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We’re leading an all-out national mobilization to defeat the climate crisis.

Join our work today to help us build a thriving and just clean energy future. 

Falling Further Behind: Our Latest EPA Report Card on Power Sector Rules

EPA needs to move further and faster this year to finalize and implement rules to comprehensively tackle pollution from the power sector. The agency is missing the mark – they’ve recently announced projected delays on most rules vital to that effort.

Updated February 2024

Evergreen created the original EPA Report Card in October 2022, analyzing EPA’s progress on 10 key climate and air quality regulations for the power sector. At that time, EPA was noticeably falling behind on eight of these critical rules, all of which are instrumental in cutting pollution harming frontline communities and exacerbating the climate crisis. Since then, the report card has been updated in January 2023, March 2023, July 2023, and February 2024. 

This latest version welcomes EPA’s progress in finalizing a strong soot standard, which will protect thousands of people from dangerous pollution. However, the administration still has urgent work ahead, as five of these rules are at risk of not being finalized within President Biden’s first term—including rules for power plant carbon pollution, mercury, toxic water pollution, and coal ash.

Most urgently, EPA must quickly strengthen and finalize its proposal to regulate carbon pollution from new and existing power plants before April of this year. Otherwise, the rules are at risk of being permanently overturned by the Congressional Review Act. We’re down to the wire, and EPA has no time to waste.

Download the Updated Report Card

 


 

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released disappointing new rule delays in the Fall 2022 Unified Regulatory Agenda, falling further behind on nine key climate change and air quality regulations that would help reduce pollution in the power sector, leaving only one rule on track. In October 2022, Evergreen analysis found that EPA was falling behind on eight rules, with two on schedule. 

This is deeply troubling: These delays threaten the Biden administration’s ability to finalize many of these important rules within their first term. And those that they do complete may be vulnerable to being blocked altogether by Republicans via the Congressional Review Act. 

President Biden and the Environmental Protection Agency must be moving further, faster—not falling further behind.

Why Are These 10 Power Sector Rules Vital?

Last August, President Biden signed historic climate investments into law with the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Multiple analyses by experts indicate that the IRA will help cut carbon pollution by around 40 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. That leaves 10-12 percent still on the table to meet the president’s pledge to reduce carbon pollution 50-52 percent economy-wide by 2030.

To meet President Biden’s promises, EPA must pursue a coordinated, comprehensive regulatory strategy that targets power sector pollution. Cleaning up the power sector is critical to decarbonization—because cleaning up the grid significantly helps to clean up transportation, buildings, and some heavy industry. 

It’s a domino effect. Focusing regulatory efforts on the power sector is a powerful, strategic way to address carbon pollution in almost every corner of the economy. 

What’s at Stake?

It’s crucial that EPA finalizes these rules on a much faster timeline than they have committed to in the Unified Regulatory Agenda. EPA’s continued delays in their regulatory agenda laid out in the Unified Agenda not only threaten successful implementation of these rules, but have real-life health impacts on the American people. Waiting to finalize any rules tackling power sector pollution will mean exposing people around the country to more dangerous pollution that we know contributes to tens of thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of illnesses every year, while the climate crisis worsens. 

It’s also a matter of environmental justice: Black Americans are more likely to live near coal-fired power plants than their white counterparts. That means that these delays will perpetuate long-standing environmental injustices that President Biden campaigned on addressing. 

EPA must make every effort to prevent further delay and advance the critical power sector rules that will help us reach President Biden’s climate and pollution commitments and meet the urgency of the moment.

A scorecard for 10 vital power sector rules

You've Downloaded the Memo. Here's How to Take Action. 

By going further, faster to finalize these 10 rules on an expedited timeline, President Biden and Administrator Regan can ensure that key climate and clean air promises are kept before the next election and that our climate targets remain within reach. By delaying, EPA risks leaving signature achievements unfinished—or risks their reversal by a future Congress or administration before they can even take effect.

It’s time for the Biden administration to ramp up the urgency. They need to hear from you. Sign on now and help us turn up the pressure on the administration. They need to know: Americans can’t afford any more delays on these vital rules. 

Take Action: Tell EPA To Clean Up Climate Pollution

EPA has a legal obligation to protect Americans from climate pollution. Join Evergreen Action now to send a comment to EPA urging them to set the strongest-possible carbon pollution standards for power plants.