EPA Turns AI Power Demand Into a Fossil-Baseload Deregulation Test

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin signed a final partial repeal of the 2024 Carbon Pollution Standards for fossil-fuel power plants and paired it with a proposal to rescind remaining greenhouse-gas standards for the sector under Clean Air Act Section 111. EPA frames the action as an energy-abundance and cost-saving measure worth more than $300 billion, while major news reports say environmental groups expect legal challenges. The AI angle is not that EPA regulated AI directly, but that rising data-center and industrial load is becoming a justification for fossil-basaload deregulation.