The US Environmental Protection Agency has moved to scrap all limits on planet-heating pollution from coal and gas power plants, with administrator Lee Zeldin claiming the change will lower Americans' electricity bills and pose little climate risk. Environmental lawyers and analysts say both justifications collapse under scrutiny, arguing the rollback instead entrenches costly, polluting fossil fuel generation while removing incentives for cheaper renewable alternatives. The move follows a similar rollback of vehicle emissions rules and forms part of a broader effort to strip current and future US administrations of legal authority to regulate greenhouse gases.

The EPA's own impact analysis undercuts Zeldin's claims, showing retail electricity prices will actually rise by 0.7% by 2030 rather than fall, with prices not expected to drop until the mid-2030s, and coal costs projected to climb 27.3% by 2045. A Natural Resources Defense Council analysis estimates the policies will cost US households an extra $30bn a year in electricity bills by 2035, while critics such as attorney Maggie Coulter of the Center for Biological Diversity say the EPA's reasoning ignores billions of dollars in public health costs from increased pollution, having previously valued averting a human death at effectively zero. The agency claims the change will save $310bn but has not explained the calculation, when bill reductions might materialise, or the climate impact of the extra emissions.