The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed to revise existing wastewater limits on coal-fired power plants (US EPA press release, 14/05/2026). Considering that the current legislation is “overly restrictive” to support the “AI and data centre revolution,” the proposed rule aims to extend several wastewater compliance deadlines for coal-fired power plants for them to adapt to increasing electricity demand. In concrete, the new rule would revise the 2024 Effluent Limitations Standards and Guidelines (ELGs) for steam electric power plants expecting to take a more “commonsense approach,” rescinding certain “one-size-fits-all limits” to provide flexibility for permit writers to create limits based on case-by-case data.
The EPA has opened its proposal to public comment for a 30-day period. If approved, the rule is expected to represent savings on power generation costs of about USD1.1bn annually.
Interested in Global Energy Research?
Enerdata's premium online information service provides up-to-date market reports on 110+ countries. The reports include valuable market data and analysis as well as a daily newsfeed, curated by our energy analysts, on the oil, gas, coal and power markets.
This user-friendly tool gives you the essentials about the domestic markets of your concern, including market structure, organisation, actors, projects and business perspectives.