EPA scraps the rules

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency announced that rules limiting pollution from coal and gas power plants are being thrown out.

Locking the door behind them

The agency also said it will take steps to stop future administrations from regulating power plant emissions at all, not just pause the current ones.

The pitch is money

The EPA says binning most Biden-era climate rules saves $310bn and cuts energy prices. Lee Zeldin said US power plants should not be unfairly targeted.

“America produces energy better and cleaner than anywhere else in the world”

Authority, not science

The EPA argues the old rules exceeded its legal authority and demanded technology that was never proven, pushing plants to shut rather than comply.

“control technologies that are not adequately demonstrated”

4,500 deaths a year

The Biden rules were estimated to prevent 4,500 premature deaths annually. The EPA now calls those health harms too uncertain and remote to pin on power plants.

“too uncertain, conjectural, remote, and convoluted”

What is actually at stake

The US is the second-biggest emitter after China, and power plants make up about a quarter of its emissions, roughly 1.5 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent a year.

Coal may not come back

Power sector emissions have fallen for two decades as coal declined. Researchers doubt Trump's coal revival arrives, given how cheap solar has become. Lawsuits are expected fast.

“a giant step backward”