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US scraps limits on emissions from coal and gas power plants - BBC
Business and Economy9/14/20261 min read
The Environment Protection Agency says the move will save the country billions of dollars and reduce energy prices.
✨ Key Highlights
- The head of the US Environmental Protection Agency, Lee Zeldin, announced the scrapping of rules aimed at limiting pollution from coal and gas power plants, along with steps to prevent future administrations from regulating power plant emissions.
- The EPA said eliminating the majority of climate rules from the Biden era would save $310bn (£223bn) and reduce energy prices, arguing the previous regulations "exceeded the agency's authority" and forced plants to retire.
- Zeldin claimed the new approach would ensure affordable and reliable energy while lowering costs for transportation, heating, utilities, farming, and manufacturing, and stated safeguards against "hazardous air pollutants" would remain in place.
- The repealed Biden-era regulations had sought major cuts to carbon emissions from power plants, vehicles, and industrial facilities, with estimates suggesting they would prevent 4,500 premature deaths annually; the EPA dismissed such health harms as "too uncertain, conjectural, remote, and convoluted".
- Environmental groups condemned the move, with Nathaniel Keohane of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions calling it "a giant step backward" that ignored sound science and economics.
- The US is the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases behind China, with the power sector responsible for around a quarter of US emissions, roughly 1.5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent each year. The changes will undergo public scrutiny and are expected to face immediate legal challenges.
"The reality is that America produces energy better and cleaner than anywhere else in the world, and our power plants should not be unfairly targeted," the head of the EPA, Lee Zeldin, said on Monday.