Edward Smith, edward.smith@sierraclub.org
COLUMBIA, S.C. - Today, Donald Trump’s administration proposed to repeal the Endangerment Finding for power plants – a move that would permanently strip the Environmental Protection Agency of its authority to limit greenhouse gas emissions from coal and gas power plants under the Clean Air Act. This action would remove one of the EPA’s most powerful tools for combating climate change. Combined with the administration’s February repeal of the Endangerment Finding for motor vehicles, today’s proposal is part of a sweeping effort to dismantle the legal foundation for federal climate regulation, leaving the EPA legally unable to act on the two largest sources of carbon pollution in the country.
In 2025, South Carolina power plants released 28,507,146 metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. That’s the equivalent of 6,649,442 gasoline-powered vehicles driven for one year or burning 158,034 railcars worth of coal. It would take 471,368,110 tree seedlings grown for 10 years to offset South Carolina power plant carbon dioxide emissions in 2025 alone.
“I want my kids and hopefully their kids to someday have the same chance to enjoy their childhood playing outdoors like I did,” said Paul Black, Sierra Club’s Senior Campaign Organizer in South Carolina. “This is an all-hands-on-deck moment for people who care about our home and shared environment to engage and tell the EPA that it must stop this effort now, and give us a shot at a livable planet.”
The proposal is another one of Donald Trump’s attempts to bolster the profits of a struggling coal industry and deliver directly on the promises EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin made to the corporate executives at a National Coal Council meeting in July, where he vowed to fulfill the industry’s “wish list.” The administration has already given more than $700 million in taxpayer dollars to the coal industry, despite the immense public and environmental harms associated with burning coal for electricity, and the well-documented evidence that renewable energy is now cheaper, cleaner, and more reliable than fossil fuels.
The handouts and regulatory giveaways come as renewable energy continues to outperform coal in the marketplace. In May, solar energy generated more electricity than coal across the entire country. The coal industry cannot compete with solar—it’s being kept on life support by taxpayer subsidies and regulatory handouts, while ordinary families pay the price in higher electricity bills, dirtier air, and more extreme weather fueled by carbon pollution.
“While wildfires rage, floods devastate communities, and families struggle to afford skyrocketing electricity bills and insurance premiums, the Trump administration is handing the fossil fuel industry a license to keep polluting,” said Sierra Club Chief Program Officer Holly Bender. “This is full-throated climate denial while the climate crisis happens in real time and a shocking betrayal of the American public. The Sierra Club will fight back against this reckless and dangerous proposal with everything we have in the courts, in Congress, and in communities across the country.”
Background
The Endangerment Finding is a 2009 scientific determination by the EPA that greenhouse gasses pose a significant threat to public health and the environment. It is the legal cornerstone of the EPA’s authority to regulate climate pollution under the Clean Air Act – the foundation upon which vehicle standards, power plant rules, and other climate protections have all been built. The nonpartisan National Academies of Sciences confirmed last year that the finding “was accurate, has stood the test of time, and is now reinforced by even stronger evidence.”
The Sierra Club has been at the forefront of the fight for federal climate standards longer than any other organization. In December 2002, the Club filed the first-ever climate case under the Clean Air Act in federal court, which ultimately led to the Supreme Court’s decision in Massachusetts v. EPA that the Clean Air Act covers greenhouse gas pollution and to all of the federal climate standards that followed. Now, two-and-a-half decades later, Donald Trump and Lee Zeldin are trying to destroy those hard-won victories in an effort to double-down on the fossil fuels that are harming the climate and environment, and driving up costs.
About the Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with millions of members and supporters. In addition to protecting every person's right to get outdoors and access the healing power of nature, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org.