Trump’s EPA repeals limits on carbon air pollution
North Carolina and 20 other states have filed a legal challenge to the Trump EPA’s decision to repeal limits on carbon air pollution from power plants.
NC Attorney General Jeff Jackson represents North Carolina as one the states, counties, and cities challenging the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) move to revoke the Biden Era limits on climate-heating pollution from fossil fuel power plants.
“The EPA is giving companies a green light to pump pollution into the air we breathe, put our health in danger, and harm our state’s natural resources,” said AG Jackson. “We’re taking the EPA to court to restore safeguards that were put in place to ensure a safe country and clean air for our children.”
Economic, health costs of rollbacks
In his news release, Jackson noted that “power plants produce roughly a quarter of the country’s carbon dioxide emissions” and the EPA’s repeal of limits on that pollution will “worsen extreme heat and deadly storms, which would cost state and local governments more to recover from extreme weather” as well as “worsen asthma, heart disease, and other serious respiratory illnesses.”
The lawsuit argues that the EPA unlawfully repealed the pollution limits without considering reasonable alternatives or the impact on public health and the environment. It asks that the court strike down the repeal of the limits on pollution from some of the nation’s largest polluters.
Other states following suit
In addition to North Carolina’s AG Jackson, the lawsuit was filed by the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia, as well as the governor of Pennsylvania, the mayors of New York City and Chicago, and the City and County of Denver.
“We applaud Attorney General Jackson’s leadership in protecting our air quality and safeguarding public health,” said Jeffrey Robbins, executive director of the nonprofit CleanAIRE North Carolina. “Joining this lawsuit sends a clear message: North Carolina will not stand by while federal rollbacks force our families to pay higher costs at the pump for dirtier air. Our health should not be secondary to fossil fuel industry profits.”
The Trump EPA estimates that the repeal would save the power sector $95 billion to $160 billion in compliance costs over the next 20 years, but those estimates exclude the health and environmental costs of greenhouse gas emissions. The EPA’s calculations also ignore the financial benefits of reining in the pollutants, estimated by the Biden Administration to total $370 billion in climate and public health costs through 2047.
“Erasing these standards doesn’t save money,” said CleanAIRE NC’s Robbins. “It simply transfers the financial burden from corporate polluters onto the backs of patients, families and ratepayers.”
Environmental and public health group involvement
The states and local governments filing this litigation follow the challenge filed by environmental and public health groups in September. That challenge was filed by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), American Lung Association, American Public Health Association, Clean Air Council, and Clean Wisconsin (represented by Clean Air Task Force), and the Environmental Defense Fund at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
“Repealing these standards without a replacement is an abdication of EPA’s legal responsibility to protect public health and the environment,” said Meredith Hankins, federal climate legal director at NRDC. “The Clean Air Act and Supreme Court precedent demand that the EPA address climate pollution from the largest industrial source in the nation. The EPA’s legal reasoning is fatally flawed, so we are going to court.”
The Trump EPA revoked the Biden EPA’s rules controlling carbon pollution from power plants during September.
NCLCV covered the impacts of that action on North Carolina in our earlier story here.