Biden-Harris EPA rules save $253B/yr, 202k lives; Project 2025 seeks rollback
The Biden-Harris EPA’s new air quality rules introduced from 2021-2024 will save Americans $253 billion annually, and save 202,632 lives and avoid 100 million asthma attacks by 2050, according to a new analysis by the Environmental Protection Network (EPN).
The analysis focused on sixteen major air pollution rule updates that EPA implemented over the last four years, summing up their total environmental and economic effects.
Between these rules, the sum total of benefits are staggering. EPN points out that the 202,632 lives saved by these standards by 2050 would be enough to fill up a convoy of buses on the highway all the way from Philadelphia to New York City. And that the 107 million avoided asthma attacks means fewer missed work and school says and less-crowded emergency rooms and doctors’ offices.
In terms of costs, the $253 billion saved also includes regulatory costs. Regulatory costs run on the order of $50 billion per year, and benefits of $303 billion per year. The 6:1 ratio of benefits to costs is quite high.
Total benefits calculated through 2050 run in the trillions of dollars. And due to the administration’s Justice40 initiative, many of these benefits will be seen by underserved communities.
EPN says the numbers found in its analysis are likely understated, because it focused solely on the health and climate benefits of better air quality, ignoring other work the EPA has done on “toxic chemicals, clean water and other environmental threats.” This analysis is purely for air pollution standards like smokestack and tailpipe pollution.
EPA often leaves out certain health benefits that are hard to quantify, which means the benefit-cost ratio could be improved even further if those were accounted for.
We’ve reported on many of the rules covered by this analysis before, like EPA’s light-duty vehicle exhaust rule, which will save Americans $100 billion per year on its own despite it being slightly softened from the original proposal, and its strongest-ever truck pollution rule.
EPN points out that these regulations have been popular, with broad support from the public, environmental groups, health organizations, labor unions, and even business organizations. Most of EPA’s biggest policy moves, like those on power plant, soot and tailpipe pollution, attain bipartisan public support of 70-80% when polled.
These benefits were achieved despite constant attacks by an ideologically-driven US “Supreme” Court which has shown little interest in following the law. Not only did the court tell the EPA that it can’t regulate harmful pollutants from coal plants because the Clean Air Act doesn’t tell it to (despite that the Clean Air Act does the EPA to regulate harmful pollutants), it also substituted the opinions of untrained, venue-shopped judges ahead of those of professional scientists in the incredibly stupid Loper Bright opinion that would overturn the Chevron doctrine.
The progress is also remarkable given the damage done to the EPA from 2017-2020. In that period, around 700 scientists had left the EPA, after having their work sidelined in favor of the ideologically-driven opinions of political appointees rather than well-established scientific metholodogies.
And there’s plenty reason to believe that this sort of damage could be done again under a potential future republican administration.
Climate and health savings under attack by Project 2025
EPN points out that these positive rules are under attack by industry groups (like trucking and oil companies that are trying to sue to stop truck pollution rules, despite their outsized benefits), and by political efforts like Project 2025.
Project 2025 is the latest edition of a quadrennial set of recommendations prepared for republican presidential candidates by the far-right think tank The Heritage Foundation. Among other dystopian goals, it seeks to completely gut the EPA’s ability to do work like the above, and to reverse the benefits from the above regulations.
Three-time republican candidate for president, Donald Trump, endorsed Project 2025 back in 2022. And in 2017, The Heritage Foundation bragged that action was made on most of their recommendations. So we can expect that a republican administration would seek action on many of the recommended rollbacks.
Jeremy Symons, EPN Senior Advisor said that Project 2025 “creates a huge risk in the progress that’s been made to attract the best minds to EPA,” in the wake of previous staffing challenges after the exodus of scientists the last time a republican was in the White House.
EPN had offered a bipartisan set of recommendations to the EPA in 2020 describing how the agency could “reset its course,” though there is still progress to be made to repair the agency from the damage that was done.
Rob Wolcott, EPN board chair and former EPA senior counsel to the Office of Research and Development, praised EPA’s efforts to rebuild the agency but pointed out that “it takes a great deal more time and effort and money to build an agency than to rapidly degrade it.”
Electrek’s Take
Look, we here at Electrek cover EVs, renewables and other environmental news every day. We see the headlines, we follow all the developments, we keep track of who’s pushing what.
And there has been a stark difference in the type of reporting we’ve had to do across the course of the last 8 years. While there are plenty of dumb decisions that reach across the aisle, the type of progress we’ve seen in these last 4 years is night-and-day better than the attempts at destruction of the previous 4 years.
And since our work here at Electrek (and, indeed, as living beings on the planet Earth) is to focus on and advocate for cleaner transportation options, and a cleaner environment, it behooves us to bring that information to you in a clear way.
We do not hide our bias here towards cleaner air and water, and towards a more efficient grid and transportation system. However, these biases aren’t really biases when they are or should be shared by all living beings on this planet.
Clean air is an objective good – and is the most important issue in our lives as well, given that nothing else really matters if we don’t have the basic things required for life (air, water, shelter and so on). It’s the base of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs for the entire planet.
So, in describing the progress made in these last 4 years, and the economic and environmental damage done in the previous 4 years (at the behest of coal and oil stooges who were doing so to protect the polluting industry that bought them), we hope that this brings into focus the meaning of the decision that Americans will make come November.
There are far too many people who believe that there is little difference between administrations on issues of environmental protection, or who feel that it’s absurd that any party would oppose clean air and water. But there is clear evidence showing the republicans’ current and recent history imposing more pollution and higher costs. And the analysis above shows that the difference is clear.
British Columbia got its first 400 kW DC fast charger last week at Canadian C-store chain On The Run, but that’s not the good part. As part of a limited time offer, these chargers are FREE!
The Canadian convenience store chain just took the wraps off its new, ABB-developed, 400 kW chargers earlier this month, but they’re already planning to bring the ultra-fast 400 kW dispensers to at least four more locations in BC this spring, and have them online just in time for the summer road trip season – something On The Run hopes its customers will appreciate.
“The A400 charger delivers an enhanced customer experience, with reliability and performance from a 32-inch screen to higher power charging sessions and power sharing,” reads the company’s official announcement, via LinkedIn. “Download the Journie Rewards app to start the charge – free for a limited time.”
On The Run’s new 400 kW ABB DC fast chargers are compatible with CCS and CHAdeMO plugs, and can accommodate Tesla and other NACS-equipped vehicles with an adapter. That said, the company seems to imply that Tesla drivers in particular will have a maximum charging speed of “just” 50 kW, which feel hilarious (given the current state of affairs between Tesla and the Canadian government), but probably isn’t.
In addition to the ABB A400 400 kW units shown here, On The Run locations also employ the ABB Terra 184 dispensers rated at 180 kW. On The Run plans similar deployments at the four BC locations mentioned above, as well as two more each in Quebec and Ontario slated to go live towards the end of this year.
Electrek’s Take
Tesla’s controversial CEO Elon Musk once mocked 350 kW charging speed as being “for a child’s toy,” despite the fact that, nearly nine years later, his own cars and Superchargers can barely make it to 325 kW while others have sailed right on past. I made fun of that fact on the Quick Charge episode shown, above – and, while I do think it’s funny and relevant, the much more relevant piece of news here is that companies like BP Pulse, Revel, and Wallbox are actively deploying 400 kW solutions, today (while others hit the same mark as far back as 2017).
It’s just a fact: Tesla has fallen way behind.
SOURCE | IMAGES: On The Run, via Electric Autonomy.
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Terawatt Infrastructure‘s first medium- and heavy-duty electric charging truck stop in California is now online, in Rancho Dominguez.
Located 12 miles north of the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, the private Rancho Dominguez site, which is shared among multiple fleets, will support electric trucking fleet operations in and out of the largest container ports in the US.
First customers include Dreaded Trucking, Hight Logistics, PepsiCo, Quick Container Drayage, Southern Counties Express, Tradelink Transport, and WestCoast Trucking & Warehousing.
Terawatt’s electric charging truck stop features 20 pull-through and bobtail DC fast charging stalls with a capacity of 7 megawatts (MW), enabling charging for up to 125 trucks per day using a simple reservations system. Terawatt’s site features a proprietary charge management system, in-house technicians, 24/7 customer service, and onsite parts management.
“This launch underscores growing collaboration between enterprises, shippers, carriers, and charging infrastructure providers to advance sustainable technologies across logistics and transportation operations, especially in the medium and heavy-duty sectors,” said Neha Palmer, CEO and cofounder of Terawatt. Palmer added that the company will bring another charging site online in Rialto, California, in June.
Terawatt joined some of the world’s largest shippers and carriers in September 2024 to launch the I-10 Consortium heavy-duty EV operations pilot, the “first-ever US over-the-road electrified corridor.” Terawatt is providing charging infrastructure, including software, operations, and maintenance support at six of its owned charging hubs along the I-10 corridor.
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In its most aggressive attack against offshore wind yet, the Trump administration halted the $5 billion Empire Wind 1, already under construction off New York’s coast.
Norwegian developer Equinor announced yesterday that it received notice from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) ordering Empire Wind 1 to halt all activities on the outer continental shelf until BOEM has completed its review. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum posted this tweet yesterday:
Burgum gave no indication of what insufficiencies there were in the approval process for the fully permitted offshore wind project, despite Trump’s recent declaration of a national energy emergency that speeds up permitting processes.
The commercial lease for the 810-megawatt (MW) Empire Wind 1’s federal offshore wind area was signed in March 2017 during the first Trump administration. It was approved by the Biden administration in November 2023 and began construction in 2024.
The project is being developed under contract with the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). Empire Wind 1, which was due to come online in 2027, has the potential to power 500,000 New York homes.
“Halting construction of fully permitted energy projects is the literal opposite of an energy abundance agenda,” said American Clean Power Association CEO Jason Grumet in a statement. “We encourage the administration to quickly address perceived inadequacies in the prior permit approvals so that this project can complete construction and bring much-needed power to the grid.”
As Electrek reported, Equinor secured $3 billion to finance Empire Wind 1 in January. The total amount drawn under the project finance term loan facility as of March 31 was around $1.5 billion.
As of March 31, Empire Wind has a gross book value of around $2.5 billion, including South Brooklyn Marine Terminal (pictured above), which was expected to become the US’s largest dedicated port facility for offshore wind.
In response to BOEM’s stop work order, New York Governor Kathy Hochul issued the following statement:
Every single day, I’m working to make energy more affordable, reliable and abundant in New York and the federal government should be supporting those efforts rather than undermining them. Empire Wind 1 is already employing hundreds of New Yorkers, including 1,000 good-paying union jobs as part of a growing sector that has already spurred significant economic development and private investment throughout the state and beyond.
As Governor, I will not allow this federal overreach to stand. I will fight this every step of the way to protect union jobs, affordable energy and New York’s economic future.
Equinor says it’s considering appealing BOEM’s order.
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