Consortium Statement on the Repeal of Climate Pollution Limits for Power Plants

September 15, 2026

Contact: Savannah Martincic, Manager of Communication, The Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health smartincic@ms2ch.org

The Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health opposes the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to eliminate federal limits on greenhouse gas emissions from coal- and gas-fired power plants.

As doctors, nurses, and health professionals, we evaluate this rule the way we evaluate any treatment decision based on evidence: What is the best way to protect our patients and communities while minimizing harm? By both measures, this rollback fails.

The economics don’t support the administration’s claims. The EPA has framed this repeal as a way to lower energy costs and “unleash American energy.” But coal remains one of the more expensive fuels to burn, and this rule does nothing to change those basic economics. What it will do is shift costs onto households: in higher cooling costs as summers grow hotter, and in higher medical bills from breathing dirtier air.

The rule disregards both the science and the public record. The EPA has asserted that power plant emissions have “no material impact on global climate change.” In fact, power plants are the second-largest source of climate pollution in the United States, responsible for roughly a quarter of the nation’s total. The 2024 standards this repeal unwinds were projected to prevent an estimated 1,200 premature deaths in 2035 alone and generate $120 billion in health benefits through 2047. Abandoning these protections also required the agency to abandon the scientific record that justified them, as well as the thousands of public comments submitted during the rulemaking process by clinicians, scientists, and communities who will live with the consequences of this decision.

Many of us see these consequences in our patients and communities. Every increment of additional particulate matter, ozone, and mercury in the air translates into more asthma attacks, more emergency visits, more cardiovascular strain, and more heat-related illness in the patients we treat. Rolling back these protections does not make that burden disappear; it simply moves the cost from industry balance sheets onto the health of American families, and disproportionately onto the communities already living closest to these plants.

We urge the administration to reconsider this rule, and we will continue to make the health case grounded in evidence for climate and clean air protections that keep our patients and communities safe.

The views expressed here are of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health and not necessarily of its medical society members.