Today, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the proposed repeal of several major power plant regulations – rolling back limits on carbon dioxide, heavy metal mercury, and other hazardous air pollution from power plant smokestacks. These regressive repeals prioritize fossil fuel company profits over the health and well-being of all Americans.
EPA is proposing to repeal three rules: the 2015 emissions standards for new fossil fuel-fired power plants issued during the Obama-Biden Administration; and the 2024 rules for new and existing fossil fuel-fired power plants and the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards issued during the Biden-Harris Administration.
Dr. Stephen A. Smith, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy Executive Director, said, “Today’s announcements weakening important air pollution standards are dangerous actions that ignore human health standards and critical environmental health protections. These air toxics protections were developed with solid scientific facts on the neurotoxicity of mercury in children and the adverse impacts of other heavy metals emitted from the smokestacks of power plants. The current administration has captured the Environmental Protection Agency and turned it into a tool enabling the fossil fuel industry to bury science and use our common air and water as dumping grounds.”
The EPA regulations limiting carbon pollution from coal and gas-fired power plants, explained in our article here, were finalized in April 2024. During the EPA press conference today, a Politico reporter questioned the justification of repealing these emission standards, noting they would have led to $130 billion worth of health savings versus $21 billion of compliance costs. The electricity sector accounts for approximately one-quarter of U.S. climate-warming emissions. Limiting those emissions would have had immense health and economic benefits for Americans, reducing harmful pollution, improving public health, and helping preserve a stable climate.
Another EPA regulation under attack today, the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, limits mercury, particulate matter, and other pollutants that cause developmental harm, respiratory and heart disease, cancer, and other diseases, from power plants that burn coal and oil.
When the carbon pollution rules were finalized last year, rigorous EPA analysis demonstrated that the benefits of the rules dramatically outweighed the costs of compliance. Specifically, they found that the rules would provide Americans up to $370 billion in climate and public health benefits over the next two decades, and in 2035 alone prevent up to 1,200 premature deaths, 870 hospital and emergency room visits, 1,900 cases of asthma onset, 360,000 cases of asthma symptoms, 48,000 school absence days, and 57,000 lost workdays.
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About the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE)
Since 1985, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy has worked to promote responsible and equitable energy choices to ensure clean, safe, and healthy communities throughout the Southeast. Learn more at cleanenergy.org.
