Trump EPA Moves to Wipe Out Power Plant Climate Rules

The Trump administration has announced a final plan to overturn the majority of the 2024 Carbon Pollution Standards, which were designed to limit climate pollution from power plants. According to reporting from Ars Technica, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) claims the Biden-era rules exceeded its authority under the Clean Air Act by requiring technologies that have not been adequately demonstrated.

Beyond the repeal of the 2024 standards, the EPA has proposed revoking all remaining greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions requirements for power plants. The agency justifies this move by asserting that such emissions have no material impact on climate change. This follows a February action in which the EPA overturned the endangerment finding related to motor vehicle emissions, the largest source of climate pollution.

Zealan Hoover, who served as a senior advisor to the EPA under the Biden administration, told Ars Technica that the current administration is working to tear down the legal architecture used to regulate climate pollution. Hoover describes a three-part strategy: repealing the endangerment finding, rolling back existing regulations that relied on that finding, and preventing future regulatory efforts.

Critics argue these moves ignore established science. Maggie Coulter, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, anticipates the administration will use a "non-endangerment finding" as a means to bypass regulation entirely. This contrasts with the Biden-era EPA's June 2024 analysis, which projected that the Carbon Pollution Standards would cut carbon pollution by 1.38 billion metric tons through 2047—a volume roughly equal to the yearly emissions of 328 million gas-powered cars.