EPA Finalizes Repeal of Most 2024 Power-Plant Carbon Rules, Proposes Eliminating Federal GHG Authority

The Environmental Protection Agency on Sept. 14 finalized a repeal of most of the Biden administration’s 2024 carbon-emissions standards for coal- and gas-fired power plants and, at the same time, proposed eliminating the remaining federal greenhouse-gas requirements for the sector. The move is framed by the agency as a cost-saving step to support reliable electricity, even as EPA’s own analysis projects materially higher carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector if the repeal takes effect.

The final action, signed by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and announced at a G20 energy meeting in Houston, removes the bulk of the 2024 Carbon Pollution Standards. That includes emission guidelines for existing fossil-fuel-fired steam generating units and carbon-capture-and-storage-based standards for certain new and modified plants. In a supplemental proposal issued alongside the repeal, EPA also asked for public comment on whether it lacks authority under Section 111 of the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases from power plants at all, a position that, if finalized, would erase the legal basis for the remaining federal greenhouse-gas rules for the sector.

EPA said the repeal will save “up to $310 billion,” and said the supplemental proposal would add about $370 million in direct compliance-cost savings. The agency argued that parts of the 2024 rule depended on carbon capture and storage, or CCS, being deployed at a scale and speed that EPA now says were not adequately demonstrated or achievable. In announcing the action, Zeldin said, “Affordable, reliable electricity is key to the American dream and a natural byproduct of national energy dominance.”

But EPA’s own Regulatory Impact Analysis shows the rollback would increase power-sector carbon emissions relative to a scenario in which the 2024 standards remained in place. The clearest jump comes in 2035, when the agency projects 1,514 million metric tons of power-sector CO2 under the repeal, versus 1,108 million metric tons under the baseline — an increase of 406 million metric tons. The gap grows to 533 million metric tons in 2040, with emissions of 1,411 million metric tons under the repeal compared with 878 million metric tons under the baseline. EPA’s modeling also shows higher coal use under the rollback; in 2035, projected coal use rises to 392 million tons from 266 million tons under the baseline.

The 2024 standards were a central part of the Biden administration’s effort to cut greenhouse-gas emissions from new, modified and existing fossil-fuel power plants. For some units, the rule relied on CCS — technology that captures carbon emissions from smokestacks and stores them underground — as the compliance pathway. The legal backdrop is the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in West Virginia v. EPA, which limited EPA’s ability to use the Clean Air Act for broad generation-shifting across the electricity system. In the prepublication preamble for the Sept. 14 action, EPA said it had “concluded that global climate change concerns associated with GHG emissions are not ‘air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare’ within the meaning of CAA section 202(a)(1).” EPA is advancing that view as a legal rationale; it is not settled law.

The repeal follows a broader rollback effort by the Trump administration’s EPA, including its February 2026 rescission of the 2009 greenhouse-gas endangerment finding for vehicles. Environmental groups and many Democratic officials condemned the power-plant action and said they would challenge it in court, arguing it weakens federal limits on one of the country’s largest sources of climate pollution. Industry groups and some Republican officials praised the move as supportive of grid reliability and domestic energy production. As of Sept. 16, no court petition specifically challenging the Sept. 14 repeal had been publicly docketed, though related litigation over EPA’s earlier 2026 greenhouse-gas rollback is already pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.