EPA Scraps Biden-Era Coal and Gas Emissions Rules — SkimNews
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- Lee Zeldin, head of the EPA, announced the scrapping of Biden-era rules limiting emissions from coal and gas power plants, with the agency claiming the regulations "exceeded the agency's authority" by forcing plants to retire rather than setting achievable standards.
- The EPA projects the rollback will save $310bn (£223bn) and lower energy prices, and is also moving to eliminate all other greenhouse gas rules for the power sector beyond the coal-and-gas rules already announced.
- The scrapped Biden-era regulations were projected to prevent 4,500 premature deaths annually through major carbon cuts at power plants, vehicles, and industrial facilities — a benefit the EPA now dismisses as "too uncertain, conjectural, remote, and convoluted" to attribute to the power sector.
- Nathaniel Keohane, president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, called the repeal "a giant step backward," accusing the EPA of having "ignored sound science and economics and abdicated its responsibility to protect public health and welfare."
- The US power sector produces roughly 1.5 billion tonnes of CO2-equivalent per year — about a quarter of national emissions and more than the total emissions of all but a handful of countries, according to the latest available estimates.
- The move follows the EPA's February reversal of a landmark Obama-era scientific finding that greenhouse gases threaten public health, and builds on a 2022 Supreme Court ruling that limited the agency's authority to regulate emissions across whole states.
Why it matters: The rollback eliminates federal carbon limits on a sector responsible for about 1.5 billion tonnes of CO2-equivalent emissions a year — more than nearly every country's total output. The Biden-era standards being killed were projected to prevent 4,500 premature deaths annually, a figure the EPA now treats as too 'conjectural' to weigh against its $310bn savings claim.
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