According to EPA Administrator Michael Regan, the agency wants to impose stricter air-quality standards for mercury and other toxic pollutants, as well as new restrictions on wastewater generated by power plants.
Mr. Regan stated that the EPA plans to release new proposals in a more coordinated approach to regulating the power sector, utilizing the agency's broad range of powers to oversee air and water pollution, as well as wastewater disposal.
"We don't have to rely on any one rule," Mr. Regan explained. "It is considering the full range of authorities in order to maximize our ability to protect communities and public health."
A coordinated approach, according to Tom Kuhn, president of the Edison Electric Institute, an industry group that represents major utilities, "can help to provide a regulatory framework that supports these investments and accelerates the clean energy transition." However, an industry group that represents owners of smaller and rural power plants expressed concern.
If new rules are not carefully implemented, they could raise the cost of power to businesses and consumers, and the cost of compliance could force older plants powered by coal, oil, and natural gas to close, according to Louis Finkel, senior vice president of government relations for the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.
"If the goal is to create death by a thousand cuts, to make it more difficult to operate, that's wildly problematic," Mr. Finkel said.
Mr. Finkel stated that the idea of a coordinated approach isn't a major concern in and of itself, but he would like to hear more details from Mr. Regan about how the EPA plans to implement the strategy.
He stated that in the past, environmentalists advocated for such a strategy as a way to target and close coal-fired power plants, which many states will see as a threat to low prices and reliable power.
Mr. Regan and agency officials would not go into specifics about each rule change. Mr. Regan stated that the proposed rules are intended to protect poor and minority neighborhoods, which often bear the brunt of power plant pollution, while also reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.
Aside from toxic pollutants like mercury, the EPA intends to propose stricter standards to reduce visible air pollution, or haze, caused by power plants.
Congress mandated the EPA in 1977 to improve air quality in national parks and wilderness areas, primarily in the West. The Regional Haze Program, according to supporters, is responsible for the closure of several coal-fired power plants.
The EPA established Mercury and Air Toxics Standards for power plants in 2012, but the Republican Trump administration revised those and other regulations, claiming that they were too onerous.
The White House is reviewing an EPA draft proposal to reinstate the mercury rule and strengthen toxic emission limits.
The EPA also announced last summer that it would reconsider changes made to the Effluent Guidelines for power-plant wastewater in 2020. It intends to issue a proposal to strengthen discharge limits by the end of the year.
More stringent power-plant regulations were uncommon during the Biden administration's first year. Mr. Regan's EPA has completed rules that limit the use of coolant chemicals that emit potent greenhouse gases, as well as rules to reduce emissions from passenger cars and trucks. In addition, the agency announced preliminary steps to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from the oil and gas industry.
Similar climate rules promised by Mr. Biden for power plants, however, have not been implemented. So far, the EPA has deferred to Congress on the issue, which has been debating new clean-energy standards for power plants for months.
However, due to opposition from coal-state Senator Joe Manchin, lawmakers dropped the idea late last year (D., W.Va.).
And now, broader efforts to increase federal funding for cleaner energy are at risk of failing to secure Mr. Manchin's likely crucial vote in the Senate.
According to Jonathan Skinner-Thompson, a former EPA lawyer who is now a law professor at the University of Colorado, it would be a safe fallback for the EPA to pursue tighter regulations on other emissions more traditionally thought of as pollutants.
According to him, the EPA has more explicit, direct authority from Congress to do things like reduce haze or lower mercury pollution. And regulations designed to address those issues frequently end up addressing climate change as well, most notably by encouraging industry to replace old, inefficient fossil-fuel-burning plants with new, more efficient wind or solar units.
"Rather than spending money to retrofit [coal-fired plants], it may be better to make them more expensive from other pollutants," Mr. Skinner-Thompson said. "Then you get the climate benefits without having to regulate greenhouse gas emissions directly."
Mr. Regan stated that he is not implementing the strategy because he believes the agency's authority to address climate change directly is limited. He believes that a "holistic approach" to power-plant regulation is a better way to spur reductions in a wide range of pollutants emitted by these plants, while also accelerating reductions in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
"It's a lot more than a carbon strategy," Mr. Regan explained. "I am convinced that if we are to protect people, communities, the environment, and the planet, we must do all of the above."