The Big Story 

The Biden administration on Thursday cracked down on carbon emissions and other pollution from power plants. 

© AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel

The administration finalized rules that:

• Regulates carbon dioxide emissions from existing coal and new gas plants
• Tightens limits for coal plants’ releases of toxic metals into the air by 67 percent and making some plants reduce their mercury emissions
• Reduces coal plants’ discharges of toxic metals via wastewater
• Adds new requirements for long defunct plants’ legacy coal ash ponds to prevent waste leakage

The climate rule is expected to prevent 1.38 billion metric tons of carbon emissions through 2047, the equivalent of taking 328 million gas-powered cars off the road for a year.

Combined with investments in climate-friendly power sources from the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act, the rule could help bring the power sector’s carbon dioxide emissions down by 62 percent below where they were in 2022 by 2035, the administration said. 

The rule requires coal and new gas plants to either use carbon capture to reduce their emissions by 90 percent — or achieve equivalent emissions reductions by other means. 

A proposed version of the rule also applied limitations to existing natural gas plants — but those were stripped from the final version. The EPA says it will try to tackle them at a later date.

Compared to the proposed rule, the new rule gives coal plants two extra years before they have to meet the requirements, but makes new gas plants apply them three years more quickly.

Read more in a full report at TheHill.com.

Welcome to The Hill’s Energy & Environment newsletter, we’re Rachel Frazin and Zack Budryk — keeping you up to speed on the policies impacting everything from oil and gas to new supply chains.

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What We’re Reading 

News we’ve flagged from other outlets touching on energy issues, the environment and other topics:

• 10 Times as Much of This Toxic Pesticide Could End Up on Your Tomatoes and Celery Under a New EPA Proposal (ProPublica)
  
  

• Here are the 32 coal plants still powering the American West (The Los Angeles Times)

   

• We might be closer to changing course on climate change than we realized (Vox)

   

• Why the U.S. struggles to replace millions of lead pipes. (The Washington Post)

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After Texas state troopers arrested more than 50 people at a University of Texas at Austin protest this week, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) is facing accusations that the state went too far. Read more

Opinions in The Hill 

Op-ed related to energy & environment submitted to The Hill: