Rules aimed at limiting pollution from coal and gas power plants are being ended, the head of the US Environmental Protection Agency has announced.
The EPA said that getting rid of most the climate rules from President Joe Biden's era would save $310bn and reduce energy prices.
The EPA said in a statement that it found the Biden-era rules on power plant emissions had "exceeded the agency's authority".
The Biden-era regulations called for a reduction in carbon emissions from power plants, as well as vehicles and industrial facilities.
US power sector emissions have been generally falling over the past couple of decades, albeit with a slight uptick last year, as coal use has fallen.
5 sentences from our version of the report,
chosen to cover it. Nothing here is written; every line is in the article below.
How
Summarized version
The EPA said getting rid of most the climate rules from President Joe Biden's era would save $310bn and reduce energy prices. The power sector makes up about a quarter of US emissions, at roughly 1.5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent each year, according to the latest available estimates.
Headline check
There is nothing in this headline a machine can check against the report: no figure, no name and no quotation.
Rules aimed at limiting pollution from coal and gas power plants are being ended, the head of the US Environmental Protection Agency has announced.
The agency also said it would take steps to prevent future administrations from regulating power plant emissions.
The EPA said that getting rid of most the climate rules from President Joe Biden's era would save $310bn and reduce energy prices.
The EPA's move is expected to face immediate legal challenges.
Fossil fuels are by far the largest driver of global climate change, according to the United Nations.
The EPA said in a statement that it found the Biden-era rules on power plant emissions had "exceeded the agency's authority".
The EPA is also seeking to get rid of all other greenhouse gas rules for the power sector.
The Biden-era regulations called for a reduction in carbon emissions from power plants, as well as vehicles and industrial facilities.
Nathaniel Keohane, president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions – an independent environmental organisation – described the move as "a giant step backward".
US power sector emissions have been generally falling over the past couple of decades, albeit with a slight uptick last year, as coal use has fallen.
In 2022, the EPA lost some of its powers to limit greenhouse gas emissions when the Supreme Court ruled in favour of 19 states and some of the nation's largest coal companies, which were worried about the economic cost of the policy and argued the agency did not have the authority to limit emissions across whole states.
Shortened to 1 minute
of reading, this version reads 7.7 on the Niral Score.
You are reading our version, not theirs.
This is BBC News (Science and Environment)'s report shortened to its most important sentences, in plainer words, with
verdicts and loaded words taken out. Plain description stays, and so do adjectives
that carry a fact, such as "former" or "federal". The reporting, the facts and the quotations
are theirs — quotations are never edited — and the indicators beside it measure
this version. Hover or tap Adjectives to see every one left in the text.
How this outlet filed it, and how we rewrote it
No other newsroom we read has filed on this event, so there is nothing to compare it with yet.
Readers can ask a question about this story here.
Questions and answers are for subscribers.
Sign in
to read them.
Comments are read before they appear where anything in them needs a person to look.
Nothing posted here is ever deleted; a comment taken down keeps its text and the reason,
so the decision can be looked at again. How this works
