The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Trump administration announced on Monday a move to eliminate emission limits on coal and gas power plants, a sector responsible for about a quarter of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. This decision effectively removes longstanding federal authority to regulate carbon pollution from power plants, following prior rollbacks on vehicle emissions standards.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin argued that the policy change would lower electricity prices for Americans, promising more jobs and economic growth as part of “realizing the full potential of American energy.” However, the EPA’s own analysis accompanying the new rule suggests a different outcome: retail electricity prices are projected to rise by 0.7% in 2030 before any decline is expected in the mid-2030s and beyond. The analysis also anticipates a 27.3% increase in coal delivery costs by 2045, intensifying operational expenses for coal-fired plants, which receive federal subsidies and have been kept operational through emergency orders.
Critics from environmental and public health organizations challenge the administration’s projections, arguing that the policy will increase costs for consumers and fail to consider broader economic and health impacts. Meredith Hankins of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) called the claim that electricity costs will fall “dead wrong,” noting an NRDC study projecting a $30 billion annual increase in electricity expenditures by 2035 due to policies favoring fossil fuels over renewables. Hankins emphasized that any future reductions in bills will result from the retirement of coal plants, long recognized as the costliest energy source, and not from the new lax regulations.
The EPA claims the repeal of the Biden-era carbon standards, which were scheduled to be implemented in 2024, will save the power sector $310 billion by reducing compliance costs. However, the agency has not clarified how these savings translate to consumer benefits or addressed the environmental consequences of increased emissions. Critics highlight that the EPA’s analysis neglects the public health and climatic benefits of tighter emission controls, focusing solely on regulatory costs incurred by power producers. Previously, the EPA estimated that the 2024 standards would yield up to $370 billion in net climate and health benefits over two decades, while the current administration has essentially assigned no monetary value to avoiding premature deaths caused by pollution.
Maggie Coulter, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, criticized the rule for failing to account for the significant health and economic damages that pollution imposes on Americans. Bryan Hubbell, a senior fellow at Resources for the Future, cautioned that relaxing regulations would increase harmful emissions, disproportionately affecting vulnerable communities.
In a particularly controversial statement, the EPA argued that carbon dioxide emissions from power plants have “no material impact on global climate change,” and claimed that eliminating all CO2 emissions would produce no “meaningful climate impact.” This assertion runs counter to scientific consensus that greenhouse gas emissions are driving global temperature increases and exacerbating extreme weather events.
The United States recently experienced its hottest summer on record, and August marked the joint hottest month worldwide amid escalating climate-related disasters. The United Nations has warned that the global temperature is likely to surpass the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold within a few years, a level considered critical for preventing the most severe impacts of climate change.
If treated as a separate entity, the U.S. power sector would rank as the fifth-largest emitter globally. The EPA estimates that the policy rollback will result in an additional 406 million metric tons of carbon emissions by 2035 — a volume exceeding the entire annual carbon output of the United Kingdom.