pollution, Patton said, adding that “clean, affordable and
reliable technologies are widely available to power our homes and
businesses.”
Coal, gas and oil-fired power plants are responsible for about
one-quarter of the nation’s total climate pollution, second only to
the transportation sector. Pollution from power plants is one of the
largest sources of climate-changing pollution in the world.
Trump proposals target EPA rules that could prevent thousands of
deaths, AP analysis finds
The rules targeted by Trump's EPA could prevent an estimated 30,000
deaths and save $275 billion each year they are in effect, according
to an Associated Press examination last year that included the
agency’s own prior assessments and a wide range of other research.
Even a partial dismantling of the rules would mean more pollutants
such as smog, mercury and lead — and especially more tiny airborne
particles that can lodge in lungs and cause health problems, the AP
analysis found. It would also mean higher emissions of greenhouse
gases, driving Earth’s warming to deadlier levels.
Biden, a Democrat, had made fighting climate change a hallmark of
his presidency. Coal-fired power plants would have been forced to
capture smokestack emissions or shut down under a strict EPA rule
issued in 2024. Those rules are now being upended.
In its proposal last year, the Trump EPA argued that carbon dioxide
and other greenhouse gases from fossil fuel-fired power plants “do
not contribute significantly to dangerous pollution” or climate
change and therefore do not meet a threshold under the Clean Air Act
for regulatory action. Greenhouse gas emissions from coal and
gas-fired plants “are a small and decreasing part of global
emissions,″ the EPA said.
Zeldin, a Republican and former New York congressman, said Biden-era
actions were designed to “suffocate our economy in order to protect
the environment,” with the intent to regulate the coal industry “out
of existence” and make it “disappear.”
The coal industry and groups representing coal-fired power plants
have denounced the Biden rule as “overreach” by the EPA and urged
its repeal. Lifting the rule “will protect grid reliability and
shield electricity consumers from higher costs at a time of surging
demand from data centers, artificial intelligence and advanced
manufacturing,” said Michelle Bloodworth, CEO of America’s Power, a
trade organization for the U.S. coal fleet.
___
AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein contributed to this story.
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