U.S. EPA Plans to Repeal Carbon Standards for Fossil-Fuel Power Plants

According to Sina Finance, people familiar with the matter said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency could formally withdraw carbon pollution standards for fossil-fuel power plants as early as Monday. The people said the Trump administration’s latest major rollback of climate policy is expected to be announced during the Group of 20 energy ministers meeting in Houston. They said the details have not been made public and requested anonymity. Earlier this year, the EPA also withdrew similar climate standards for motor vehicles and scrapped the 2009 endangerment finding, which had determined that greenhouse gases threaten human health. People familiar with the matter said the EPA first proposed repealing power-plant climate rules last summer during U.S. President Donald Trump’s term. This week, the agency is set to finalize part of that proposal by removing Biden-era mandatory requirements that fossil-fuel power plants now operating and those built in the future deploy specific emissions-cutting technologies such as carbon capture and storage. EPA officials also plan to separately propose a rule that would revoke the federal finding that greenhouse gases emitted by power plants alone pose a threat, effectively eliminating another endangerment finding for power plants under the Clean Air Act.