EPA Poised To Scrap Power Plant Carbon Standards

By Robin Lawrence, of UtilityDive

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin is expected to formally rescind carbon pollution standards for fossil fuel power plants today, according to multiple media reports.

The repeal would complete the Trump administration’s elimination of climate policies enacted under the Obama and Biden administrations and could prevent future administrations from regulating greenhouse gases emissions from power plants, according to The New York Times.

Climate Mayors and C40 Cities are among the municipal and environmental groups that have opposed the repeal, which the EPA first proposed in June 2025. “GHG emissions from fossil fuel-fired power plants contribute significantly to costly and detrimental fiscal and public health impacts for cities across the United States,” the groups, along with the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, stated in an Aug. 7, 2025, letter to the EPA. 

The EPA has initiated rollbacks of greenhouse gas emissions standards since President Donald Trump took office. Environmental groups and local governments have filed multiple lawsuits attempting to halt the actions.

In September 2025, EPA proposed a rule to end the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, which requires over 8,000 facilities and suppliers in the U.S. to report their greenhouse gas emissions annually.

Twelve cities and counties joined a coalition of 24 states in a March lawsuit challenging the EPA’s repeal of its 2009 endangerment finding, the underpinning for greenhouse gas regulation under the Clean Air Act.

Also in March, a coalition of 21 states and local governments filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s repeal of the 2024 Mercury and Air Toxics Standards Rule. That lawsuit also challenges EPA’s rollback of real-time continuous emissions monitoring at power plants, alleging it violates the Clean Air Act.

In their August 2025 comments opposing the EPA’s repeal of power plant greenhouse gas emissions standards, Climate Mayors, C40 and the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School said that cities nationwide “rely on the 2024 Carbon Pollution Standards to help protect them from costly and dangerous impacts to infrastructure and public health, and to augment their work to mitigate and adapt to climate change.”

The most acute effects of greenhouse gas emissions are often felt in cities, the letter states. “Moreover, federal regulation of power sector GHG emissions not only reduces emissions from regulated power plants, but also has the indirect effect of reducing emissions from other sectors that use electricity, including the building and transportation sectors, which are the top two sources of GHG emissions in U.S. cities,” the groups state. 

EPA estimated last year that repealing emission guidelines and carbon capture requirements would save the power sector about $1.2 billion a year, and repealing 2024 amendments to mercury emissions standards would save power plants about $120 million a year.  

When it issued the standards in May 2024, EPA found that the regulations would deliver $370 billion in net benefits over two decades, the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law said.

“The Supreme Court has made clear that EPA has an obligation to control greenhouse gas emissions from power plants under the Clean Air Act,” Dena Adler, senior attorney at the Institute for Policy Integrity, said in an emailed statement Monday. “The power sector is the second-largest U.S. greenhouse gas emitter. Leaving this pollution unchecked ignores the Supreme Court, puts the public at risk, and flagrantly violates EPA’s legal responsibilities.”

The EPA has not responded to a request for comment.