The White House is reviewing a new proposal to permanently end EPA’s regulation of power plants’ carbon emissions.
What happened: The supplemental proposal entered White House review on Monday, according to the Office of Management and Budget’s website. It is expected to be released along with another rule to undo 2024 standards that required coal-fired and some new gas-fired power plants to capture and store most of their greenhouse gas emissions.
EPA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Why it matters: The draft would repeal not only the Biden-era rules, but EPA’s broader authority to regulate climate pollution from the power sector via the Clean Air Act. The power industry is the largest industrial source of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.
The proposal is expected to mirror EPA’s repeal of the so-called endangerment finding. But it could also complicate arguments the oil industry and the Justice Department are making in a landmark case before the Supreme Court this fall that the Clean Air Act makes EPA the “primary regulator” of industrial greenhouse gas emissions.
The details: EPA issued a proposal last summer that aimed to bar future administrations from regulating the power sector for greenhouse gases. But the draft advanced arguments that contradicted a separate rule that EPA finalized in February that rescinded a key scientific finding that greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles endanger public health and welfare.
What’s next: It’s unclear when EPA will issue the repeal package. Utilities have been anxious for it to finalize a rollback of the carbon capture and sequestration requirements, but the agency might hold off until after the Supreme Court hears oral arguments in Suncor v. Boulder on Oct. 5.