Groups cite huge health costs from EPA’s power plant GHG rollback, vow to sue

The US Environmental Protection Agency has finalized its rule (PDF) to repeal carbon pollution standards for fossil fuel–fired power plants and proposed to remove (PDF) all remaining power plant greenhouse gas (GHG) emission limits, EPA administrator Lee Zeldin said at the G20 energy meeting in Houston on Monday. Critics say the move will lead to tens of thousands of additional premature deaths in the next 20 years.

“For over 15 years, the Obama and Biden administrations implemented a war on coal to destroy reliable and affordable energy. The Trump Administration has come in to protect American energy and to make sure you can afford to keep the lights on,” Zeldin says in a statement.

The final rule repeals all GHG emission standards for existing coal- and natural gas-fired power plants, and removes a requirement that new gas-fired power plants eliminate 90% of their GHG emissions over time. Zeldin also announced a separate proposal that would rescind all remaining power plant GHG emission regulations, and block future administrations from setting GHG restrictions on power plants. He says these emission limits were unnecessary as they had minimal impact on the climate and drained industry resources, “while producing virtually no benefit.”

Zeldin says the final rule will save $310 billion, while the proposed change would save the power plant industry $370 million in compliance costs and “billions more” in savings across the economy.

Critics say GHG limits are lifesaving

Environmental advocacy groups say the EPA did not consider the health costs involved in removing the GHG emission limits, which include premature deaths and illnesses associated with higher levels of power plant pollution. According to a preliminary analysis by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), the EPA’s final rule would create an estimated $1.0 trillion in health costs, over 80,000 additional premature deaths, and more than $1.8 trillion in cumulative climate-related harms through 2047.

“Climate pollution is imposing urgent costs and serious health impacts on people’s lives, from the dangerous heat, fire, smoke and drought we experienced this summer to steeper insurance and health care bills that go with those disasters,” EDF general counsel Vickie Patton says in a statement. “Clean, affordable and reliable technologies are widely available to power our homes and businesses and help people make ends meet.”

When the EPA released the proposed rule to roll back GHG emission standards for power plants in June 2025, it included analysis that found eliminating the regulations would cause thousands of premature deaths and tens of billions of dollars in increased health costs for Americans, the EDF says.

The move is “a giant step backward,” Nathaniel Keohane, president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, says in a statement. “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.”

But industry groups, including the Edison Electric Institute, the National Mining Association, and the National Association of Manufacturers, welcomed the EPA’s moves.

EPA says it lacks regulatory authority

In the new proposal, the EPA says all remaining GHG regulations for power plants should be eliminated because the agency doesn’t have the power to limit these emissions. Citing the repeal of the 2009 endangerment finding—the EPA’s prior scientific justification for regulating GHG emissions under the Clean Air Act (CAA)—as well as the Supreme Court’s Loper Bright decision, the agency says the CAA doesn’t give it the authority to regulate GHG emissions from power plants in response to climate change concerns.

The agency also questions the practical effects of regulating power plant GHG emissions. “Models continue to show that GHG emissions from power plants have no material impact on global climate change. In fact, if all carbon dioxides were eliminated tomorrow, there would be no meaningful climate impact,” the EPA says in a statement on the proposal. “Additionally, the targeted emissions are global in nature, and any potential public health harms are too uncertain, conjectural, remote, and convoluted to tie specifically to the U.S. power sector. Therefore, the agency is proposing it is out of its scope to regulate.

Once again, though, environmental advocacy groups don’t agree with the EPA’s assessments.

“Power plant carbon emissions remain significant and are a major contributor to climate change; EPA has both the authority and the duty under the Clean Air Act to protect public health and welfare from those harms,” Keohane says.

According to a recent study by the Institute for Policy Integrity (PDF), the US power sector contributed 5% of global GHG emissions between 1990 and 2002. If it were a country, the sector would have been the sixth-biggest global emitter of GHGs in this time frame.

“Ignoring the immense harm to the public from this power plant pollution is a clear violation of the Clean Air Act and of Supreme Court precedent,” Meredith Hankins, federal climate legal director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, says in a statement. “We will be seeing them in court.” The EDF says it will also legally challenge the EPA’s final rule.

The EPA’s repeal of the 2009 endangerment finding is being challenged in court by many environmental and community advocacy groups. The repeal also eliminated all federal GHG emission standards for vehicles and engines for model years 2012–27 and potentially beyond.

The proposed rule will be open for public comment for 45 days after publication in the Federal Register.