The Trump administration’s dramatic rollback of powerplant air pollution standards lasted all of a week before being challenged in court by 25 states face increased greenhouse gas emissions.
A coalition of 25 states, counties, and cities, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, announced today (Oct. 1) its intent to sue over the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) dismantling of federal greenhouse gas pollution limits for many of the nation’s largest power plants.
With today’s lawsuit, the coalition is asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to strike down the rollback.
Coal- and gas-fired power plants were required under the old limits to reduce emissions and curb the pollution fueling the climate crisis. Trump has repeatedly said climate change is a “hoax.”
The EPA also is attempting to prevent future administrations from introducing new regulations, said James and the coalition in a statement.
“The administration is clearing the way for millions of additional tons of greenhouse gas emissions that will worsen extreme heat, deadly storms, flooding, and wildfires,” the coalition stated.
The coalition is filing a petition for review to strike down the repeal and notifying EPA of its intent to sue over the agency’s continued failure to fully regulate pollution from existing natural gas power plants.
“Future generations are going to pay the price for our federal government’s callous disregard for Americans’ health and the environment,” said James.
“This administration’s insistence on giving the nation’s biggest polluters a free pass will set our country back decades in the fight against climate change.
“Dismantling these protections is a betrayal of American families, and the stakes are too high to allow this administration to once again put profits over people.”
At issue are the 2024 Carbon Pollution Standards that required many of the country’s largest power plants to significantly reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
Power plants are among the largest drivers of the climate crisis, producing roughly one-quarter of the nation’s carbon dioxide emissions.
The administration is merely propping up outdated, unhealthy, and expensive fossil fuel plants, which will only increase electricity costs, on behalf of the oil and gas industry, which has contributed heavily to Trump’s election campaigns.
The upshot of the new rules will be more frequent and more intense heat waves that put children, older adults, and workers at risk. It also contributes to stronger storms and heavier flooding that damage homes, businesses, and transit systems, as well as more wildfire smoke that makes New York’s air dangerous to breathe, the coalition states.
Asthma, heart disease, and other serious respiratory illnesses, especially in low-income and other overburdened communities, will be some of the outcomes of the new, lower standards.
Local and state governments must also spend billions of dollars recovering from increasingly extreme weather.
The coaltion specifically charges that the EPA unlawfully abandoned these pollution limits without considering reasonable alternatives or the enormous health and climate costs of allowing more pollution into the atmosphere.
The rescission was arbitrary and capricious because EPA did not sufficiently calculate the full cost of repealing the rule, it asserts.
So-called “peaker” plants that often operate during periods of high electricity demand are frequently located in low-income communities and communities of color that already bear a disproportionate share of pollution.
“By delaying these protections for years, EPA has left many frontline communities without the safeguards required by the Clean Air Act.
If finalized, that proposal could make it significantly harder for future administrations to limit climate pollution from power plants.
The New York Independent reported two weeks ago that the protections are vital in the face of explosive data center growth, which places huge demands on the nation’s electric grid.
“What is worse, EPA’s own analysis found that eliminating these protections would cause thousands of premature deaths and tens of billions of dollars in increased health costs for Americans across the country,” according to the Environmental Defense Fund, a citizen advocacy group.
Roughly 44% of Americans—about 152.3 million people—still live in counties with failing grades for ozone or particle pollution. Overall nationwide progress has stalled or reversed due to environmental factors, according to the American Lung Association’s 2026 “State of the Air” report.
Joining Attorney General James in one or more of these actions are attorneys general from Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia, as well as the Governor of Pennsylvania, and the Mayors of New York City and Chicago, and the City and County of Denver.
Keith Girard has four decades of experience as an award-winning reporter, editor-in-chief, and senior media executive. Keith’s career began in Washington, D.C., where he was a reporter for The Washington Post and a contributing editor for Regardie’s and Washingtonian magazines. He also worked as a writer/producer in CNN’s Washington Bureau and has written non-fiction books on the U.S. Marines in the Gulf War and Donald Trump and two novels, “The Heidelberg Conundrum” and “The Curse of Northam Bay.”