U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Proposing Repeal of Energy-Related Regulations Impacting Energy Development

By Lucas J. Narducci, Michael C. Ford, and Amanda A. Reeve

On June 11, 2025, Administrator Lee Zeldin announced that in following up on the EPA’s “31 historic actions” announcement made back in March, the EPA is proposing two rules to repeal (1) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions standards for Fossil Fuel-Fired Electric Utility Steam Generating Units (EGUs), and (2) specific 2024 amendments to the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) for Coal-Fired and Oil-Fired EGUs, referred to as the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS Proposal). The EPA presents a number of reasons for proposing to repeal these regulations, including primarily that they are not authorized under the Clean Air Act (CAA), as amended.

The EPA’s Proposed Rule¹ on the Repeal of GHG Emissions Standards for Fossil Fuel-Fired EGUs (GHG Proposed Rule), actually offers two proposals – the primary proposal being more robust and encompassing three actions, while the alternative proposal is more tailored and narrow in its reach.

The primary proposal entails:

The alternative proposal being offered by the EPA in the GHG Proposed Rule repeals the:

The EPA states that these actions under the alternative proposal will “resolve a decade’s worth of regulatory uncertainty brought by the Agency’s novel attempts to regulate GHG emissions from fossil fuel-fired power plants under CAA section 111.”⁸ To further substantiate this position, the EPA relies on the decision issued by the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) in the matter of West Virginia v. EPA, 597 U.S. 697 (2022), in which SCOTUS ruled, in response to EPA’s 2015 Clean Power Plan (CPP) Rule, “that CAA section 111 does not authorize the EPA to regulate fossil fuel-fired power plants by capping GHG emissions at a level that forces a nationwide transition away from the use of coal to generate electricity.”⁹ In 2024, the EPA repealed the 2015 CPP Rule and replaced it with the CPS, which “embraced the goals of the 2015 NSPS and CPP by expanding restrictions on certain new sources and regulating existing sources in a similarly stringent manner.”¹⁰

The EPA further justifies the proposed rule on the basis that throughout the rulemaking, as well as through subsequent litigation over the CPS, “States, regulated entities, and other stakeholders warned that these standards exceed the EPA’s authority to mandate already demonstrated technologies, not technologies that will not be widely available until sometime in the future, are based on inadequately demonstrated technologies, are unachievable, threaten to impose massive costs on the power sector, and do not adequately ensure the national interest in affordable, reliable electricity.”¹¹

The EPA’s Proposed Rule¹² on the Repeal of Amendments to NESHAP: Coal- and Oil-Fired EGUs (MATS Proposed Rule), is specifically focused on repealing the 2024 amendments made to the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) promulgated on May 7, 2024.¹³ The 2024 amendments which EPA is proposing to repeal include:¹⁴

According to the Press Release¹⁵ , the MATS Proposed Rule would reinstate the 2012 MATS, which “have driven sharp reductions in harmful air toxic pollutants from coal- and oil-fired power plants.” In fact, the position of the EPA is that the 2012 MATS Rule has “been highly effective in protecting public health and the environment,”¹⁶  and as such, the concern is that the 2024 amendments are overly and unnecessarily burdensome, costly, and do not provide any meaningful public health benefits.¹⁷ In its press release, the EPA shares that “2021 mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants were 90 percent lower than pre-MATS levels. Since 2010, acid gas hazardous air pollutant emissions have been reduced by over 96 percent, and emissions of the non-mercury metals – including nickel, arsenic, and lead – have been reduced by more than 81 percent.”¹⁸

These two proposed rules have been transmitted to the Office of the Federal Register for publication, and from the date of their publication, there will be a 45-day public comment period. We will be monitoring the developments of these actions and regularly reporting on the updates.