Boomity - EPA Eliminates 'Greenhouse Gas' Rule

AP Photo/Paul Sancya

ZOMG, I can hear little green pinheads popping all over - not just here in our country, but all around the world.

THEY GONNA KILL THE UNICORNS

The Environmental Protection Agency said Monday it is repealing rules that limit planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from power plants fueled by coal and natural gas and announced it is taking a separate but related step to prevent future administrations from regulating climate pollution from power plants.

The rule change, first proposed last year, represents a fundamental shift from efforts by Democratic Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama to address climate change and regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that trap the sun’s heat.

Environmental groups decried the change, saying it would come at a cost to Americans’ health and further degrade the environment.

Revoking the Biden-era power plant rule would save industry more than $300 billion in costs and help “unleash” American energy, the EPA said. The change will allow utilities to “make the best decision for the ratepayers based on cost and cost savings, instead of being required to shut down facilities,’' said EPA Assistant Administrator Aaron Szabo.

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You see how the Associated Press phrased that first sentence- 'planet-warming greenhouse gases'? As if that was the Settled Science™, when it is very much still in dispute?

Still insufferable cultists after two years.

And, well, how about them apples.

...Power plants are the US’s largest industrial source of greenhouse gas emissions. If the US power sector were a country by itself, it would rank as the world’s sixth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, according to a New York University School of Law’s Institute for Policy Integrity analysis of 2022 emissions data.

Under former President Barack Obama, the EPA finalized the Clean Power Plan, which required existing and future fossil-fuel-fired plants to cut their climate pollution for the first time. The Supreme Court struck it down in 2022 and a separate court ruling struck down the first Trump administration’s replacement rule.

The EPA under former President Joe Biden finalized its own rules in 2024, which effectively forced the nation’s current fleet of coal plants to capture most of its carbon emissions by 2039 or close. This is the rule now being repealed.

I wonder who's Number One?

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Director Lee Zeldin announced his intent for the rollback at a G20 meeting.

...EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced at a G20 minister-level meeting in Houston on “energy abundance” that EPA was walking away from the 2024 standards, which would have required long-serving coal and some new gas plants to eventually capture and store most of their carbon emissions underground.

“For over 15 years, the Obama and Biden administrations implemented a war on coal to destroy reliable and affordable energy. The Trump Administration has come in to protect American energy and to make sure you can afford to keep the lights on,” Zeldin said in a statement announcing the move.

The repeal came packaged with a new proposal that would scuttle EPA’s legal basis for regulating power plant carbon emissions under the Clean Air Act — an attempt to prevent future administrations from reinstating standards. While certain to be challenged in court, if upheld, the rules will represent a final nail in the coffin for most federal climate regulation.

Monday’s repeal marks the third time an EPA power plant carbon rule has been repealed before it was implemented. The agency has tried for more than a decade to use a catchall part of the Clean Air Act known as Section 111 to tackle U.S. power sector climate emissions, which are second only to climate pollution from motor vehicles.

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And the carbon capture crap is such a scam - good grief.

I have something on it in the headlines today. It's such gobbledegook. It makes your head spin, and all it actually does is cost consumers their standard of living and make the guys doing the capture and the credits a lot of money.

And the grid is prematurely fragile enough because of crusading cultists and green grifters joining gleeful forces.

...The power industry praised the rules, citing increasing demand and rising prices for consumers.

National Rural Electric Cooperative Association CEO Jim Matheson, a former Democratic lawmaker, urged EPA to “work quickly to finish the job.”

“America’s electric grid needs every available electron,” Matheson said.

Michelle Bloodworth, president and CEO of the coal industry group America’s Power, said the Biden-era coal plant rules would have been catastrophic for U.S. power providers “by forcing the premature retirement of much of the U.S. coal fleet.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

...“We will be seeing them in court,” said Manish Bapna, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Meanwhile, doing what they can to keep the lights on.

Today’s announcement follows the Clean Air Act, unshackles the energy restrictions on American families, and lowers costs for communities around the country. More here:

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[Beege ADDS: I'm including Zeldin's Xweet as the one above seems to have blipped out]

...securing American energy jobs, and delivering warm homes in the winter and cool homes in the summer. 

This is a MASSIVE WIN under President Trump’s leadership for increased access to natural gas and clean beautiful coal for American families and businesses.

Facts are facts, and the truism still holds, whatever unicorn farts the cultists cling to: baseload power is essential.

It was all based smoke and mirror projections.

...The final rule strikes most of the 2024 Carbon Pollution Standards, which EPA has determined exceeded the agency's authority under the CAA by requiring control technologies that are not adequately demonstrated, effectively forcing plants to retire rather than setting standards they could actually meet. The 2024 rule also failed to account for the U.S. Supreme Court decision in West Virginia v. EPA, which barred EPA from misusing the CAA to manipulate Americans’ energy choices. The manipulation in the 2024 rule created inefficient uses of natural gas, adversely impacted the nation’s energy systems, and drove electricity prices up. The 2024 rule was another example of the Democrats’ war on America's natural resources and attempted to achieve the same unlawful fuel-shifting goals of the Obama-era Clean Power Plan.

Concurrently with today’s final rule, EPA is proposing to rescind all remaining GHG emissions requirements for power plants, which have imposed unnecessary requirements and drained the power sector’s resources, while producing virtually no benefit. Following the repeal of the 2009 Endangerment Finding, and the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, EPA’s proposal states that CAA Section 111 does not give the agency the authority to regulate power plant emissions based on climate change. Models continue to show that GHG emissions from power plants have no material impact on global climate change. In fact, if all carbon dioxides were eliminated tomorrow, there would be no meaningful climate impact.

Additionally, the targeted emissions are global in nature, and any potential public health harms are too uncertain, conjectural, remote, and convoluted to tie specifically to the U.S. power sector. Therefore, the agency is proposing it is out of its scope to regulate. If finalized, American businesses will be given certainty for the future, empowering them to unleash the full potential of American energy and provide it at an affordable price for families.

Baseload power is essential to the great American story, powering generations of manufacturing, good-paying jobs, and communities. Together, the coal and natural gas industries support hundreds of thousands of jobs and add tens of billions of dollars to the U.S. economy each year. The nation’s power plants provide reliable, affordable energy essential to national security, heating homes, and keeping schools lit. But for nearly two decades, the Obama and Biden administrations worked to destroy coal and natural gas, threatening our energy security and driving up costs for everyday Americans. In contrast, the Trump EPA has delivered billions in cost savings for baseload power.

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Let it glow and let us GROW.

We simply have to hold everything this November.

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David Strom 7:20 PM | September 14, 2026
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