June 12, 2025 - The Trump administration announced Wednesday plans to repeal “all ‘greenhouse gas’ emissions standards for the power sector,” as well as Biden-era Mercury and Air Toxins Standards “that directly result in coal-fired power plants having to shut down,” the federal agency said.

“These Biden-era regulations have imposed massive costs on coal-, oil- and gas-fired power plants, raising the cost of living for American families, imperiling the reliability of our electric grid and limiting American energy prosperity,” the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said in a press release Wednesday afternoon.

Wyoming politicians and coal proponents cheered the news.

“Today, I welcome the proposed repeal by the EPA of the so-called Clean Power Plan Version 2 that [EPA] Administrator Lee Zeldin and I have discussed over the past several months, and I encourage him to proceed with it with all due urgency,” Gov. Mark Gordon said in a prepared statement. “The lopsided and misguided policies of the Biden administration have already wreaked enough havoc on our nation’s power supply and delayed our progress providing the beautiful clean coal President Donald Trump recognizes as essential to having a reliable, affordable and dispatchable energy supply for our nation.”

Wyoming is the nation’s largest coal producer, and more than 90% of the commodity is shipped to coal-burning electric generating plants in the U.S. The state’s coal mining industry has declined precipitously since 2008, while many communities that rely on mining — as well as coal power plants — have struggled to chart an economic future.

Electric utilities have cited federal regulations limiting greenhouse gas emissions, as well as emissions of toxic metals, for retiring coal power plants. But they’ve also pointed to cheap natural gas as an alternative at the same facilities and the fact that most coal plants in the nation are simply too old to affordably operate.

If utilities still choose to close down a coal-fired power plant due to aging facilities or to cater to customer preferences for renewables and other cleaner forms of energy, “that’s on them,” EPA Region 8 Administrator Cyrus Western told WyoFile. But they will no longer be forced to shut down coal plants due to federal emissions regulations.

“This [repeal] gives those utilities the ability to turn around and say, ‘We now don’t have to deal with the regulations that were putting us in these really difficult situations,’ where they’re having to increase these utility bills by 20%, by 30% you know, which, obviously, we saw in Wyoming,” said Western, a Republican and former Wyoming lawmaker. “These regulated, required shutdowns are no longer a fact. That is a priority of [EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin] and the White House — to ensure that we keep these open. And if [some are] shutting down purely for economic reasons, it’s not because it’s the EPA breathing down their necks and forcing them to introduce early shutdowns.”

The repeal

EPA intends to repeal what’s commonly referred to as the “power plant rules” first established under the Obama administration. The original rules were based on the premise that greenhouse gases that contribute to the climate crisis are a pollutant, and the Obama administration admitted that the more stringent standards would require existing and new coal-fired power plants to employ carbon capture technologies to meet them.

The power plant rules were immediately mired in lawsuits, while the EPA oscillated in imposing the rules between the first Trump and Biden administrations. The U.S. Supreme Court in October declined to halt the EPA rules in the last months of the Biden administration, making Wyoming officials nervous right before the November presidential election. oversee Trump’s EPA efforts for Mountain West region

Now, under President Donald Trump, the EPA is challenging the long-held notion that greenhouse gas emissions from power plants should be considered a pollutant under the Clean Air Act, according to the agency.

“EPA is proposing that greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel-fired power plants do not contribute significantly to dangerous air pollution within the meaning of the statute,” the agency said.

Western added, “The people of Wyoming want affordable, reliable electricity — and they deserve it. Protecting access to low-cost, dependable power ensures families can keep the lights on without breaking the bank.”