On March 12, 2025, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced that “the Agency will undertake 31 historic actions in the greatest and most consequential day of deregulation in U.S. history, to advance President Trump’s Day One Executive Orders (EOs) and Power the Great American Comeback.”
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“Today is the greatest day of deregulation our nation has seen. We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the U.S. and more,” Zeldin proclaimed in an EPA news release.
“These historic actions will roll back trillions in regulatory costs and hidden ‘taxes’ on U.S. families,” the release says. “As a result of these announcements, the cost of living for American families will decrease. It will be more affordable to purchase a car, heat homes, and operate a business. It will be more affordable to bring manufacturing into local communities while individuals widely benefit from the tangible economic impacts.”
Via e-mail, an EPA spokesperson said some of the announced regulations under reconsideration contain more than one action—for example, there are eight actions under the National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAPs)—constituting 31 total actions.
“It’s also important to note that [these] announcements were reconsiderations. As such, we will undergo the rulemaking process and are bound by the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and cannot prejudge the outcome,” the spokesperson wrote.
These reconsiderations will significantly impact regulated industry. Environment, health, and safety (EHS) professionals are advised to carefully monitor these evolving regulatory developments.
These deregulatory reconsideration actions fall under three broad umbrellas:
- Unleashing American energy
- Lowering the cost of living for American families
- Advancing cooperative federalism
Unleashing American energy
The Trump administration says it will reconsider the following regulations to pursue removing regulatory hurdles for the U.S. energy industry.
Reconsideration of power plant regulations
The 2015 Clean Power Plan (CPP) was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2022 in West Virginia v. EPA, holding that the major questions doctrine barred the EPA from misusing the Clean Air Act (CAA) to manipulate Americans’ energy choices and shift the balance of the nation’s electrical fuel mix. The Biden administration issued its own rule in 2024, which many critics say is just another attempt to achieve the CPP’s unlawful fuel-shifting goals, according to the EPA release.
Reconsideration of oil and gas industry regulations
These regulations fall under Section 111 of the CAA and Subpart W of the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP).
“Oil and gas standards promulgated by EPA must be rooted in the rule of law, not be used as a weapon to shut down development and manufacturing in the United States. EPA is reconsidering these regulations to ensure they do not prevent America from unleashing energy dominance and continuing our trajectory as a leader in clean energy and emissions reductions. We produce energy better and cleaner than so many other countries around the world, and yet Americans are punished at the end of the day by ideologically driven regulations,” Zeldin said in the news release.
Reconsideration of Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS)
While the EPA goes through the rulemaking process, the Trump administration is considering a 2-year compliance exemption via Section 112(i)(4) of the CAA for affected power plants.
“The current MATS rule has caused significant regulatory uncertainty, especially for coal plants in Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Texas, West Virginia and Wyoming. Cost estimates for this rule total over $790 million over the next decade starting in 2028, with at least $92 million per year for the power sector. These costs are large, especially given the success the industry has already achieved in reducing emissions of mercury and other hazardous air pollutants,” the EPA’s release continues.
According to the current administration, the GHGRP isn’t directly related to a potential regulation or developed with that intention, unlike other mandatory information collected by the EPA under the CAA.
The release adds, “The program requires over 8,000 facilities and suppliers in the United States to calculate and submit their emissions reporting annually. It costs hundreds of millions of dollars that could be better used to improve and upgrade environmental controls or other items at these facilities to have a noticeable impact on the improvement of the environment.”
The effluent limitations guidelines (ELGs) and standards for the steam electric power generating industry apply to power plants that generate electricity through the creation of steam. The 2024 regulations established stringent discharge standards for four wastewaters generated at these facilities: flue gas desulfurization wastewater, bottom ash transport water, combustion residual leachate, and legacy wastewater.
The EPA will reconsider these standards, including technology-based ELGs it promulgated for leachate under the 2024 supplemental steam electric ELGs, which are projected to cost the industry hundreds of millions of dollars that could be passed on to consumers.
The Agency’s review will evaluate modern technologies and management strategies to provide regulatory flexibility for oil and gas wastewater, also known as produced water, to be treated for beneficial reuse, including for artificial intelligence and data center cooling, rangeland irrigation, fire control, power generation, and ecological needs.
“This rule has raised significant concerns relating to national security and the value of the prescriptive requirements within the rule. As a result, the 2024 [Risk Management Program (RMP)] rule makes America’s oil and natural gas refineries and chemical facilities less safe and less competitive,” the EPA’s release continues.
Lowering the cost of living for American families
“These actions will roll back trillions of dollars in regulatory costs and hidden taxes,” Zeldin said in the Agency news release. “As a result, the cost of living for American families will decrease, and essentials such as buying a car, heating your home and operating a business will become more affordable. Our actions will also reignite American manufacturing, spreading economic benefits to communities.”
The current GHG rules for light-, medium-, and heavy-duty vehicles impose more than $700 billion in regulatory and compliance costs, the EPA’s release says. In addition to reconsidering these rules, the Agency is also reevaluating the “Clean Trucks Plan,” which includes the 2022 Heavy-Duty Nitrous Oxide (NOx) rule.
The Trump administration considers the 2009 Endangerment Finding to be flawed because “the Finding looks at a combination of emissions of six different gases—and cars don’t even omit all six.”
The EPA’s view then was that the Finding itself didn’t impose any costs and that it couldn’t consider future costs when making the Finding. The Agency has subsequently relied on the Endangerment Finding as part of its justification for seven vehicle regulations with an aggregate cost of more than 1 trillion dollars, according to figures in the EPA’s own regulatory impact analyses.
The EPA also intends to reconsider all its prior regulations and actions that rely on the Endangerment Finding.
See “Danger Ahead for EPA Endangerment Finding?” for more information.
Also noted in the EPA’s release, “The Agency is reconsidering the technology transition rule that forces companies to use particular technologies for refrigerant systems that raise the cost of food at the grocery store. … In addition to grocery stores, this rule has also harmed semiconductor manufacturing, which is key to making America the AI capital of the world – one of the five pillars in Administrator Zeldin’s ‘Powering the Great American Comeback’ initiative.”
The particulate matter (PM2.5) National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) are under reconsideration because they’ve “raised serious concerns from states across the country and served as a major obstacle to permitting.” Under this reconsideration, the EPA also announced it will soon release guidance to increase flexibility on NAAQS implementation, reforms to New Source Review, and direction on permitting obligations.
The EPA announced it will reconsider multiple NESHAPs affecting a broad range of American industrial sectors. Specifically, the EPA is initially reconsidering NESHAPs for integrated iron and steel manufacturing, rubber tire manufacturing, synthetic organic chemical manufacturing industry, commercial sterilizers for medical devices and spices, lime manufacturing, coke ovens, copper smelting, and taconite ore processing.
The EPA intends to evaluate other NESHAPs and New Source Performance Standards (NSPSs) to determine whether they should be reconsidered.
The Trump administration is considering a 2-year compliance exemption via Section 112(i)(4) of the CAA for affected facilities while the EPA goes through the rulemaking process.
“The way EPA has historically implemented this program has imposed significant costs on power plants and other sectors, calling into question the supply of affordable energy for American families. EPA intends to review its regulations implementing the Regional Haze Program to ensure that it fulfills Congressional intent, is based on current scientific information, and reflects recent improvements in air quality,” the Agency news release explains.
The “Unleashing American Energy” EO directs the EPA to “issue guidance to address these harmful and detrimental inadequacies, including consideration of eliminating the ‘social cost of carbon’ calculation from any Federal permitting or regulatory decision” within 60 days. It also states, “The calculation of the ‘social cost of carbon’ is marked by logical deficiencies, a poor basis in empirical science, politicization, and the absence of a foundation in legislation. Its abuse arbitrarily slows regulatory decisions and, by rendering the United States economy internationally uncompetitive, encourages a greater human impact on the environment by affording less efficient foreign energy producers a greater share of the global energy and natural resource market.”
The EPA announced updated enforcement discretion “to allow the agency to better focus on its core mission and Powering the Great American Comeback.” It will immediately revise National Enforcement and Compliance Initiatives to “ensure that enforcement does not discriminate based on race and socioeconomic status (as it has under environmental justice initiatives) or shut down energy production and that it focuses on the most pressing health and safety issues,” which will “provide predictability as EPA considers changes to regulations, thereby lowering costs for Americans and relieving the economy of potentially unnecessary bureaucratic burdens.”
Following Trump’s EO “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing,” EPA employees in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and environmental justice are on administrative leave.
“Some believe that so-called ‘environmental justice’ is warranted to assist communities that have been left behind. This idea sounds good in theory and receives bipartisan support. But in reality, ‘environmental justice’ has been used primarily as an excuse to fund left-wing activists instead of actually spending those dollars to directly remediate environmental issues for those communities,” Zeldin said in the Agency’s release.
Advancing cooperative federalism
Cooperative federalism offers us a vision of independent governments working together to implement federal policy, according to the Michigan Law Review.
Historically, the Trump administration has taken the position that shifting more authority to states when possible is the best plan, with the exception of honoring California’s CAA waiver that allows it to set emissions standards for new vehicles. The following actions are being considered to advance cooperative federalism:
“On March 15, 2023, EPA finalized its ‘Good Neighbor Plan’ rule for 23 states to address interstate transport of air pollution which impacts NAAQS. In doing so, the Biden-Harris Administration expanded the federal rules to more states and sectors beyond this program’s traditional focus on power plants and subsequently rejected 19 SIPs and partially rejected 2 SIPs. This heavy-handed, one-size-fits-all, federal mandate was emblematic of a larger regulatory onslaught that guided agency action and rules. In June 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed the rule, finding that it was likely unreasonable and irrational in key respects,” the Agency’s news release continues.
There are currently 685 unresolved state implementation plans (SIPs), with 322 considered overdue, according to the EPA. The Trump EPA’s goal is to clear this backlog as soon as possible.
“Many states have raised concerns related to being punished for emissions outside the control of their state as well as the air quality monitors not being located in most logical locations. EPA will work with, not against, states and assist them to ensure that air quality is protected while growing the economy—including development and expansion of semiconductor manufacturing and artificial intelligence,” according to the Agency’s release.
EPA staff has been directed to revisit the Obama-Biden administration’s Exceptional Events rulemaking and prioritize the allowance of prescribed fires within SIPs and tribal implementation plans (TIPs).
As the EPA’s release notes, “Prescribed fires are necessary to protect communities from catastrophic wildfires like the ones that caused untold damage to residents and businesses in Los Angeles. When EPA reviews SIPs and TIPs, EPA will work to ensure states and other entities that work within those states can use prescribed fires to properly manage their forests, without being unfairly penalized when it comes to assessing their air quality.”
The EPA Office of Air and Radiation has also been directed to convene meetings with state and tribal air agencies and state, local, and federal forest managers to evaluate ways to ease burdens preventing prescribed fires, including exceptional events, regional haze, interstate transport, and international transport.
In January, the EPA announced its decision to reset these federal advisory committees to reverse the politicization of the Science Advisory Board (SAB) and the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) under the Biden-Harris administration. Following the nomination period, members will be carefully selected for their scientific expertise. Nominations can be submitted on each board’s respective website.
The EPA announced it’s prioritizing a number of timely actions on coal ash, including state permit program reviews and updates to the coal ash regulations. The Agency plans to work with state partners to place implementation of the coal ash regulations more fully into state hands, which will allow those with local expertise to oversee more effective coal ash disposal operations. State partners are encouraged to pursue oversight of coal ash management within their borders.
The Agency’s release says the “EPA is also reviewing the Legacy-Coal Combustion Residuals Management Units Rule. A key part of that review is evaluating whether to grant short- and long-term relief such as extending compliance deadlines. The agency aims to complete rule changes within a year.”
The Agency announced it’s granting an extension of the no-action assurance that North Carolina requested to allow use of large air curtain incinerators to clear debris without requiring Title V permits. This will allow more efficient burning of debris with lower emissions than would occur through open burning or the use of smaller incinerators not subject to permitting requirements.
“Granting North Carolina’s request not only cuts through bureaucratic red tape and assists in disaster recovery but also makes the air cleaner and is a particularly appropriate use of enforcement discretion. We are committed to facilitating emergency response efforts that get Americans back on their feet quickly and safely while advancing cooperative federalism,” Zeldin said.
Stay tuned! In the coming weeks, we’ll take a closer look at regulations proposed for reconsideration to determine what this could mean for EHS professionals.