The Trump administration is from coal- and gas-fired power plants.
It says the changes will . What consumers pay will depend partly on the cost of keeping older plants running compared with building and operating new ones. Even if the changes make electricity cheaper, the administration’s headline savings estimate leaves out the health and climate costs of additional pollution.
The Environmental Protection Agency also repealed emissions standards for equipment to at coal-fired plants undergoing major modifications and for new gas-fired turbines that run frequently. That equipment keeps much of the carbon dioxide emitted from burning coal and gas out of the atmosphere, where it would contribute to climate change.
The agency is trying to prevent future administrations from restoring the previous rules, by to regulate power plant greenhouse gas emissions to address climate change.
As an , I look beyond the direct compliance costs of meeting emissions limits to assess the full costs and benefits to Americans. Keeping aging coal plants open, building new natural gas plants and choices about pollution controls each affect electricity bills. Additional pollution also brings health costs and climate damage that may not appear on those bills.
The basic economics of meeting rising electricity demand
As , electricity suppliers face decisions about how long to operate existing coal plants and when to invest in new generating capacity.
In an outlook issued in April 2026, the U.S. Energy Information Administration projected that power companies would and building new natural gas plants, even if the greenhouse gas rules were repealed.
Keeping aging coal plants operating can help meet power demand while new projects are built, but – especially when comparing older coal plants with new gas plants. The trade-off between delaying retirement and building new plants depends on fuel prices, plant efficiency and maintenance needs.
Repealing the , and removing the requirement to capture and store carbon dioxide, can make both continued coal operation and new gas plant construction more financially attractive by reducing the cost of controlling greenhouse gas emissions. But if future administrations change the rules, could cost even more than installing this equipment during construction.
Which plants remain open, which plants get built and whether new plants include pollution control equipment at the outset will affect Americans’ electricity bills.
Old and costly
Keeping old coal plants open isn’t necessarily a money saver.
The J.H. Campbell coal plant, on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, provides a concrete example. Its owner, Consumers Energy, had planned to retire its on . The company’s . Consumers Energy estimated that the broader plan would .
But just days before the planned shutdown, the U.S. Department of Energy ordered Consumers Energy to , saying that retiring the plant would threaten the grid’s ability to meet electricity demand without interruptions. The department has repeatedly extended that order, most recently . The Campbell coal plant is just one of that the Trump administration has forced to remain operational after their owners had planned to shut them down. These orders are separate from the EPA’s emissions-rule repeal.
Michigan, Illinois and Minnesota, supported by environmental groups, challenged the orders keeping the plant running. On Sept. 11, 2026, a . However, Consumers Energy said it would , which extends through Nov. 14. .
The costs of keeping the plant going have recently become clear – as has who might be asked to foot the bill.
In its , Consumers Energy reported the net cost of keeping the Campbell plant running from May 2025 through June 2026 was $259 million – an amount above and beyond the $239 million in revenues it earned in the electricity market.
Consumers Energy has to let it pass those costs on to customers across the Midwest – including people who get their power from other utility companies. How much the company could collect, and how the costs would be divided, remains disputed.
Measuring affordability
To defend its repeal of pollution limits, the EPA has estimated from 2026 to 2047. The projected savings come from avoiding spending on carbon capture and storage, allowing efficient new gas-fueled plants to run more often without capturing their carbon dioxide emissions, and keeping more coal plants open so fewer new plants need to be built.
The agency projects that national average electricity prices across homes and businesses without the limits than they would be if the rules remained in place. For a home or business that uses 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity a month, that could mean power bills roughly $8 a month lower with these changes than if current rules weren’t repealed.
Pollution costs
Electricity bills capture only part of the costs Americans bear. Local air pollution harms , while greenhouse gas emissions contribute to climate change. Those costs aren’t considered in the EPA’s $310 billion savings estimate.
Burning fossil fuels releases pollutants that form fine particles and ground-level ozone, increasing risks of . Families face poorer health, medical expenses and the costs of missed work and school.
Greenhouse gas emissions contribute to climate change by increasing the concentration of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere. The , , documents risks to health, infrastructure and agricultural productivity. Families experience these through heat-caused illness, damaged homes and lost earnings.
Carbon emissions standards can reduce conventional air pollution as well as greenhouse gases when they shift production away from coal. In its , the EPA estimated that the additional illnesses and premature deaths from fine particle and ozone pollution exposure due to the repeal would cost . That figure includes the monetized costs of the increased risks of premature death as well as medical expenses from additional illnesses.
The headline $310 billion savings estimate from EPA’s excludes air pollution and climate costs, though it does estimate how the repeal would change power plant emissions and air quality. It projects higher carbon dioxide emissions and, by 2035, higher fine particle and ozone levels across much of the eastern U.S. than if the standards remained in place. But it to the resulting health costs or climate damage and ultimately does not include those costs as part of its headline benefit-cost estimate.
Widespread effects
These rule changes could have nationwide and even global effects, including discouraging U.S. investment in technologies that can and store it safely.
Alabama’s National Carbon Capture Center has . If the U.S. stops innovating, that would weaken global efforts to .
The repeal’s effect on power companies’ present-day decisions – which plants to continue to operate, what to build and with what pollution controls built in – affects the electricity prices consumers pay now and over the coming decades. To get a full picture of the effects of the repeal, any savings on electricity bills must be weighed against the costs of additional illness, premature deaths and lost productivity from increased local air pollution exposure; the climate damage from increases in greenhouse gas emissions; and the foregone global benefits from innovations in pollution control technology.
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