EDF analysis: repeal of power plant pollution standards will cause up to 84,000 early deaths, $3 trillion in damages

• New analysis of health harms: Scrapping protections against power plant climate pollution will mean up to 84,000 early deaths by 2047.
• Staggering costs: Repealing the standards will cost up to $1.2 trillion in health harms and up to $1.8 trillion in climate-related harms.
• More pollution: Repealing the standards will add as much climate pollution to our air as the annual emissions from 1.6 billion cars. 

WASHINGTON - New analysis by Environmental Defense Fund finds staggering costs from the Trump EPA’s attempts to repeal our national protections against climate pollution from power plants. 

“The Trump EPA is trying to get rid of all our national protections against climate pollution from power plants, and the costs that will impose on the American people are truly staggering,” said Ellen Robo, Senior Manager for Clean Air Policy and Analytics at Environmental Defense Fund. “The Trump EPA claims it calculated the costs of power plant pollution protections – costs to industry – but it completely ignored the benefits of those protections for the American people. Getting rid of these life-saving limits on smokestack pollution will cause tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths and cost trillions of dollars.”  

The Trump EPA announced on Monday that it would get rid of the life-saving national limits on the amount of climate pollution that fossil fuel power plants are allowed to put into our air. The agency claims the rollback will lead to cost savings for industrial emitters, but it refused to estimate the much more massive costs Americans would have to bear as a result of increased pollution from power plants.

Environmental Defense Fund’s new analysis finds that the repeal will add 7.5 billion metric tons of climate pollution to our air by 2047. That’s equivalent to the annual climate pollution from 1.6 billion cars.

EPA itself finds that U.S. climate pollution from power will be 68% higher by 2047 than it would have been if the Trump EPA had left these commonsense pollution standards in place. 

Environmental Defense Fund’s analysis also finds that by 2047 the rollbacks will:

• Result in up to 84,000 premature deaths 
• Lead to more than 28 million asthma attacks 
• Deliver health harms of up to $1.2 trillion 
• Deliver climate-related harms of up to $1.8 trillion from more powerful storms, droughts, and other climate disasters.

EPA’s own analysis of the air quality impacts of its rule – which is buried in an appendix at the end of its regulatory impact analysis – shows that rolling back our protections against power plant pollution will also significantly increase levels of ground-level ozone, or smog, across about 75% of the country, as well as levels of soot pollution – especially across large parts of the Midwest, mid-Atlantic region, and South.

Environmental Defense Fund estimated the health and climate harms based on EPA’s own tools and methodologies, including the emission increase projections in the Regulatory Impact Analysis, using a 2% discount rate. 

See the full analysis here. 

In an earlier study, Environmental Defense Fund had already estimated that the Trump administration’s unlawful extension of seven aging fossil fuel plants past their retirement has resulted in the emission of thousands of tons of nitrogen oxides (NOx) and sulfur dioxide (SO2), and hundreds of pounds of fine particulate matter, while adding more than $500 million in ratepayer costs due to the high costs of operating these plants.