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JUST weeks after the United Nations Environment Programme released its grim report concerning climate change and the future of humanity, the Trump administration has repealed pollution limits on fossil-fuel power plants. This rule change is happening despite the fact that power plants are the second-largest source of greenhouse gas emissions – the very same emissions scientists and climate activists say are the cause of global warming.

The reversal was announced by Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Lee Zeldin at the G20 Energy Abundance Ministerial Meeting on September 14 in Houston. He claimed the move “delivers reliable and affordable energy in the largest power sector deregulatory action in US history,” and that it is “expected to unleash the full potential of America’s vast energy resources, including coal and natural gas.”

Zeldin alleged that former presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama implemented “a war on coal to destroy reliable and affordable energy” and boasted that the Trump administration “has come to protect American energy.”

The administrator’s comments continue a pattern where the EPA, under a president who said climate change is the “greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world,” has prioritised exalting the fossil fuel industry and thwarting the growth of clean energy initiatives such as solar, wind, and hydropower.

In February, Trump announced the official termination of the EPA’s 2009 landmark determination that greenhouse gases warm the planet and threaten the health and welfare of those who inhabit it. In 2025, the president referred to oil as “liquid gold” and created the National Energy Dominance Council as a means to expand US fossil fuel and energy production.

Doug Burgum, who serves as secretary of the Department of the Interior (DOI) and chairs Trump’s National Energy Dominance Council, stood alongside Zeldin during the announcement on power plants. He claimed that the EPA’s repeal of pollution rules would save Americans “hundreds of millions of dollars” and put an end to “the Biden administration’s disastrous Green New Scam policies.”

The EPA’s lofty claim of delivering $300+ billion (£224 billion) in savings to Americans might sound appealing in the middle of an affordability crisis, but independent researchers and advocates question whether Trump’s EPA is making false promises and ignoring the science.

While Zeldin and his colleagues claim that during periods of peak electricity demand coal and natural gas continue to “keep the lights on,” recent reports show that coal is actually driving higher utility costs for consumers. The non-partisan think tank Energy Innovation noted that coal power was 28 per cent more expensive in 2024 than in 2021 and that “coal’s already poor economics are getting worse as aging plants make coal power more expensive.” The organisation also referred to another study that showed “coal plants were more expensive to continue operating compared to replacement with local wind or solar.”

In nearly every part of the United States, people are seeing a rapid rise in their energy costs lately. Electricity and home energy bills have risen faster than inflation—climbing an estimated 21 per cent to 30 per cent over a three- to four-year period. 

The quick jump for power bills has been attributed to a number of influences.  

The top two reasons experts point to are, first, the high energy demand of AI data centres straining existing energy capacity (data centres which Trump champions) and, second, the extreme weather of hotter summers and freezing winters resulting from the climate change that the president doesn’t believe in.  

In a press release announcing the power plant pollution rule elimination, the EPA maintained that “models” show greenhouse gas emissions from power plants have no “material impact on global climate change.” The claim provided no details on what models the agency was referring to or what science it relied on to make such an assessment. 

Environmental advocates and scientists paint a different picture, one where continued pollution will impose detrimental costs for millions, both medically and financially.  

Resources for the Future, an independent nonprofit research institution based in Washington, asserts that any savings made from the EPA’s continued deregulation of fossil fuels will be surpassed by the health damages many people will face as a result of increased emissions. The organisation estimates that the free flow of power plant air pollution will increase health issues among the public, bringing additional health costs of up to $476 billion (£355bn).   

Advocates, political leaders, and medical professionals are also sounding the alarm on what they see as the immense danger the latest EPA move poses to working people.  

“The administration is once again green-lighting massive corporate pollution with no regard to how it will harm our environment, climate, or Hoosiers struggling to afford their daily lives,” said Robyn Skuya-Boss, director of the Sierra Club Hoosier Chapter in Indiana. Hoosiers is a nickname give to residents of Indiana. Last year, that state’s coal plants released more than 5.2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. 

“These protections have been essential guardrails to improving the health and safety of our communities from soot, smog, and toxic air pollutants. This dirty and dangerous rollback comes at the same time the administration is using illegal bailout orders to keep two of Indiana’s coal plants online at Hoosiers’ expense rather than close as planned in December 2025.  

“Over and over again, the Trump administration demonstrates it cares more about forcing Indiana to burn coal than it does the health and welfare of Hoosiers,” Skuya-Boss asserted.  

American Lung Association President and CEO Harold Wimmer noted in a statement that leaving the rules in place would have “resulted in other immediate health benefits,” such as reducing emissions of harmful oxides of nitrogen, sulphur dioxide, and particulate matter from coal-fired power plants, preventing “1,200 premature deaths in 2035.” 

Though the Trump administration is wasting no time in moving forward with its fossil fuel initiatives, the fight for clean air may not be over just yet. Just days after Zeldin’s announcement, a number of organisations have come forward to sue the administration to stop the rule elimination.  

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), American Lung Association, American Public Health Association, Clean Air Council, Clean Wisconsin, and the Environmental Defense Fund filed suit, alleging that the EPA was failing in its “legal responsibility to protect health and the environment.”  

The federal climate legal director at NRDC, Meredith Hankins, wrote in a statement: “The Clean Air Act and Supreme Court precedent demand that the EPA address climate pollution from the largest industrial source in the nation. The EPA’s legal reasoning is fatally flawed, so we are going to court.” 

This is an edited version of an article that appeared at peoplesworld.org.

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