Overview
- In a finalized rule for combustion turbines, the EPA omitted dollar estimates of avoided deaths and illnesses from PM2.5 and ozone and issued weaker NOx limits than a 2024 proposal.
- The agency says it will continue to calculate industry compliance costs and qualitatively weigh health impacts while refining models before resuming monetization.
- Administrator Lee Zeldin and EPA spokespeople say not monetizing benefits does not mean ignoring lives saved, disputing reports that health effects will be excluded.
- Environmental and public-health groups warn the policy shift will make it easier to weaken pollution limits and are preparing legal challenges to the approach.
- The move departs from decades of cost-benefit practice that supported large net benefits in recent Biden-era analyses of tighter PM2.5 standards.