What the agency is doing
People briefed on the move say the EPA will finalize part of last summer's proposal this week by striking Biden-era requirements that existing and future US fossil power plants use designated emissions-cutting technologies, such as carbon capture and storage, to drive deep reductions over the coming decades. Officials also intend to roll out a separate proposal to undo the government's power-plant-specific determination that those facilities' greenhouse gases are a danger under the Clean Air Act.
How we got here
The EPA under Trump first teed up the power-plant rollback last summer. Earlier this year, the agency also unwound parallel climate rules for vehicles and tossed the 2009 "endangerment finding," the landmark determination that greenhouse gases endanger human health. For context, the Obama-era Clean Power Plan was the first to require existing and future fossil-fueled plants to curb climate pollution, but the Supreme Court invalidated it in 2022, and a different court later struck down the first Trump replacement.
This latest step would arrive as the G20 energy ministers meet in Houston, per people familiar with the timing, who spoke because details were not yet public. The EPA did not answer questions outside Sunday business hours.
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Why it matters for your money
Power plants are the top industrial source of greenhouse gases in the US. And per a 2022 analysis from NYU School of Law's Institute for Policy Integrity, if the US power sector stood alone as a nation, it would place sixth globally for emissions. Rolling back the 2024 rule that pushed coal plants to capture most of their carbon by 2039 or close could shift the outlook for utilities with heavy coal exposure and for technologies like carbon capture, which were central to the now-targeted standards. For everyday investors, that means regulatory risk in the power sector is moving again, which can ripple into costs, project pipelines, and long dated emissions plans that underpin some companies' growth stories.
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