The Environmental Protection Agency moved on Monday to erase the federal limits on planet-warming pollution from the nation's coal- and gas-fired power plants — one of the biggest climate rules of the Biden era — and to make it harder for any future administration to put such limits back.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the repeal in Houston, on the sidelines of a G20 energy ministerial devoted to "energy abundance," framing it as relief for an industry he said had been singled out. "The days of Biden and Obama working to destroy natural gas and coal are over," he told reporters. "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 rule being dismantled was finalized in 2024. It required existing coal plants and new natural-gas plants to significantly cut their carbon dioxide emissions beginning in the 2030s, and would have required plants to capture and store 90% of the carbon pollution they produced by 2032. The EPA said Monday it is also proposing to rescind all remaining greenhouse gas standards for the power sector, and to write a separate rule — expected to be finalized next year — explicitly aimed at preventing future administrations from regulating those emissions again.

The agency's stated case is legal and economic. It said the Biden-era rules "exceeded the agency's authority" and demanded "control technologies that are not adequately demonstrated, effectively forcing plants to retire rather than setting standards they could actually meet." Repeal would save more than $300 billion in costs, the EPA estimated, and "ensure affordable and reliable energy supplies." On health, the agency wrote that "any potential public health harms are too uncertain, conjectural, remote, and convoluted to tie specifically to the US power sector." Zeldin said safeguards against hazardous air pollutants would remain in place.

Industry groups cheered. "Overturning these examples of EPA overreach will help preserve and strengthen the U.S. coal fleet, protect grid reliability, and shield electricity consumers from higher costs at a time of surging demand from data centers, artificial intelligence, and advanced manufacturing," said Michelle Bloodworth of America's Power, which represents the country's fleet of more than 400 coal-fired plants.

Environmental and public-health groups described the move in harsher terms. "This is full-throated climate denial," said Patrick Drupp, climate policy director at the Sierra Club. Nathaniel Keohane of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions called it "a giant step backward," and the Environmental Defense Fund's Vickie Patton warned of "enormous costs for the health, safety and well-being of families across the country." Groups have already sued over the EPA's February repeal of the 2009 endangerment finding that first classified greenhouse gases as a threat to public health, and they promised to sue again over Monday's announcement.

The stakes are atmospheric. Power plants produce roughly a quarter of US greenhouse gas emissions — about 1.5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent a year — second only to transportation, and the United States is the world's second-biggest emitter after China. The rollback landed amid record heat: last month was the hottest month ever recorded globally, and the June-to-August stretch was the warmest ever measured for the contiguous United States. "2026 is shaping up to be the warmest year in recorded history," said Michael Gerrard, director of Columbia Law School's Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, "and we ain't seen nothing yet."

The courts may get the last word, but not soon. "It's not clear to me at this point that this repeal, the one that's being finalized today, will be before the Supreme Court by the end of this administration," said Meghan Greenfield, a lawyer who oversaw the EPA's Supreme Court docket during the Biden administration.

Sources: BBC | NPR | NBC News | Al Jazeera