EPA Moves to Zap Biden Climate Rules on Power Plants

President Trump's EPA is preparing a sweeping rollback of climate rules aimed at gas and coal-fired power plants, with plans to erase not just Biden-era limits on carbon pollution but the agency's authority to regulate those emissions at all, two people familiar with the plan tell the Washington Post. Administrator Lee Zeldin argues the move will cut electricity costs and keep power flowing, calling earlier Democratic rules an effort to regulate fossil fuels "out of existence." The New York Times frames the move as the completion of "the administration's erasure of the most consequential climate policies" of former presidents Biden and Obama. The EPA announcement is expected as soon as Monday, notes Bloomberg, in Houston, where G20 energy ministers are gathered.

The Biden administration had projected its power-plant standards would prevent thousands of deaths; the Obama-era "endangerment finding"—which held that climate emissions threaten human health and underpinned most federal climate policy—was repealed in February, and the Post notes that the EPA action "would further solidify" that move. Environmental groups warn the change will increase pollution and health risks. "Trump is choosing to allow preventable asthma attacks, heart disease, and even deaths," said Zealan Hoover, a former EPA adviser.