CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (January 12, 2026)—The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued final nitrogen oxide (NOx) emission standards for new stationary gas turbines, including new gas-fired power plants. These standards, which have not been updated since 2006, have taken on increased importance with the surge of new gas-fired power plant proposals cropping up around the country to meet speculated new data center electricity demand; however, the final rule is significantly weaker than the 2024 proposal and includes new polluter loopholes. In a major departure from precedent and long-standing best practice, EPA also declined to quantify the public health impacts associated with changes in pollution levels due to this rule.
Below is a statement by Julie McNamara, associate policy director of the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).
“Communities across the country are scrambling to fight the threat of surging pollution harms from new fossil gas plants built to meet insatiable data center electricity demand. Instead of protecting people’s health, however, these deficient new gas turbine standards make clear Trump’s EPA is only here to boost the profits of Big Tech and the fossil fuel interests that serve them.
“Despite the ready availability and unquestionable public benefit of rigorous pollution controls, EPA Administrator Zeldin instead issued a rule rife with polluter loopholes. Worse, when tallying the impacts, the agency literally, entirely, completely excised consideration of public health harms. This also sets an alarming precedent for future agency rulemakings.
“That the agency charged with protecting public health and the environment would so fully exclude consideration of public health impacts to cater to the interests of polluters is flagrant, shameless, lawless—words do not suffice.”