The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) plans to repeal greenhouse gas emissions requirements for US power plants that were enacted in 2024 during Joe Biden’s presidency. The 14 September announcement came with a supplemental proposal by the agency to rescind greenhouse gas findings for fossil fuel-fired power plants that were issued in 2015 under former president Barack Obama, which set the first-ever federal limits on carbon dioxide emissions for fossil fuel-fired power plants.
EPA administrator Lee Zeldin estimated that the rollback would save more than $300 billion (£260 billion) in industry compliance costs. The proposal to repeal the emissions standards for power plants was published in the Federal Register on 17 September. The EPA will accept public comments on the proposal until 2 November, before issuing its final rule.
Environmental organisations, public health groups and several state attorneys general have voiced significant opposition to the rule’s revocation.
‘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,’ stated Nat Keohane, president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. Other groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Environmental Defense Fund and the American Lung Association were also extremely critical of the EPAs announcement.
Last year, a coalition of 22 state attorneys general criticised the proposals when they were first announced. ‘The federal administration’s decision to eliminate limits on climate pollution from power plants is catastrophic,’ New York attorney general Letitia James posted on the social media platform X following the EPA’s move to take the proposal forward. ‘These are some of our nation’s most essential climate policies. We will take action to protect them,’ she added.
The EPA’s latest action comes after it cancelled its greenhouse gas ‘endangerment finding’ earlier this year, which was the legal determination that gave the agency the authority to regulate planet-heating gases under the Clean Air Act.
Meanwhile, America’s Power – a trade organisation that advocates for the US coal fleet – celebrated the EPA’s decision. ‘The Endangerment Finding provided the regulatory basis for the Biden EPA to impose unlawful and unachievable carbon performance standards for controlling CO2 emissions from power plants,’ stated the organisation’s president and CEO, Michelle Bloodworth. ‘The repeal of the Carbon Rule and the rescission of the power plant Endangerment Finding eliminate the two biggest regulatory threats facing the US coal fleet and our nation’s electricity supply.’
The EPA’s power plant greenhouse gas emissions rule and ‘endangerment finding’ were among more than 30 environmental regulations that Zeldin specifically targeted in March 2025, shortly after being appointed by President Trump to head the agency, in what he called ‘the greatest and most consequential day of deregulation in US history’.
