Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced on Wednesday his agency’s proposal to repeal burdensome and costly power plant regulations implemented during the Biden-Harris administration. On the chopping block is the so-called Clean Power Plan 2.0 as well as the 2024 amendments to the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards. This action will remove a significant regulatory burden from the backs of American energy producers. Consumers and companies will save as much as $1.3 billion each year and enjoy more reliable energy supplies.

The April 2024 rule would have required existing coal-fired and new natural gas power plants to “cut or capture 90%” of their carbon dioxide emissions by 2032 or be shut down. This requirement could close plants that supply as much as 60% of the nation’s electricity.

Carrying out the requirements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by that much would require a level of carbon capture and storage that has never been successfully achieved, as acknowledged by the EPA announcement. Utility industry representatives, such as the Edison Electric Institute, have warned that the technology “is not yet ready for full-scale, economy-wide deployment.” The institute added that there is not enough time to put everything in place by Biden’s 2032 deadline.

The 2024 amendments to the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards proved pointless, as official data shows that in 2021, mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants were 90% lower than they were before the standards initially took effect in 2011. “Since 2010, acid gas hazardous air pollutant emissions have been reduced by over 96%,” the EPA said. “Emissions of the non-mercury metals – including nickel, arsenic, and lead – have been reduced by more than 81%,” it added. In short, the Biden administration’s changes in 2024 did little more than add unnecessary costs.

By proposing to eliminate these rules, the EPA is prioritizing affordability and energy security over compliance with unnecessary regulatory targets. That’s a goal the Mackinac Center has long promoted. Coal and natural gas, which accounted for 60% of U.S. electricity production in 2023, are needed to meet rapidly rising electricity demand, driven in large part by the growth of data centers and the rush to electrify transportation.

The importance of coal to the nation’s electric grid is not to be underestimated. We should expand our use of nuclear power, but bureaucratic red tape still exists, and the nuclear renaissance will take years to come into fruition. The grid still needs power plants that can readily provide a foundational amount of electricity, or baseload generation. Coal offers a way to obtain that supply. But coal plants are being closed prematurely, a fact lamented by grid operators, regulators and organizations focused on reliability.

At one House Energy Subcommittee meeting in March, most of the country’s grid operators discussed the impacts of recent steps to retire dispatchable fossil-fuel resources (that is to say, coal, and sometimes natural gas). They called this movement a key contributing factor to “almost exponentially increased reliability risks.” As one grid operator testified, “We encourage all generation owners who have signaled an intent to retire their units to reconsider their decision to support resource adequacy and grid reliability.” The CEO of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation has expressed similar concerns. “At the end of the day, while a lot of people would like to say we can solve this problem through transmission, we can solve this problem through batteries ... we need generation in this country.”

Mark Christie, chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, put matters plainly at a 2024 conference: “This country is heading towards a reliability crisis. ... We are seeing a rapid, unsustainable, dangerous loss of dispatchable generating resources, predominantly coal and gas. They’re retiring far too quickly for reliability.” Christie then spoke directly to the Biden EPA’s Carbon Rule. “The best thing the federal government could do right now,” he said, “is if EPA withdrew its power plant rule, which is going to have a devastating impact on grid reliability [and] is going to accelerate these retirements.”

Predictably, the Natural Resources Defense Council and other groups have cried foul, claiming the EPA rollback will harm public health and the climate. But their claims that the amendments would have prevented thousands of premature deaths are based on dubious statistical models. Furthermore, EPA data show rapid improvement in America’s air quality over the past several decades. Since 1970, emissions of the six most common pollutants have dropped by 78%. The amount of carbon dioxide released by the power sector has also fallen by more than 36% since 2005. Shifting markets and improving technology have had a far greater role in this decrease than heavy-handed regulations.

Prudent policy requires a holistic approach. Opponents of the EPA’s reforms, though, may find themselves with tunnel vision, pushing ever more stringent requirements, regardless of whether those reductions have real-world health benefits. Turning back the Biden-Harris administration’s onerous regulations is a far cry from green fears of unregulated pollution. We don’t remember Americans choking on fumes en masse in 2009, let alone 2019.

The EPA’s planned rollback is a win for common sense. Rescinding these burdensome and unnecessary strictures on electricity generators frees American energy producers to innovate and deliver affordable, reliable power while still protecting the environment. For the average American family and business, reduced regulation means more opportunity and reduced costs.

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