Trump moves to axe power plant climate rules

President Donald Trump's administration is expected Monday to scrap limits on carbon emissions from fossil fuel-fired power plants, the source of nearly a quarter of the country's climate pollution.

The changes would both roll back rules introduced by former president Joe Biden's administration in 2024 which required coal and gas power plants to eliminate nearly all their carbon emissions -- and go further, by proposing to prevent future regulations.

August was the hottest month ever recorded around the world, while the United States just experienced its hottest summer. The main driver of global heating comes from burning fossil fuels, with the human-caused warming stacking on top of a historically intense El Nino weather pattern.

Records showed authorities concluded their review of the two related regulatory items on Friday, with the rollout set to be announced by Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin during a G20 energy ministers' meeting in Houston, Bloomberg News and the New York Times reported.

The first part is a technical repeal of the 2024 Biden-era standards that were set under the Clean Air Act to control greenhouse gas pollution from existing coal plants and new gas plants. These required a reduction of up to 90 percent of carbon dioxide pollution over time.

In a draft rule, the EPA argued these standards were impossible to meet and the deadlines too tight.

The second part of the package is a proposed rule anticipated to be a broader statutory argument that the EPA does not have the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector at all.

It builds on the government's decision in February to overturn the 2009 Endangerment Finding, the scientific determination that greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare.

Meredith Hankins, a legal expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told AFP the two moves had contradictory legal justifications.

They noted that the technical repeal, at least in the draft phase, stated that the EPA had the authority to regulate greenhouse emissions but found the Biden government went about it the wrong way.

"We'll have to look at the final text of the rule," Hankins said. "But I think on its face you can see the contradictions. So I'm certainly looking forward to seeing them in court."

Trump often calls human-induced climate change "a hoax," and his policy rollbacks have included withdrawing the United States once more from the Paris climate accord and eliminating greenhouse gas standards for vehicle tailpipe emissions.

"Our government is ignoring the reality all around us that people are feeling every day of the impacts of climate change, and just putting their heads in the sand and saying, 'We don't care, it's not our problem, next generation, figure it out yourselves,'" said Hankins.