June 16, 2025 - West Virginia officials in Congress and inside the State Capitol Building praised President Donald Trump for an effort to undo rules put in place by former President Joe Biden to regulate coal-fired power plants.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday that it was moving forward with two efforts. The first would repeal all greenhouse gas emissions standards for the power sector under Section 111 of the Clean Air Act (CAA). The other would repeal amendments to the 2024 Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) which also target coal-fired power plants.

In a statement Wednesday, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said that leaving these regulations in place would cause the nation’s remaining coal-fired power plants to close, increase electricity costs on customers, and put strain on an electrical grid with increasing demands on it from data centers.

“Affordable, reliable electricity is key to the American dream and a natural byproduct of national energy dominance,” Zeldin said. “According to many, the primary purpose of these Biden-Harris administration regulations was to destroy industries that didn’t align with their narrow-minded climate change zealotry. Together, these rules have been criticized as being designed to regulate coal, oil and gas out of existence.”

The EPA released new regulations last year that would have required coal-fired power plants to reduce their greenhouse gas emission by 90% by 2039, moving up a previous requirement by one year. Plants could also utilize underground carbon capture and sequestration to meet the 90% requirement. The new regulations included stricter limits on mercury emissions, the amount of seepage of coal ash into local waterways, and the amount of wastewater discharge from plants.

According to the EPA’s own estimates, repealing these regulations could save the electricity industry as much as $19 billion in regulatory costs over a two-decade period beginning next year, while repealing the 2024 MATS Amendments could save as much as $1.2 billion in regulatory costs over a decade.

According to the state Public Energy Authority, West Virginia has nine coal-fired power plants accounting for 88.9% of the electricity generated in the state, or a combined net summer capacity of more than 13,000 megawatts.

The EPA’s emission standards date back to 2015 under former President Barack Obama. The Attorney General’s Office — under former attorney general Patrick Morrisey — secured two victories against the EPA before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2016 and 2022 over the Obama-era Clean Power Plan and in defense of a new Affordable Clean Energy Rule recommended during Trump’s first term.

“Administrator Zeldin’s decision to withdraw the unlawful Greenhouse Gas Rule and the deeply flawed Mercury and Air Toxics Standards is a major victory for West Virginia, our energy producers, and every American who depends on reliable, affordable electricity,” said Morrisey, now serving as West Virginia’s 37th governor.

“These rules were a direct assault on our coal communities, designed to force a rapid transition away from fossil fuels by imposing unworkable emissions standards on existing power plants,” Morrisey continued. “This action by Administrator Zeldin restores constitutional order and delivers long-overdue relief to states like West Virginia that have been unfairly targeted for years.”

U.S. Shelley Moore Capito, the chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, spoke with reporters Thursday afternoon during her weekly briefing from Capitol Hill. She called the EPA’s move an important step to unleashing energy independence.

“I think the repeal of the Clean Power Plan 2.0 will return us to common sense,” said Capito, R-W.Va. “We are looking at a shortage of power in this country. We need more power, not less, and yet this Clean Power Plan would pull some of our baseload power off the grid. I think it would really put us in a perilous situation.”

On the other side of the U.S. Capitol Building, U.S. Rep. Riley Moore said leaving the Biden-era coal-fired power plant rules in place would have resulted in job losses and potentially additional power plant closures in West Virginia.

“The Biden-Harris war on affordable, reliable American energy ends today,” said Moore, R-W.Va. “By reversing these job-killing regulations, President Trump and Administrator Zeldin make it clear: the Green New Scam is over and American energy dominance is back. These EPA regulations would have shuttered every coal-fired power plant in America, bankrupted many coal mines, laid off thousands of coal miners, and driven up the cost of electricity for every American.”

The move Wednesday by Trump’s EPA was not praised by all. The Sierra Club said Wednesday that repealing these regulations would allow coal-fired power plants to increase their carbon emissions seven times over current levels and increase the number of medical issues linked to increased mercury and other pollutants in the atmosphere.

“It’s completely reprehensible that Donald Trump would seek to roll back these lifesaving standards and do more harm to the American people and our planet just to earn some brownie points with the fossil fuel industry,” said Patrick Drupp, climate policy director for the Sierra Club. “This repeal means more climate disasters, more heart attacks, more asthma attacks, more birth defects, more premature deaths.

“This administration is transparently trading American lives for campaign dollars and the support of fossil fuel companies, and Americans ought to be disgusted and outraged that their government has launched an assault on our health and our future,” Drupp continued. “The Sierra Club will not stand by and let this corrupt administration destroy these critical, lifesaving guardrails.”