On 14 September 2026, the head of the US Environmental Protection Agency, Lee Zeldin, announced that the rules limiting pollution from coal and gas power plants are being scrapped. The EPA also said it would take steps to stop future administrations from regulating power plant emissions.
The excuse is money. The EPA claims that scrapping most Biden-era climate rules will save $310 billion and bring down energy prices. Those same rules were estimated to prevent 4,500 premature deaths every year. The EPA’s reply is that any potential public health harm is “too uncertain, conjectural, remote, and convoluted” to tie to the US power sector.
The US is the second-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases after China. Its power sector alone emits roughly 1.5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent a year, about a quarter of US emissions and more than the total emissions of all but a handful of countries.
This is the fossil fuel lobby writing the rulebook in Washington. The bill will be paid in American lungs, and in heat and floods across the Global South, India included.
Source: BBC News, 14 September 2026 — https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cmly433ke05vo
