The EPA just repealed a Biden-era rule that would have forced power plants to spend hundreds of billions capturing carbon dioxide, and the only people upset are the ones who've never had to choose between a heating bill and groceries.
The rollback, announced Monday, scraps regulations that required existing coal plants and certain new natural gas plants to capture 90% of their carbon emissions by 2032 or shut down by 2039. The EPA estimates the repeal eliminates more than $300 billion in costs for the energy industry — costs that would have been passed straight to ratepayers. According to the Daily Caller, the agency argued the move would reduce costs and bolster grid reliability.
That's what this was always about: forcing utilities to either install unproven, expensive carbon capture technology or close up shop. Not because the grid demanded it, not because ratepayers wanted it, but because climate ideologues in the Biden administration decided they knew better than the people who keep the lights on.
Jason Isaac, founder and CEO of the American Energy Institute, put it plainly: "America should be producing more affordable, reliable energy, not forcing power plants and taxpayers to spend billions capturing and burying CO₂."
He's right. Carbon capture at scale remains a fantasy propped up by green subsidies — what Isaac aptly called the "Green New Scam" in a recent post highlighting the irony: while the EPA rolls back CO₂ mandates, the Texas Railroad Commission is set to approve a massive carbon capture project positioned to collect billions in those very same tax credits. Follow the money, and the grift writes itself.
Steve Milloy, senior legal fellow at the Energy & Environment Legal Institute, told the Daily Caller that "repealing the power plant rule for greenhouse gas emissions is key to the Trump energy agenda" — but cautioned that "it will have to be defended in court."
That's where this gets interesting. The legal fight over EPA's power to regulate power plant emissions has been running for years. In 2022, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in West Virginia v. EPA that the Clean Air Act did not give the agency authority to impose the Obama-era generation-shifting approach — the scheme to force electricity production away from coal toward lower-emitting sources. The Court applied the major questions doctrine, holding that an agency claiming authority over an issue of major economic and political significance needs clear authorization from Congress.
That's the constitutional principle at stake. The Founders gave the lawmaking power to Congress — elected representatives who answer to voters. They did not give it to unelected bureaucrats at the EPA who answer to no one. Every time an agency tries to legislate through regulation, it steals a vote that belongs to the American people.
Milloy noted the fight isn't over — and warned that the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division lacks the political leadership to defend the rollback effectively in court. If the administration can't win the legal battles that follow the policy wins, the policy won't survive.
The green lobby will sue. They always do. The question is whether the courts will finally enforce the Constitution's separation of powers — or keep letting the administrative state write its own authority.
