EPA Repeals Biden-Era Carbon Limits on Coal and Gas Power Plants

On September 14, 2026, the EPA moved to repeal the 2024 Carbon Pollution Standards, which had required existing coal plants and new gas plants to capture 90 percent of their carbon emissions or shut down by 2039. The agency estimated that rule would have kept roughly 1.38 billion metric tons of carbon out of the atmosphere through 2047. Scrapping it removes most federal limits on carbon from the power sector, the country’s second-largest source of greenhouse gas emissions.

The rollback goes further than climate rules alone. The EPA also proposed eliminating all remaining greenhouse gas requirements for power plants, arguing those emissions do not affect the climate, and in 2025 it revoked the 2009 ‘endangerment finding’ that had served as the legal basis for federal regulation of greenhouse gases. Because the 2024 standards also curbed sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and fine particulate matter, their removal carries public-health consequences: Biden-era projections estimated the rule would prevent 1,200 deaths and 360,000 asthma attacks in 2035 alone.

The agency framed the repeal around cost savings, citing $370 million in reduced regulatory burden for businesses, while offering no figure for the health costs — consistent with its January decision to stop counting health impacts when estimating the economic effect of pollution limits. Critics, including Human Rights Watch, argue the move discards decades of scientific evidence even as communities face escalating climate and air-quality harms.