The Trump administration has laid down a fresh glide path in its bid to accelerate artificial intelligence build-out with the release of updated Clean Air Act standards for new natural gas-fired power plants seen as integral to that goal.
In a final rule posted online Monday morning, the agency dramatically weakened limits on emissions of smog-forming nitrogen oxides in comparison with the draft standards proposed in 2024 during President Joe Biden’s administration, accompanying numbers indicate.
While EPA under Biden had then estimated that the proposal would cut NOx releases by almost 2,700 tons in 2032, the final version forecasts a reduction that year of up to about 300 tons, according to a summary. The proposal sought to require widespread use of the state-of-the-art control technology known as selective catalytic reduction, but the final version drops that directive for all but large plants on the grounds that it is otherwise not “cost-reasonable.”
In a harbinger of a stark turnaround from its traditional practice, EPA also makes no attempt to quantify in dollar terms the projected health benefits tied to reductions in pollutant concentrations of ozone or fine particulate matter, known as PM2.5.
