Lee Zeldin, President Trump’s Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), announced the biggest deregulation in U.S. history to rescind the onerous regulations from the Obama and Biden administrations. The agency is reviewing regulations with the intent of reversing 31 of the costliest regulations the agency has previously imposed, including backdoor electric vehicle (EV) mandates, the greenhouse gas endangerment finding, the Clean Power Plan, the social cost of carbon, and the mercury and air toxicity standards. These moves help fulfill President Trump’s promise to unleash American energy, revitalize the U.S. auto industry, restore the rule of law and give power back to the States. Zeldin called it “the most consequential day of deregulation in U.S. history,” pointing to Trump’s promise to make energy more affordable for American families and businesses. Zeldin is also terminating $20 billion in grants awarded to politically connected non-governmental organizations under sketchy circumstances by the Biden administration, ostensibly for climate and clean-energy projects.
The Biden administration finalized its Clean Power Plan rule in April 2024 to essentially shutter existing coal-fired plants and severely limit new gas-fired plants as part of its climate agenda. The plan requires existing coal-fired power plants and new baseload natural gas-fired power plants to install carbon capture technology by 2032 — a technology that is not yet commercially available — or shutter the plant in the case of existing coal plants. The Biden administration had also considered applying the requirements to existing natural gas plants in the future.
Biden’s Clean Power Plan was more onerous than the 2015 Clean Power Plan under the Obama administration, which set national standards for carbon emissions. The Supreme Court in 2022 struck down Obama’s Clean Power Plan in the case of West Virginia v. EPA, which curbed the EPA’s ability to broadly regulate carbon emissions. The Supreme Court held that the major questions doctrine barred EPA from misusing the Clean Air Act to shift the nation’s generating fuel mix from fossil fuels to renewables. Conservative lawmakers saw the rule as having a “catastrophic” effect on the nation’s electric grid because it could have severely hurt reliability as the favored renewables were intermittent and weather-driven wind and solar power. The EPA will also look at rules that further restrict emissions of mercury and other air toxins, as well as a “good neighbor” rule intended to restrict emissions from blowing downwind to other states.
Zeldin is also rolling back greenhouse gas emissions standards for heavy- and light-duty vehicles for model year 2027 and later, which was essentially an EV mandate since it restricted the availability of gasoline and diesel vehicles for sale. Under the tailpipe emission rule, the auto industry would need 56% of new vehicle sales to be electric by 2032, along with at least 13% of sales to be plug-in hybrids or other partially electric cars, which would have been a huge increase over current EV sales, particularly with slowing demand for these vehicles.
The agency also said it will take steps to undo EPA’s 2009 finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health, a provision that forms the bedrock of the EPA’s greenhouse-gas regulations for motor vehicles and power plants. The so-called “endangerment finding” came as a result of a Supreme Court ruling in the 2007 Massachusetts v. EPA case that greenhouse gases are covered by the Clean Air Act. The Supreme Court left it up to the EPA whether it wanted to expand its authority by controlling carbon dioxide emissions, and the EPA did. The EPA, under former President Barack Obama, finalized the finding in 2009.
The EPA also announced measures that would dial back regulations for the oil and gas industry, including the reporting of methane emissions from oil and gas infrastructure. It would also consider allowing the reuse of drilling wastewater, potentially for agriculture and industry.
The EPA also targeted a clean water law interpretation that expanded federal power to regulate the nation’s lakes, rivers, streams, and wetlands. EPA officials will listen to concerns from farmers and other groups worried about federal interference in how they use their land and then set limited, predictable, and lasting rules defining which waterways the Clean Water Act protects. In 2023, the Supreme Court justices, in Sackett v. EPA, sided with industry and agricultural interests that sought more flexibility around wetlands, finding that federal regulators had long wielded too much authority. Conservatives believe that the rule still protects too many wetlands and improperly limits private property rights.
The Zeldin changes will not take effect immediately, with nearly all requiring a long rulemaking process. Environmental groups said they would fight the rollbacks, while industry groups expressed support for the announcements. States are likely to be divided.
Conclusion
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin is taking a hatchet to Obama and Biden’s regulatory agenda, looking to revise or rescind 31 onerous regulations that add costs to Americans for goods and energy. The regulations range from regulating emissions from power plants, which could shutter existing coal power plants, to limiting the type of cars available for purchase in favor of electric vehicles. Limiting consumer choice seemed to be a reoccurring theme of the Biden administration. These limitations not only took away options for Americans but could have been disastrous for the sustainability of the U.S. power grid as base load plants were attacked in favor of intermittent solar and wind plants. The regulatory changes will be fought in the courts and argued in Congress. Still, the direction from the EPA Administrator’s actions is clear: significant deregulation that will make it easier to build and make things in America is coming.
