Senator Markey Statement on EPA’s Repeal of Power Plant Greenhouse Gas Emission Standards and Proposal to Abdicate Responsibility for Addressing the Danger of Climate Change from the Power Sector

Washington (September 14, 2026) - Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee and a co-chair of the Senate Environmental Justice Caucus, today released the following statement after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized its repeal of the 2024 greenhouse gas emission standards for existing coal-fired and new natural gas-fired power plants and announced that it no longer plans to regulate greenhouse gas pollution from power plants, a major driver of climate change. “By rejecting the EPA’s responsibility to regulate climate change caused by greenhouse gas pollution from power plants, Trump and Zeldin are defying the laws of this country, the laws of physics, and the law of common sense. Their Polluters First Agenda passes the very real costs of a more dangerous environment and a more extreme climate onto working families. This is a slap in the face to anyone who has lost their home to wildfires or was washed out by an extreme storm. It is a slap in the face to parents who want their kids to breathe clean air, not suffer from asthma or heat stroke. And it is a slap in the face to anyone who put trust into the Environmental Protection Agency to uphold its mission to protect human health and the environment, not protect corporate polluter profits. We don’t need dirty power when we have the solutions and can get cheap, clean megawatts on the grid, and we don’t need dirty politicians overruling the scientific necessity of action.” This move follows the Trump EPA’s elimination of the Endangerment Finding, the determination that affirms the scientific risks of climate change and requires federal action to protect Americans from harm. The Trump EPA has also eliminated greenhouse gas emission standards for cars and trucks and slashed protections against mercury, soot, and other dangerous emissions from the power sector. In addition to specific rollbacks of statutorily-required protections, the EPA has also stopped accounting for the public health benefits of regulatory action—valuing human health at zero, compared to compliance costs for profitable polluting industries. In April 2024, the Biden administration finalized standards to reduce pollution from fossil fuel-fired power plants, which are the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector in the United States. If it were a country, the American power sector would be the fifth-largest emitter of climate pollution in the world. ###