EPA finalizes repeal of power plant carbon standards as environmental groups sue

The Environmental Protection Agency finalized a repeal of federal carbon pollution standards for coal and gas power plants on Sept. 14, and six environmental and public health groups sued to block it three days later in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the repeal at a meeting of G20 energy ministers in Houston, according to Chemical & Engineering News. The final rule repeals all greenhouse gas emission standards for existing coal- and natural gas-fired power plants. It also removes a requirement that new gas-fired power plants eliminate 90% of their greenhouse gas emissions over time, the publication reported.

“For over 15 years, the Obama and Biden administrations implemented a war on coal to destroy reliable and affordable energy,” Zeldin said in a statement. “The Trump Administration has come in to protect American energy and to make sure you can afford to keep the lights on.” Zeldin also said the changes would make it easier to build generating capacity as electricity demand grows. “That means cutting red tape so we can build new power-generating infrastructure,” he said, according to Ballotpedia News.

Zeldin said the final rule will save $310 billion, and that the emission limits had minimal impact on the climate while “producing virtually no benefit,” Chemical & Engineering News reported.

The agency also proposed a second step. That proposal would rescind all remaining greenhouse gas requirements for power plants, based on the EPA’s position that the Clean Air Act does not authorize it to regulate the power sector’s greenhouse gas emissions. Ballotpedia reported that the EPA said the proposal would save the power industry $370 million in compliance costs over 20 years. The proposal would also bar future administrations from setting such limits, according to Chemical & Engineering News.

The Biden administration adopted the standards in 2024. Power plants account for nearly one-quarter of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, Ballotpedia reported. The Biden administration estimated the standards would prevent one billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions through 2047 and produce $370 billion in net benefits. The Trump administration proposed repealing them in June 2025. State emissions rules remain in effect.

The National Mining Association welcomed the repeal. Its president and chief executive, Rich Nolan, said it “corrects the egregious misuse of the Clean Air Act as a political tool to end American coal generation and implements the law as Congress intended,” according to Ballotpedia.

The Natural Resources Defense Council, the American Lung Association, the American Public Health Association, the Clean Air Council, Clean Wisconsin and the Environmental Defense Fund filed the lawsuit on Sept. 17, according to an EDF statement. Clean Wisconsin is represented by the Clean Air Task Force.

“This unlawful rule seeks to remove our national limits on climate pollution from power plants at a time when more Americans than ever are suffering from the dangerous heat and more powerful storms caused by that pollution,” said Vickie Patton, general counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund. She said increased power plant pollution from the rule “will cause thousands of premature deaths and billions of dollars in additional health costs.”

A preliminary EDF analysis estimated the final rule would create $1.0 trillion in health costs, more than 80,000 additional premature deaths and more than $1.8 trillion in cumulative climate-related harms through 2047, Chemical & Engineering News reported.

Brett Korte, senior staff attorney at Clean Wisconsin, said in the group’s release that Wisconsin has the ninth-highest death rate from particulate matter pollution from fossil fuel combustion. “EPA abandoning its responsibility to regulate carbon pollution would only make these problems worse,” Korte said. The groups said the Clean Air Act obligates the EPA to issue standards to reduce emissions from sources that significantly contribute to dangerous air pollution.

Rachel Cleetus, senior policy director at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a statement that Zeldin was “brazenly asserting EPA has no role or responsibility to limit these harmful emissions.” Maggie Coulter, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, said the move “will lead to more lost lives and suffering from intense heatwaves, drastic storms and destructive wildfires.”

The repeal follows another rollback earlier this year. President Donald Trump and the EPA rescinded the 2009 endangerment finding in February 2026, and a coalition of 25 state attorneys general and other officials sued in March to challenge that action. Ballotpedia reported the case remains pending in the D.C. Circuit.