Harv's Corner 09/28/2026

Harv's Corner

Whether this administration guts our climate policies or simply slows our efforts, it's moving us in the wrong direction. It’s the direct result of misguided leadership at the top and an administration full of yes-men unwilling to challenge it. Before we can solve big problems, we have to fix our own government, refocus on serving American citizens, and restore our standing on the world stage.

​EPA rule limiting emissions repealed
Environmental groups say the change will hurt Americans’ health.
By MATTHEW DALY The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The Environmental Protection Agency said Monday it is repealing rules that limit planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from coal- and natural-gas-fired power plants and announced a separate but related step to prevent future administrations from regulating climate pollution from power plants.

The rule change, first proposed last year, represents a fundamental shift from efforts by Democratic Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama to address climate change and clean up industrial pollution.
Environmental groups decried the change, saying it would cost Americans' health and further degrade the environment.

Revoking the Biden-era power plant rule would save industry more than $300 billion in costs and help "unleash"
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American energy, the EPA said.
The change allows utilities to make the best decisions for their ratepayers rather than be forced to close aging or inefficient plants, EPA Assistant Administrator Aaron Szabo said.

The power plant rule, to take effect soon after publication in the Federal Register, is expected to face immediate legal challenges.

Environmental groups also are likely to challenge a separate rule proposed Monday that could prevent future administrations from regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. The proposal, expected to be made final next year, follows EPA's action earlier this year revoking a scientific finding that has long been the central basis for U.S. action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change.

The February action eliminated all greenhouse gas emissions standards for cars and trucks. The new plan would apply similar logic to a broader undoing of climate regulations on stationary sources such as power plants.

The announcements came as EPA chief Lee Zeldin, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Energy Secretary Chris Wright host a G20 ministerial meeting on "energy abundance" in Houston.

The announcement of the rule, coming on the same day, is both a nod to the important role oil-rich Texas plays in the energy industry and a potential snub of European and other international allies in attendance who have pursued environmentally friendly policies that the Republican administration of President Donald Trump has moved to undo.

Trump called climate change "the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world" at a speech to the United Nations last year, and his administration withdrew the U.S. — for the second time — from the 2015 Paris climate accord that sets voluntary goals to curb planet-warming emissions.

Trump has boasted of U.S. energy abundance even as the Iran war continues to disrupt global fuel markets and gas prices top $4.31 a gallon, up more than a dollar from a year ago.

The rollbacks are meant to fulfill Trump's repeated pledge to " unleash American energy " and make it easier for utilities to supply electricity for homes and businesses.

Former Vice President Al Gore said the EPA's action moves the United States "in the exact opposite direction of the rest of the world. With ongoing disruption in global energy markets, the clear answer to rising costs and energy security is clean energy."

Even as the Trump administration "is dragging the U.S. backward," the transition to clean energy "will continue to take hold ... both in the U.S. and globally," Gore said Monday in an email to the Associated Press.
"That's because clean energy is cheaper, creates more jobs and bolsters energy security."

The power plant rule is among nearly three dozen environmental regulations Zeldin targeted in early 2025, when he called it the "most consequential day of deregulation in American history."

Environmental and public health groups called the new rollbacks dangerous and vowed to challenge the rules in court.

"Tearing down our national protections against climate pollution from power plants will have enormous costs for the health, safety and well-being of families across the country," said Vickie Patton, general counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund. "Americans everywhere are already suffering from record-breaking heat, more dangerous floods and storms, and skyrocketing insurance costs."

Coal, gas and oil-fired power plants are responsible for about one-quarter of the nation's total climate pollution, second only to the transportation sector. Power plants are one of the world's largest sources of climate-changing pollution.

Biden, a Democrat, made fighting climate change a hallmark of his presidency. Under a strict EPA rule issued in 2024, coal-fired power plants would have been forced to capture smokestack emissions or shut down. Those rules are now being upended.

In its proposal last year, the Trump EPA argued that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from fossil fuel-fired power plants "do not contribute significantly to dangerous pollution" or climate change and therefore do not meet a Clean Air Act threshold for regulatory action.

Greenhouse gas emissions from coal and gas-fired plants "are a small and decreasing part of global emissions, " the EPA said.
Zeldin said Biden-era actions were designed to "suffocate our economy in order to protect the environment," with the intent to regulate the coal industry "out of existence" and make it "disappear."