The facts
The Trump administration is moving to repeal Biden-era climate regulations, which it claims could save the industry up to $670 billion in compliance costs. According to EPA chief Lee Zeldin, the agency is repealing the majority of the Biden administration's greenhouse gas requirements for U.S. power plants. The EPA projects that repealing these standards alone will save $310 billion in compliance costs. Zeldin has also proposed eliminating all remaining greenhouse gas emission standards, which is projected to save an additional $370 billion. The move, reported by the Washington Free Beacon, is intended to boost coal and natural gas power production, with coal production for the power sector expected to increase tenfold under the changes. Zeldin stated that the Obama and Biden administrations waged a "war on coal," and the Trump administration is acting to protect American energy and ensure affordable electricity. He added that Americans will see a decrease in electricity prices and that the administration is working to "fully unleash" American energy for more jobs, lower prices, and prosperity. The EPA's statement indicated that models show GHG emissions from power plants have no material impact on global climate change and that any potential public health harms are too uncertain to tie specifically to the U.S. power sector. Energy Secretary Chris Wright endorsed the EPA's move, emphasizing the critical stability provided by coal and natural gas for U.S. power infrastructure.
Our take
Well, shit. The Environmental Protection Agency has officially pivoted from protection to pimping, announcing a plan to repeal every Biden-era climate rule and save the power industry $670 billion. That’s not a regulatory adjustment; that’s a fucking heist where the loot is measured in future asthma inhalers and coastal property values. EPA chief Lee Zeldin, a man whose understanding of science seems to end at whatever fits on a cocktail napkin, says this bold move is necessary because greenhouse gases from power plants have “no material impact on global climate change.” According to his agency’s models, if all carbon dioxide vanished tomorrow, nothing would happen. This is the intellectual equivalent of arguing that bullets have no material impact on a body because you can’t see the hole from space.
The crown jewel of this policy is the projected tenfold increase in coal production for the power sector. Let’s be clear: in the year 2026, the fucking EPA is engineering a thousand percent surge in the fuel that powers nineteenth-century locomotives and pediatric ICU admissions. Zeldin calls this protecting “reliable and affordable energy” from the Obama-Biden “war on coal.” It wasn’t a war, you asshole. It was a collective decision to stop gargling carcinogens. This is like declaring a war on seatbelts because the windshield lobby felt underrepresented.
What’s the payoff for this soot-filled renaissance? Zeldin promises lower electricity prices. Wonderful. So for the price of a large coffee each month, you can subsidize an industry whose business model is turning bedrock into lung cancer while your state alternately burns and floods. The EPA’s statement adds that any potential public health harms are “too uncertain, conjectural, remote, and convoluted” to tie to the U.S. power sector. That’s a bureaucrat’s way of saying the chain of causation between a smokestack and a dead kid has too many links for their tiny, greased-up brains to follow. It’s a liability dodge written by someone who thinks ‘conjectural’ is a good substitute for a conscience.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright endorsed this masterpiece, praising coal and gas for providing stability “regardless of whether the wind is blowing or the sun is shining.” No shit, bastard. The wind and sun are also stable, free, and don’t require mining the goddamn Appalachians into a sieve. This entire scheme is a $670 billion monument to failure, a subsidy for technological obsolescence sold as patriotic energy liberation. They’re not unleashing American potential. They’re unleashing a palliative care plan for a corpse of an industry and sending the bill to your grandchildren in the form of a uninhabitable rock. The lights will stay on, alright. They’ll just be the emergency flares for a species that decided saving a buck was worth swallowing the whole fucking planet.
