US court rejects EPA bid to ease regulations for coal-fired power plants

WASHINGTON - A U.S. federal appeals court on Friday rejected the Environmental Protection Agency's bid to withdraw Biden-era limits on soot pollution from coal-fired power plants and factories, in a setback for the Trump administration's deregulatory efforts.

The EPA under President Donald Trump last year asked the appeals court to invalidate the 2024 rule, arguing it had earlier acted unreasonably by failing to consider costs while setting the standard.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected the petition, leaving the annual limit of 9 micrograms per cubic meter of fine particulate matter, known as PM 2.5, in place.

"After initially defending the new rule, the EPA now moves to vacate the rule on the grounds that it exceeded its statutory authority and acted unreasonably by failing to consider costs. Because these arguments lack merit, we deny the petitions for review and the motion for vacatur," the ruling said.

The EPA under Biden had said the tighter limits would avoid more than 800,000 cases of asthma symptoms, 2,000 hospital visits and 4,500 premature deaths.

But the EPA under Trump has said that the 2024 rule costs "hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars to American citizens if allowed to be implemented" and was not based on a full review of available science. It said on Friday it was reviewing the decision.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement that the ruling showed the 2024 standard "was grounded in decades of scientific research clearly showing that stronger standards reducing particulate matter pollution were necessary to save lives."

The Natural Resources Defense Council also praised the court decision.

"While the Trump EPA dragged its heels, millions of Americans kept breathing unhealthy levels of soot - pollution the science shows has no safe level," the environmental group said. "This decision removes any remaining doubt: the science has long been clear, and now the law is too."

(Reporting by David Shepardson and Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani and Edwina Gibbs)

Copyright Reuters or USA Today Network via Reuters Connect

This story was originally published June 26, 2026 at 10:25 PM.