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By Jasmine Laws
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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has said it is finalizing its disapproval of Colorado's state plan to close several coal plants, on the basis that the state does not have consent from all plants and the plan does not comply with the Clean Air Act (CAA).
On Friday, the EPA said it would disapprove Colorado's revised 2022 Regional Haze State Implementation Plan (SIP), which would implement pollution controls to improve air quality at national parks and other protected areas.
In its update, the agency said, "These plants are vital to delivering reliable and affordable energy to Colorado families."
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The EPA told Newsweek that while the agency "legally cannot approve Colorado’s SIP revision, the line of communication between Colorado and EPA is open, and the agency looks forward to working hand-in-hand with Colorado to accomplish a revised SIP."
The agency added it was "absolutely committed to our core mission of protecting human health and the environment and ensuring clean air for all Americans. It is these principles, and the law, that guide the agency’s decision making."
Why It Matters
The CAA and Regional Haze Rule requires states, in coordination with the EPA, to develop SIPs to improve visibility impairment in national parks and wilderness areas—although the EPA said in its Friday update that historically these plans "imposed significant costs on power plants and other sectors, calling into question the supply of affordable and reliable energy for American families."
The disapproval marks the Trump administration's latest move to shift regulatory focus to providing affordable energy, prioritizing lower costs for industrial companies over environmental or health impacts.
The New York Times, citing internal agency emails and documents, reported that the EPA also planned to stop including health effects in its cost-benefit analysis in clear-air regulations—for example, allegedly shifting the focus away from the amount of fine particulate matter, or PM2.5, and ozone released by industrial facilities to the costs to businesses that comply with the rules.
In the EPA document titled 'Economic Impact Analysis for the New Source Performance Standards Review for Stationary Combustion Turbines: Final Rule,' the agency states that historically, the EPA's "analytical practices often provided the public with a false sense of precision and more confidence regarding the monetized impacts of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ozone than the underlying science could fully support, especially as overall emissions have significantly decreased, and
impacts have become more uncertain."
EPA told Newsweek that it "is still considering the impacts that PM2.5 and ozone emissions have on human health, but the agency will not be monetizing the impacts at this time. Not monetizing DOES NOT equal not considering or not valuing the human health impact."
Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the EPA, also said the NYT's report was a "dishonest, fake news claim" in a post on X.
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What To Know
In July, the EPA said it was proposing to "partially approve and partially disapprove" the plan, according to the Federal Register.
The agency said Colorado's 2022 SIP submission "addresses the requirement" that states should revise long-term strategies every implementation period to "make reasonable progress toward the national goal of preventing any future, and remedying any existing, anthropogenic impairment of visibility, including regional haze," in areas such as national parks or in wilderness areas.
However, the EPA added that the state's strategy included "insufficiently justified enforceable source closures that are not consistent with statutory requirements."
In its update on Friday, the agency clarified that Colorado's proposal to shut down coal-fired power plants had been done "without consent from all of the plants" and that it does not comply with the CAA.
"Shutting down these power plants is not necessary to meet Regional Haze requirements, and including forced closure deadlines for facilities that want to stay open would have been a misuse of the CAA," the EPA said.
The agency also said Colorado "did not properly consider and explain whether the nonconsensual closure of Colorado Springs Utilities' Nixon Unit 1 power plant would be an act of taking private property without compensation."
There is also a concern of grid reliability, as the EPA said the shutdown of any plants could disrupt the grid.
What People Are Saying
Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said in a statement: "Reliable baseload energy sources are essential to Powering the Great American Comeback and ensuring families have cost-effective energy. The Trump EPA has repeatedly demonstrated that we can achieve our statutory obligations, support baseload power, and improve visibility within our national parks. This is what the American people voted for. EPA is ready and willing to work full-heartedly with Colorado to revise its SIP, ensuring full compliance with the Clean Air Act as written."
Nick Muller, a professor of economics, engineering, and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University, told Newsweek: "In recent research my co-authors and I have shown that continued reliance on coal for power generation is a net negative when counting the positive impacts on related jobs (mining and employment in power plants, for example) and adverse effects of burning coal on air quality and climate."
He added: "The decision by the USEPA to no longer count the benefits of reduced mortality risk from environmental policy flies in the face of decades worth of scientific evidence and common sense…Whether relying on evidence from the labor market, on scientifically designed and administered surveys, or in consumers’ everyday decisions, it is clear that people value safety. To simply argue that such benefits from mortality risk reductions that accrue from sound environmental policies do not count, as the EPA has done, is an arbitrary and baseless decision."
Jonathan Wiener, a professor of law, and of environmental policy and public policy at Duke University, told Newsweek: "It is essential for EPA and other federal agencies to assess all the important impacts of major regulations, both benefits and costs. That’s required by decades of bipartisan presidential executive orders and by leading court decisions, and it’s just good government. Not doing so can lead to arbitrary decisions that violate the law and that harm society—especially if only some impacts are counted and others are left out."
What Happens Next
Colorado is now required to submit a revised SIP, or the EPA will need to complete a federal implementation plan (FIP)—either of which must be done in the next two years.
Update 1/13/26, 8:46 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with comment from Nick Muller and Jonathan Wiener, and additional information.
Update 1/13/26, 10:48 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with comment from the EPA.
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