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Tell the EPA to Put Science First on Power Plant Pollution
Final signature count: 4,848
4,848 signatures toward our 30,000 goal
Sponsor: The Rainforest Site
The EPA repealed its biggest-ever climate safeguard for power plants. The rulemaking isn't over.
In September 2026, the EPA formally repealed greenhouse gas emissions standards for fossil fuel power plants — what the agency itself called the largest deregulatory action ever taken in the power sector.1,6 The rollback eliminates limits that applied to both new and existing coal and gas plants, dismantling protections built on decades of scientific findings about climate pollution and its effects on human health.
What's at Stake for Public Health
Power plants burning coal and natural gas rank among the largest sources of greenhouse gas pollution in the United States. Research from the Environment America Research & Policy Center documents the outsized contribution the dirtiest of these facilities make to air quality problems and climate-related health risks.2 These are not abstract concerns. They translate directly into respiratory illness, heat-related disease, and compounding harm to communities — often the most vulnerable — living near plant operations.
Federal authority to regulate these emissions rests on an EPA "endangerment finding" — a formal scientific determination that greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare. As the Harvard Environmental and Energy Law Program notes, that finding remains intact even as the rules built upon it have been stripped away.5 Repealing regulations does not erase the harm they were designed to prevent.
Aging Coal Plants Get a Longer Life
One direct consequence of this deregulation: aging coal plants can stay operational longer than they otherwise would have. According to Fortune, the rollback is driven in part by surging electricity demand from artificial intelligence data centers, with the administration leaning on extended coal plant operation to meet that demand.4 Without emissions requirements, plant operators face far less financial pressure to retire older, more polluting facilities.
Part of a Larger Pattern
This repeal does not stand alone. Former EPA officials, speaking to The Verge, identified roughly 30 federal environmental rollbacks since 2025 that collectively increase pollution risks — many tied to the expansion of electricity generation for AI infrastructure.3 The cumulative effect is a significant weakening of the regulatory framework communities near power plants have long relied on for basic protection. As NPR reported, the rules now removed represented some of the most consequential federal climate action targeting the electricity sector in U.S. history.1
Your Comment Can Make a Difference
EPA rulemaking requires the agency to weigh scientific evidence and public input before any decision becomes final. That process gives every citizen a legal avenue to demand that federal authority over power plant emissions be preserved — and that any final rule reflect the full body of climate health science, not industry pressure or short-term electricity politics.
Sign the petition now to urge the EPA Administrator to retain federal greenhouse gas regulation of fossil fuel power plants and base the final rule on the complete scientific record of climate's risks to public health.
