2026年9月14日 美国东部时间下午2:10 / 哥伦比亚广播公司新闻
美国环境保护局预计将废除限制燃煤和天然气发电厂排放导致全球变暖的温室气体排放的规定，该局局长李·泽尔丁曾表示，这一举措将为该行业节省数十亿美元成本，并有助于“释放”美国能源潜力。
据两名知情人士透露，这项于去年提出的规则变更最早可能于周一宣布，这标志着与民主党总统乔·拜登和巴拉克·奥巴马为应对气候变化、清理工业污染（通常针对低收入和非裔或拉美裔占多数的社区）所做的努力发生了根本性转变。
据知情人士透露，这项预计将立即面临法律挑战的规定，还可能阻止未来历届政府监管发电厂的温室气体排放。由于最终规则尚未公开，他们要求匿名发言。
美国环境保护局未立即回应美联社的置评请求。
美国环保局去年曾表示，将发布一项结论，称化石燃料发电厂的温室气体排放“不会显著加剧有害空气污染”，尽管该机构2023年的数据显示，电力行业产生的碳排放占化石燃料燃烧碳排放的31%，在所有行业中排名第二。
在过去二十年的大部分时间里，美国历届领导人都采取了措施遏制化石燃料污染，在此之后，十多个环保和健康组织已起诉泽尔丁和美国环保局。
泽尔丁、内政部长道格·伯古姆和能源部长克里斯·赖特正在休斯顿主持一场以“能源充裕”为主题的G20部长级会议，这项规则变更预计将在此次会议上宣布。选择休斯顿既是为了认可这个石油资源丰富的州在能源行业的重要地位，也可能是对出席会议的欧洲和其他国际盟友的潜在怠慢——这些盟友一直奉行环保政策，而特朗普政府正着手推翻这些政策。
共和党总统特朗普去年在联合国的一次演讲中称气候变化是“有史以来针对世界的最大骗局”，他的政府第二次将美国退出2015年《巴黎气候协定》，该协定设定了遏制全球变暖排放的自愿目标。
尽管伊朗冲突持续扰乱全球燃油市场，汽油价格升至每加仑4.31美元以上，较一年前上涨了逾1美元，但特朗普仍吹嘘美国能源充裕。
这项最终敲定电厂规则的计划最早由《纽约时报》报道。
此次规则放宽旨在兑现特朗普多次做出的“释放美国能源潜力”的承诺，并让公用事业公司更容易为家庭和企业供电。
2025年初，泽尔丁宣布他所谓的“美国历史上最重要的放松管制日”，这项电厂规则是他瞄准的近三十项环保法规之一。
泽尔丁在去年提议新规则时表示，这些规则旨在结束拜登和奥巴马政府“对我们美国国内大量能源供应的战争”。
环保和公共卫生组织称此次规则放宽十分危险，并誓言将在法庭上挑战这些规定。
“拆除我们国家抵御电厂气候污染的保护屏障，将给全美各地家庭的健康、安全和福祉带来巨大损失，”环境保护基金总法律顾问维基·佩顿说道。“各地美国人已经在遭受创纪录的高温、更具破坏性的洪水和风暴，以及飙升的保险成本之苦。”
佩顿表示，美国环保局有法律责任保护公众免受有害污染的侵害，并补充道“清洁、负担得起且可靠的技术已经广泛可用，可为我们的家庭和企业供电”。
燃煤、燃气和燃油发电厂约占美国全国气候污染总量的四分之一，仅次于交通运输业。发电厂产生的污染是全球范围内最大的气候变化污染源之一。
根据美联社去年的一项调查，包括该机构此前的评估和广泛的其他研究在内，特朗普政府的美国环保局瞄准的这些规则，在生效期间每年本可预防约3万人死亡，并节省2750亿美元。
美联社的分析发现，即使只是部分废除这些规则，也会导致更多污染物排放，比如烟雾、汞和铅——尤其是更多可进入肺部并引发健康问题的微小空气颗粒物。这还意味着温室气体排放量增加，将地球变暖推至更致命的水平。
民主党人拜登曾将应对气候变化作为其总统任期的标志性政策。根据2024年出台的一项严格的美国环保局规则，燃煤发电厂要么必须捕获烟囱排放物，要么关停。如今这些规则正被推翻。
在去年的提案中，特朗普政府的美国环保局辩称，化石燃料发电厂排放的二氧化碳和其他温室气体“不会显著加剧有害污染或气候变化”，因此不符合《清洁空气法》中规定的监管行动门槛。美国环保局称，燃煤和燃气发电厂的温室气体排放“在全球排放中占比很小，且还在不断下降”。
共和党人泽尔丁曾是纽约州国会议员，他表示拜登时代的政策旨在“为了保护环境而扼杀我们的经济”，意图将煤炭行业“逼至灭绝”并使其“消失”。
煤炭行业和代表燃煤发电厂的组织谴责拜登时期的规则是美国环保局的“越权行为”，并敦促废除该规则。美国煤炭舰队行业组织“美国电力”表示，解除这项规则将保护电网可靠性，并在数据中心、人工智能和先进制造业需求激增之际，保护电力消费者免受成本上涨的影响。
EPA to eliminate limits on climate pollution from power plants
September 14, 2026 2:10 PM EDT / CBS News
The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to repeal rules that limit planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from power plants fueled by coal and natural gas, an action that Administrator Lee Zeldin has said would remove billions of dollars in costs for the industry and help “unleash” American energy.
The rule change, proposed last year, could be announced as soon as Monday, according to two people familiar with the proposal, and represents a fundamental shift from efforts by Democratic Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama to address climate change and clean up industrial pollution, often in low-income and majority Black or Hispanic communities.
The rule, which is expected to face immediate legal challenges, also could prevent future administrations from regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, people familiar with the proposal said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the final rule had not yet been made public.
The EPA did not immediately respond to a request from The Associated Press for comment.
The EPA said last year it would publish a finding that greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel power plants “do not contribute significantly to dangerous air pollution,” although the agency’s own data from 2023 showed that the power sector produced 31% of carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels, the second-highest of all industries.
More than a dozen environmental and health groups have sued Zeldin and the EPA after rolling back fundamental steps taken by United States leaders to curb fossil fuel pollution for most of the last two decades.
Zeldin, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Energy Secretary Chris Wright are hosting a G20 ministerial meeting on “energy abundance” in Houston, where the rule change is set to be announced. The site is both a nod to the important role the oil-rich state plays in the energy industry and a potential snub of European and other international allies in attendance who have pursued environmentally friendly policies that the Trump administration has moved to undo.
Republican President Trump called climate change “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world” at a speech to the United Nations last year, and his administration withdrew the U.S — for the second time — from the 2015 Paris climate accord that sets voluntary goals to curb planet-warming emissions.
Mr. Trump has boasted of U.S. energy abundance even as the Iran war continues to disrupt global fuel markets and gas prices top $4.31 a gallon, up more than a dollar from a year ago.
The plan to make the power plant rule final was first reported by The New York Times.
The rollbacks are meant to fulfill Mr. Trump’s repeated pledge to “unleash American energy ” and make it easier for utilities to supply electricity for homes and businesses.
The power plant rule is among nearly three dozen environmental regulations that Zeldin targeted in early 2025 when he announced what he called the “most consequential day of deregulation in American history.”
Zeldin said in proposing the new rules last year that they were meant to end the Biden and Obama administrations’ “war on so much of our U.S. domestic energy supply.”
Environmental and public health groups called the rollbacks dangerous and vowed to challenge the rules in court.
“Tearing down our national protections against climate pollution from power plants will have enormous costs for the health, safety and well-being of families across the country,” said Vickie Patton, general counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund. “Americans everywhere are already suffering from record-breaking heat, more dangerous floods and storms, and skyrocketing insurance costs.”
The EPA has a legal responsibility to protect the public from harmful pollution, Patton said, adding that “clean, affordable and reliable technologies are widely available to power our homes and businesses.”
Coal, gas and oil-fired power plants are responsible for about one-quarter of the nation’s total climate pollution, second only to the transportation sector. Pollution from power plants is one of the largest sources of climate-changing pollution in the world.
The rules targeted by Trump’s EPA could prevent an estimated 30,000 deaths and save $275 billion each year they are in effect, according to an Associated Press examination last year that included the agency’s own prior assessments and a wide range of other research.
Even a partial dismantling of the rules would mean more pollutants such as smog, mercury and lead — and especially more tiny airborne particles that can lodge in lungs and cause health problems, the AP analysis found. It would also mean higher emissions of greenhouse gases, driving Earth’s warming to deadlier levels.
Biden, a Democrat, had made fighting climate change a hallmark of his presidency. Coal-fired power plants would have been forced to capture smokestack emissions or shut down under a strict EPA rule issued in 2024. Those rules are now being upended.
In its proposal last year, the Trump EPA argued that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from fossil fuel-fired power plants “do not contribute significantly to dangerous pollution” or climate change and therefore do not meet a threshold under the Clean Air Act for regulatory action. Greenhouse gas emissions from coal and gas-fired plants “are a small and decreasing part of global emissions,″ the EPA said.
Zeldin, a Republican and former New York congressman, said Biden-era actions were designed to “suffocate our economy in order to protect the environment,” with the intent to regulate the coal industry “out of existence” and make it “disappear.”
The coal industry and groups representing coal-fired power plants have denounced the Biden rule as “overreach” by the EPA and urged its repeal. Lifting the rule will protect grid reliability and shield electricity consumers from higher costs at a time of surging demand from data centers, artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing, according to America’s Power, a trade organization for the U.S. coal fleet.
发表回复