Trump topples the last pillar of Biden’s climate agenda

The EPA announced it will repeal the Biden administration's 2024 rule limiting carbon emissions from power plants, which had given utilities the choice of retiring coal plants in the 2030s or installing carbon capture technology. The agency, following the same reasoning it used to repeal vehicle emissions rules earlier this year, argues the science on climate change is uncertain and that repeal will lower consumer power bills.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin called the Obama and Biden years a 'war on coal' and promised the repeal would mean more jobs and lower prices. The Biden administration had estimated its rule would prevent more than 1,200 premature deaths and hundreds of thousands of asthma flare-ups by 2035.

Coal use has fallen for two decades regardless of federal rules, driven mainly by cheap natural gas from fracking, but AI-driven electricity demand is now pushing utilities to keep old coal plants running longer than planned. A court already found one Trump administration order to keep specific coal plants open past retirement to be unlawful.

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