EPA Sets Stage For Court Fight After Taking Buzzsaw To Biden-Era Climate Rule
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) repealed greenhouse gas regulations for coal- and natural gas-fired power plants Monday, setting up another likely legal fight over the federal government’s authority to regulate the power sector under the Clean Air Act.
Paris Apodaca · Sep 14, 2026 · 4 min read
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) repealed greenhouse gas regulations for coal- and natural gas-fired power plants Monday, setting up another likely legal fight over the federal government’s authority to regulate the power sector under the Clean Air Act.
The rollback would eliminate more than $300 billion in costs for the energy industry and allow utilities to make decisions based on the needs of their ratepayers rather than potentially shuttering aging power plants, according to the EPA. The repeal reverses Biden-era regulations requiring existing coal plants and certain new natural gas plants to capture 90% of their carbon emissions by 2032 if they planned to continue operating past 2039.
“America should be producing more affordable, reliable energy, not forcing power plants and taxpayers to spend billions capturing and burying CO₂,” Jason Isaac, founder and CEO of the American Energy Institute, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The EPA first proposed repealing the power plant greenhouse gas standards on June 11, 2025, arguing at the time that eliminating the regulations would reduce costs and bolster grid reliability.
“Repealing the power plant rule for greenhouse gas emissions is key to the Trump energy agenda,” Steve Milloy, senior legal fellow at the Energy & Environment Legal Institute and former Trump EPA transition team member, told DCNF. “Now, it will have to be defended in court.”
The legal fight over how the EPA can regulate power plant emissions stretches back to West Virginia and other states petitioning the Supreme Court in 2021 after the D.C. Circuit struck down the Trump administration’s Affordable Clean Energy rule and its repeal of the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, according to the Supreme Court docket in West Virginia v. EPA.
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 against the EPA in June 2022 in an opinion led by Chief Justice John Roberts.
The Court determined that the Clean Air Act did not give the EPA the authority to impose the Obama administration’s generation-shifting approach, which sought to move electricity production away from higher-emitting sources such as coal toward lower-emitting sources.
The EPA did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.