EPA Repeals Power Plant Rules, Targets Methane Controls

The Environmental Protection Agency is repealing Biden-era limits on greenhouse-gas emissions from coal- and natural-gas-fired power plants and proposing to bar future administrations from regulating power-sector climate pollution. EPA officials say the rollback will save utilities and industry more than $300 billion, lower electricity costs and allow aging plants to continue operating, advancing President Donald Trump’s fossil-fuel agenda. Environmental groups and Democratic critics say the actions will increase pollution, harm public health and worsen climate change, with coal-heavy states including Pennsylvania, Indiana and Texas potentially facing significant local impacts. The measures are expected to face immediate legal challenges and build on the administration’s February reversal of the 2009 finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health, which supported much of the federal government’s climate regulation. The EPA is also considering weakening leak-inspection and equipment-upgrade requirements for more than 700,000 low-producing oil and gas wells that produce about 6% of U.S. oil and gas but account for roughly half of the sector’s methane pollution.