The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to repeal rules that limit planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from power plants fueled by coal and natural gas, an action that Administrator Lee Zeldin has said would remove billions of dollars in costs for the industry and help “unleash” American energy. The rule change, proposed last year, could be announced as soon as Monday, according to two people familiar with the proposal, and represents a fundamental shift from efforts by Democratic Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama to address climate change and clean up industrial pollution, often in low-income and majority Black or Hispanic communities. The rule, which is expected to face immediate legal challenges, also could prevent future administrations from regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, the people familiar with the proposal said.
They spoke on condition of anonymity because the final rule had not yet been made public. The did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Zeldin, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Energy Secretary Chris Wright are hosting a G20 ministerial meeting on “energy abundance” in Houston, where the rule change is set to be announced.
The site is both a nod to the important role the oil-rich state plays in the energy industry and a potential snub of European and other international allies in attendance who have pursued environmentally friendly policies that the Trump administration has moved to undo. Republican President Donald Trump called climate change “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world” at a speech to the United Nations last year, and his administration withdrew the U.S. — for the second time — from the 2015 Paris climate accord that sets voluntary goals to curb planet-warming emissions. Trump has boasted of U.S. energy abundance even as the Iran war continues to disrupt global fuel markets and gas prices top $4.31 a gallon, up more than a dollar from a year ago.
The plan to make the power plant rule final was first reported by the New York Times. The rollbacks are meant to fulfill Trump’s repeated pledge to “ unleash American energy ” and make it easier for utilities to supply electricity for homes and businesses. The power plant rule is among nearly three dozen environmental regulations that Zeldin targeted in early 2025 when he announced what he called the “most consequential day of deregulation in American history.” Zeldin said in proposing the new rules last year that they were meant to end the Biden and Obama administrations’ “war on so much of our U.S. domestic energy supply.” Environmental and public health groups called the rollbacks dangerous and vowed to challenge the rules in court.
Pollution from power plants is one of the largest sources of climate-changing pollution in the world. The rules targeted by Trump’s could prevent an estimated 30,000 deaths and save $275 billion each year they are in effect, according to an examination last year that included the agency’s own prior assessments and a wide range of other research. Even a partial dismantling of the rules would mean more pollutants such as smog, mercury and lead — and especially more tiny airborne particles that can lodge in lungs and cause health problems, the AP analysis found.
It would also mean higher emissions of greenhouse gases, driving Earth’s warming to deadlier levels. Biden, a Democrat, had made fighting climate change a hallmark of his presidency. Coal-fired power plants would have been forced to capture smokestack emissions or shut down under a strict rule issued in 2024.
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