The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has repealed rules limiting greenhouse gas emissions from coal and gas-fired power plants, in one of the most significant environmental rollbacks of the Trump administration to date. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin made the announcement on Monday on the sidelines of a G20 energy ministers' meeting in Houston, Texas — a symbolic venue given the state's central role in the American fossil fuel industry. The move eliminates requirements introduced under President Joe Biden that would have compelled power plants to capture up to 90% of their greenhouse gas emissions or face closure, a process requiring investments of roughly $800 million per facility in carbon capture and storage technology.

The EPA said scrapping the Biden-era rules would save more than $300 billion in costs for power plants and help deliver cheaper, more reliable electricity at a time of surging demand from data centres, artificial intelligence infrastructure, and advanced manufacturing. Zeldin argued the previous regulations had "exceeded the agency's authority" by mandating technologies not yet adequately proven and effectively forcing plants to retire. The agency also proposed a separate rule that, if finalised, would prevent future administrations from reimposing greenhouse gas limits on the power sector — a step critics say could entrench the deregulation regardless of future election outcomes.

Environmental and public health groups responded with sharp condemnation and pledged immediate legal challenges. Coal and gas power plants account for roughly one quarter of total US greenhouse gas emissions, making them the country's second-largest source of climate pollution after the transportation sector. An Associated Press analysis drawing on the EPA's own prior assessments estimated that the repealed rules could have prevented approximately 30,000 deaths annually and saved $275 billion per year through avoided health costs. Vickie Patton, general counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund, warned that the rollback would mean more asthma attacks, hospital visits, missed school days, and rising insurance and healthcare costs for ordinary Americans. "Tearing down our national protections against climate pollution from power plants will have enormous costs for the health, safety and well-being of families across the country," she said.

The announcement fits into a broader pattern of environmental deregulation since Trump returned to office in January 2025. Earlier this year, the EPA revoked a landmark 2009 scientific finding — known as the "endangerment finding" — that established greenhouse gases as a threat to public health, a cornerstone of air pollution regulation for motor vehicles and industry. Trump, who has called climate change "the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world", also withdrew the United States from the Paris climate accord for the second time. Monday's announcement came as the US recorded its hottest summer in 132 years and as parts of the country faced severe drought and wildfires.

The rollback is expected to face immediate court challenges. Environmental advocates argue that decades of clean air law, including multiple Supreme Court rulings, oblige the EPA to protect the public from dangerous pollution regardless of the current administration's position. State governments retain some authority to act independently, and several states have already moved to adopt stricter standards of their own. But critics warn that without comprehensive national emissions limits, the burden of climate-related health and economic costs will ultimately fall on American families — even as the administration frames deregulation as a path to affordable energy and economic growth.