Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin is calling it “one of the largest deregulatory actions in U.S. history” as the Trump administration once and for all is ending the 2009 Obama era carbon endangerment finding defining carbon dioxide as a harmful pollutant under the terms of the Clean Air Act, which could save the U.S. more than $1 trillion.
Speaking on the “Ruthless” podcast on July 29, Zeldin touted the Trump administration EPA’s record on deregulation, saying it would amount to more deregulation than the entire federal government undertakes throughout an entire presidency: “It’s one agency, in one year, doing more deregulation than entire federal government across all agencies across entire presidencies when you look back in history. That’s how much of a mess it is that we inherited.”
The news of the carbon endangerment finding’s end comes as U.S. electricity generation has already increased by 4.56 percent from January through April, according to the latest data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, at 1.395 trillion kilowatt hours (kWh), up from 1.334 trillion kWh the first four months of 2024.
Big increases are coming from coal, up 18.6 percent to 240.4 billion kWh through April compared to 195.4 billion kWh the first four months of 2024. Other big gains are seen in solar, up 42.39 percent to 81.4 billion kWh so far in 2025. Wind is still increasing, up 5.8 percent to 179.4 billion kWh so far this year. In the meantime, natural gas-generate electricity has actually decreased, down 3.5 percent to 523.7 billion kWh so far this year.
That follows a twenty-year decline by coal, which used to produce 2.01 trillion kWh a year in 2005, all the way down to 652.7 billion kWh in 2024, a whopping 1.357 trillion kWh or 67.5 percent decrease, all directly linked to the carbon endangerment finding and former President Barack Obama’s new and existing power plant regulations in his so-called Clean Power Plan.
Natural gas, with a lower carbon footprint, was the biggest beneficiary of the changes, increasing from 760.9 billion kWh in 2005 to 1.864 trillion kWh in 2024, a 1.1 trillion kWh or 145 percent increase. That was as many but not all existing coal plants were retrofitted to run on natural gas.
Note 1.1 trillion kWh increase did not fully offset the 1.357 trillion kWh drop in coal. As a result, there has been no net increase in thermal electricity — coal, natural gas, nuclear, oil and wood — in twenty years! Thermal electricity has dropped from 3.69 trillion kWh, or 91 percent of our electricity production, to just 3.32 trillion kWh, or 77 percent of production.
The rest of the offset from killing coal had to come from a 435.65 billion kWh increase from wind from 2005 to 453.54 billion kWh in 2024. And a 218 billion kWh increase from solar to 218.5 billion kWh in 2024.
The 2025 destruction of the carbon endangerment finding by President Donald Trump and EPA Administrator Zeldin has been a long time coming. The finding was all but overturned by the Supreme Court’s 2022 West Virginia v. EPA decision that struck down the 2015 Obama Clean Power Plan and overturned the Court’s 2007 decision, Massachusetts v. EPA, a narrow 5-4 ruling by then-Justice Anthony Kennedy that had opened the door for federal regulation of carbon emissions and set the stage for the carbon endangerment finding and the Clean Power Plan’s rules on new and existing power plants.
But in many ways the damage is done, and at the worst possible time. President Trump has now set a goal of doubling electricity output to power artificial intelligence data centers, which are already consuming more and more electricity. In fact, electricity in the Consumer Price Index published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics is already up 4.7 percent in 2025 since December 2024 and that’s with the year just halfway done.
At the moment, electricity prices are increasing faster than electricity production as demand is skyrocketing. So, the elimination of the carbon endangerment finding is long overdue. But, electricity production will have to increase much faster. We need those new power plants yesterday. Better get moving.
Robert Romano is the Executive Director of Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
