Trump’s Rollback of Power Plant Rules Draw Resistance at Hearing

Clean air and climate advocates urged the Environmental Protection Agency in public testimony Tuesday to scrap a proposal that would repeal strong limits on greenhouse gas emissions from the coal-fired power sector.

Officials from the EPA hosted multiple sessions of public comment during the day on a proposed repeal of all power plant carbon limits under Section 111 of the Clean Air Act, the latest of which relied on carbon capture technology to drastically reduce planet-warming emissions.

The EPA plan marks a significant shift from the Biden administration, which finalized the current limits as an effort to reduce the climate and public health effects of air pollution from coal-fired power plants.

Citing the Biden-era rule as a burden on the development of domestic energy sources, the Trump administration’s proposal justifies the repeal by claiming that “fossil fuel-fired power plants do not contribute significantly to dangerous air pollution.”

Advocates testifying at the Tuesday hearing lambasted that reasoning.

“In 2023, domestic power plants alone released 1.4 billion metric tons of [carbon],” according to Callie Sharp, an associate attorney at the Environmental Law and Policy Center in Chicago. “This is more than the total annual greenhouse gas emissions of nearly every other nation on Earth, and is greater than the collective greenhouse gas emissions of over half of the world’s countries.”

Many of the speakers expressed disappointment that the hearing was only one day long, when the last power plant rules finalized under the Biden administration had such extensive comment opportunity. The agency set a 30-day deadline to submit comments on the rule by Aug. 8.

Laura Kate Bender, vice president of nationwide advocacy and public policy at the American Lung Association and a hearing speaker, said in an email that the EPA staff were “as engaged as ever in listening to testimony,” but also echoed concerns about the single-day schedule.

“If EPA finalizes this repeal, people will die preventable deaths,” Bender said in her comments at the hearing.

Power plant cooperatives and advocates including the US Chamber of Commerce testified later in the day, reiterating calls for cheaper and more affordable energy through the repeal of “costly” regulations.

“The carbon rule would cause the retirement of the entire coal fleet,” Michelle Bloodworth, CEO of America’s Power, said in her testimony. “Besides the loss of enormous amount of dependable generation capacity, coal retirements deprive the grid of certain attributes that are necessary for a reliable and stable grid.