EPA Looks to Remove Biden-Era Carbon Limits From Coal, Gas-Fired Power Plants

The 2024 regulation would have required steep emissions cuts from coal and gas plants using carbon capture technology.

Emissions fume at the coal-fueled Oak Grove Power Plant in Robertson County, Texas, on April 29, 2024. Brandon Bell/Getty Images

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has confirmed that it is drafting a plan to remove the caps on greenhouse gases from coal- and natural gas-fired power plants across the nation.

An EPA spokesperson told The Epoch Times that the agency has been reconsidering the Biden administration’s power plant emissions regulations, commonly referred to as “Clean Power Plan 2.0,” since March.

The Biden-era Clean Power Plan marks the third major attempt by the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. It follows the Obama administration’s original Clean Power Plan, which required power plants to shift toward lower-carbon sources of electricity.

“Many have voiced concerns that the last administration’s replacement for that rule is similarly overreaching and an attempt to shut down affordable and reliable electricity generation in the United States, raising prices for American families, and increasing the country’s reliance on foreign forms of energy,” the EPA spokesperson said. “As part of this reconsideration, EPA is developing a proposed rule.”

The spokesperson did not provide further details about the draft plan but said it will be released after an interagency review and once it is signed by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin.

“President [Donald] Trump promised to kill the Clean Power Plan in his first term, and we continue to build on that progress now,” the spokesperson quoted Zeldin as saying. “We are seeking to ensure that the agency follows the rule of law while providing all Americans with access to reliable and affordable energy.”

The first Trump administration’s Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule formally rescinded and replaced the Obama-era regulation.

The ACE rule was struck down by the D.C. Circuit in January 2021, on the final full day of Trump’s first term. That ruling was itself overturned in 2022, when the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA lacked the authority under the Clean Air Act to implement the Obama Clean Power Plan as it was originally designed.

The Biden-era regulation that the Trump EPA now seeks to replace, formally known as Reg. 2060-AV09, was finalized in early 2024. It mandates that existing coal-fired power plants reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 90 percent if they plan to continue operating beyond 2039, while imposing even stricter limits on newly built natural gas-fired power plants.

The only currently known technology capable of achieving such reductions is carbon capture and sequestration, which has not yet been deployed at that scale.

The rule quickly came under legal challenge from a coalition of Republican-led states, utility companies, and coal industry stakeholders. Critics said that carbon capture is not economically viable or technologically mature enough to be used at the nation’s roughly 200 coal plants. They also pointed to logistical problems, such as the extensive infrastructure needed to pipe captured carbon dioxide into underground storage sites that are located hundreds of miles from the plants.

“By constructing a rule that offers power plant operators the choice of either employing technologies that do not yet exist on a commercial, affordable scale or shutting down, the EPA has wrested control of our nation’s energy policy with neither the legal authority nor expertise to do so, all at the exact time that electricity demand is forecast to double,” Rich Nolan, president and CEO of the National Mining Association, said at that time. “If this rule is allowed to stand the results for the American people and economy will be catastrophic.”

Despite opposition, the Biden power plant rule was allowed to take effect after the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals declined to pause it while litigation proceeds. The U.S. Supreme Court also rejected emergency requests to block the rule, although Justice Clarence Thomas indicated he would have granted the stay.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, wrote in a note that he believes the challengers “have shown a strong likelihood of success on the merits as to at least some of their challenges.” However, he said, since the rule does require them to start compliance work until June 2025, they are unlikely to suffer irreparable harm before the D.C. Circuit issues a final decision.

“So this Court understandably denies the stay applications for now,” Kavanaugh wrote, adding that if the challengers lose at that level, they may again ask the Supreme Court for relief while appealing the case.

The D.C. Circuit has not yet issued a ruling on the merits of the case.