The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced the lifting of restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions. This applies to coal- and gas-fired power stations, for which climate regulations were introduced during Joseph Biden’s term in office. The EPA is going even further, stating that it wants to make it more difficult for future administrations to reinstate similar restrictions.
This was reported by Reuters.
A more lenient climate policy — a greater departure from the environmental agenda
This repeal is a continuation of Donald Trump’s consistent policy of deregulating climate regulations. His administration claimed that environmental restrictions were allegedly harming energy production.
An unusual statement was made on the sidelines of the G20 energy ministers’ meeting, which is taking place in Houston this week.
The ERA states that such deregulation will enable the United States to build the new generation infrastructure needed to meet the rapidly growing demand for electricity.
"Americans are calling for more common sense in federal agencies under President Trump. This means cutting red tape so that we can build new energy infrastructure," said EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin at a conference in Houston.
To put this into perspective, the US energy sector alone accounts for almost 25 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions in the US and is the second-biggest source of pollution after transport. Last year, emissions from the energy sector had already risen by 4 per cent.
Cost-saving versus purification
The Trump administration announced its proposal to repeal the Biden-era regulations back in June 2025. It concerned the lifting of restrictions on emissions of carbon, mercury and other pollutants from power stations.
The previous government claimed that these regulations would enable greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced by 1 billion tonnes by 2047. They required coal- and natural gas-fired power stations to install special equipment to capture emissions before they entered the atmosphere.
These restrictions made renewable energy — solar and wind — more attractive to investors.
However, Trump’s team decided to reverse the whole thing. According to Zeldin, this will help the entire sector save $370 billion.
Criticism from the environmental community
As expected, the ERA’s statements have met with outrage from environmentalists. Environmentalists argue that these illusory savings will, on the contrary, result in even greater costs due to the damage caused to the healthcare and nature conservation sectors.
"To deny that a quarter of the country’s climate pollution is responsible is extremely short-sighted. This will lead to greater loss and suffering from intense heatwaves, severe storms and devastating wildfires, such as those we have seen this summer,” said Maggie Coulter of the Centre for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute.
This policy of Donald Trump is seen as a determined attempt to restore coal’s lost importance.
"President Trump has put an end to the war on clean, beautiful coal. Coal is reliable, affordable and safe," said Kyle Hausvait, Deputy Minister of Energy.
Naturally, this decision was supported by companies in the sector owned by private investors. In particular, the abolition of the standards was welcomed by the Edison Institute of Electrical Engineering, which represents the largest companies.
It should be noted that the US, like the rest of the world, has faced the extreme consequences of climate change this year — including large-scale forest fires and drying up of water bodies.
Trump’s departure from climate ideals often borders on the absurd. For instance, at the G7 talks, the topic of global warming was completely ignored so as not to upset the Americans, whilst NASA’s report on global temperatures was censored. Terms such as ‘climate change’, ‘emissions’ or ‘fossil fuels’ are entirely absent from it.
