By Tim McLaughlin
(Reuters) -President Donald Trump’s administration intends to overturn pollution rules aimed at reducing soot and greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. coal-fired power plants in a move intended to help keep some of the nation’s dirtiest plants operational.
The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday said it planned to revisit soot standards and greenhouse gas limits imposed by former President Joe Biden.
The move is part of a broad deregulatory push meant to boost industries from coal to manufacturing, and ramp up the nation’s oil and minerals production.
Soot particles can wreak havoc on human health because they are small enough to penetrate the bloodstream and brain, while the U.S.
power industry is the source of around a quarter of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.
The plan aligns with Trump’s January 20 executive orders that directed the EPA to review measures affecting energy reliability and declared a national energy emergency to enhance government powers to boost fossil fuel and electricity production and distribution.
Biden’s EPA had said it believed the tougher 2024 soot standard was reasonable because 91% of existing coal plants were already meeting it.
But the Trump administration has said it hopes to keep existing coal plants running, and to potentially restart ones that have been shuttered, in order to help meet an expected surge in nationwide power demand in coming years.
BIGGEST EMITTERS BENEFIT
There are about 200 coal plants left in the U.S., generating roughly 16% of the country’s electricity.
The country’s dirtiest coal plants would be among the biggest beneficiaries from a rollback of the soot limits.
They include the Colstrip power plant in Montana, which the EPA says is the nation’s only coal plant without modern pollution controls for particulate matter.
Talen Energy, the operator of the plant and a minority owner, had joined more than 20 states in a pending legal challenge to Biden’s stricter rules in the Washington D.C.
Circuit Court of Appeals.
Last month, Trump’s EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin asked the court to postpone oral arguments scheduled for March 27 to allow the agency’s new leadership to review the underlying rule, according to court filings.
Talen did not return a message seeking comment.
Complying with Biden’s more restrictive limits would have cost the Colstrip plant’s owners $350 million to $665 million, according to estimates disclosed by NorthWestern Energy Group Inc.
NorthWestern will own a majority of Colstrip at the end of this year, after agreeing to take over the ownership interests of Avista Corp and Puget Sound Energy.
The utility plans to use the 1,500-megawatt plant, which ran at about 80% capacity last year, to feed electricity to Montana data centers and a 3,000-megawatt, 415-mile transmission line between the town of Colstrip and Bismarck, North Dakota.
NorthWestern did not return a message seeking comment.
(Reporting By Tim McLaughlin; Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Nia Williams)
