USA Emission standards for the Environmental Protection Agency move back to power plants, the second largest source of CO2 The country’s emissions on Wednesday claimed that the U.S. power sector did not contribute significantly to air pollution.
“The most important thing is that EPA is trying to get out of the climate change business,” said Ryan Maher, an employee attorney at the Center for Biodiversity.
The announcement comes days after new figures quietly released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), showing the highest seasonal concentration of CO.2 In recorded history.
In a press conference Tuesday, EPA administrator Lee Zeldin accused the Obama and Biden administration of “seeking to suffocate our economy to protect the environment” next to lawmakers in some of the country’s highest fossil fuels. Zeldin picked data centers out to help drive unprecedented demand in the U.S. power sector over the next decade. He said the EPA is “taking action to end the agency’s war on most of the U.S. domestic energy supply.”
The proposed EPA rollback targets a range of rules for the power plant sector set by the Biden administration last year. These regulations stipulate that by the early 2030s, emission plants in coal-fired and gas power plants reduced their emissions by 90% primarily by using carbon capture and storage technologies.
Among a series of reasons for retreat regulations, the proposed new EPA rule holds that the U.S. power generation from fossil fuels has been growing as U.S. electricity sector emissions account for only 3% of global emissions in 2022 – down from 5.5% in 2005, and that U.S. power generation from fossil fuels continues to grow due to the continued growth in coal use in other countries. However, electricity generation is 25% of U.S. emissions in 2022, according to EPA, making it second only to the dirtiest economic sector. An analysis released earlier this month by New York University (NYU) found that if the U.S. power sector was its independent country, it would be the sixth largest emitter country in the world.
“If the bet isn’t that high, the action would be ridiculous,” said Meredith Hankins, a lawyer with the National Defense Commission of Natural Resources.
The EPA also targets the Mercury and Air Toxicity Standard (MATS) rules, which require power plants to maintain control to reduce the amount of mercury and other toxic air pollutants emitted by their plants. The Biden administration strengthened these standards in 2024, which dates back to 2011. Despite progress in reducing mercury emissions since the MATS rule was initially implemented, coal-fired power plants remain the largest source of mercury emissions in the United States.
The government also made it clear that it intends to try to restore the coal industry, which has been declining sharply since cheap natural gas and renewable energy in the 2010s. President Trump extended the lifeline of coal in the future of AI in the United States in a series of execution orders issued by Trump in April.
