Trump Administration Ends Limits on Planet-Warming Emissions From Coal and Gas Power Plants

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Power plants are responsible for a quarter of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, making it the second-largest source of greenhouse gases behind vehicles. On the heels of the…

Power plants are responsible for a quarter of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, making it the second-largest source of greenhouse gases behind vehicles.

On the heels of the hottest summer ever recorded in the US, the Trump administration has announced it is repealing emissions standards for coal and gas power plants, which are among the largest sources of planet-warming greenhouse gases in the country.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under Administrator Lee Zeldin is stripping itself of its ability to regulate pollution from power plants under the Clean Air Act, a move that will also limit future adminitrations from curbing this kind of pollution.

Power plants are responsible for a quarter of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, making it the second-largest source of greenhouse gases behind vehicles. The Trump administration had already eliminated emissions standards for vehicles earlier this year when it revoked the endangerment finding, the legal underpinning for federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. The administration is currently facing legal action over the repeal.

In announcing the move, the EPA falsely claimed that power plants “have no material impact on global climate change.” Zeldin had previously said that greenhouse gas emissions from fossil energy production do not “contribute significantly to air pollution,” and claimed to be “driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion.”

But decades of scientific consensus affirms that climate change is real and it is driven primarily by human-caused emissions. Globally, these emissions come primarily from the burning of coal, natural gas, and oil for electricity and heat. Coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, is the single-largest source of fossil fuel carbon emissions (40%), responsible for over 0.3C of the 1.2C increase in global average temperatures since the Industrial Revolution, and a major contributor to air pollution.

Nations worldwide, are turning away from coal…

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