A coalition of states and local governments is challenging the Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, for dismantling federal greenhouse gas pollution limits for many of the nation’s largest power plants.
In September, the EPA repealed safeguards that required coal- and gas-fired power plants to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, the main driver of climate change. A coalition of 26 states, cities, and a city-county government is asking a federal appeals court to restore the protections.
Separately, the coalition is also notifying EPA of its intent to sue over the agency’s continued failure to fully regulate pollution from existing natural gas power plants.
“Rolling back pollution limits only helps polluters,” Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown said in a statement. “These emissions pose tremendous harm for the health of our residents and the sustainability of our communities.”
The lawsuit challenges the EPA’s repeal of the 2024 Carbon Pollution Standards, which required many of the country’s largest power plants to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions through carbon capture technology. Power plants are among the largest drivers of the climate crisis, producing about one-quarter of the nation’s carbon dioxide emissions.
By EPA’s analysis, the 2024 standards would have provided an estimated $370 billion in net benefits through 2047, including fewer premature deaths, lost workdays, and hospital visits. The standards were flexible, giving existing coal plants years to come into compliance and setting different standards for different plants according to their planned operational life and plant type, according to the lawsuit.
Instead of maintaining these reasonable limits on pollution, the federal administration erased them and introduced a proposal to eliminate limits on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants entirely, Brown said.
Greenhouse gas pollution is overheating the planet and directly harms Americans in their everyday lives. Climate change drives more frequent and intense flooding, fire, and heat waves, all of which harm the health and wellbeing of Americans. The associated health risks are often greatest for the elderly, children, people with existing chronic health conditions, individuals with greater exposure to outside conditions, those with less access to healthcare, and those living nearest to the sources of pollution.
The coalition argues that EPA unlawfully abandoned its pollution limits without considering alternatives or the health and climate costs of allowing more pollution into the atmosphere. It’s asking the court to strike down the rollback of environmental protections and ensure the United States can keep limiting pollution from many of the nation’s biggest polluters.
The attorneys general making up the coalition are from the states of New York, Washington, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin. The District of Columbia, as well as the Pennsylvania governor, the mayors of New York City and Chicago, and the City and County of Denver also are part of the coalition.
