The EPA Wants To Stop Regulating Power Plant Emissions

The US Environmental Protection Agency has announced its latest effort to abandon its own core mission and embrace fossil fuels. The New York Times reported that the EPA is trying to erase limits on greenhouse gas pollution from power plants. First, it is attempting to rescind a policy from President Biden’s administration that required power plants to eliminate most greenhouse emissions by 2039 or face closure. Second, it is arguing that the EPA cannot regulate power emissions under the Clean Air Act based on unfounded, inaccurate claims that greenhouse gas emissions harm neither public health nor the environment. If successful, that precedent could prevent future generations from regulating the emissions, which researchers at the UN have continued to warn are a risk of causing more lethal and damaging severe weather events. 

It’s the latest in several moves by the current administration to render the EPA useless despite the growing alarm among the scientific community about climate change threats. In February, the agency eliminated what’s commonly called the Endangerment Finding. This 2009 student confirmed the health risks of several greenhouse gasses and underpinned the EPA’s ability to regulate those emissions. That set the stage for this new change, as did the US’ exit from the Paris Agreement in 2025 and from multiple other international climate-driven organizations earlier in 2026.

Today’s action, like the one to abandon the Endangerment Finding, is very likely to face legal challenges. But even if those challenges are ultimately successful, and that’s a big if, the wait for the courts to reach a resolution isn’t ideal given that the planet is already on borrowed time when it comes to dangerous increases in temperatures.