E.P.A. Severely Limits Pollution From Coal-Burning Power Plants

Key Facts

The regulation from the Environmental Protection Agency requires coal plants in the United States to reduce 90 percent of their greenhouse pollution by 2039, one year earlier than the agency had initially proposed.
The E.P.A. also imposed three additional regulations on coal-burning power plants, including stricter limits on emissions of mercury, a neurotoxin linked to developmental damage in children, from plants that burn lignite coal, the lowest grade of coal.
Taken together, the regulations could deliver a death blow in the United States to coal, the fuel that powered the country for much of the last century but has caused global environmental damage.
The new rules regarding power plants come weeks after the administration’s other major climate regulations to limit emissions from cars and large trucks in a way that is designed to speed the adoption of electric vehicles.