U.S. Chamber Applauds EPA Move to Kill Clean Power Plan 2.0

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has come out in support of the EPA's final rule terminating the Clean Power Plan 2.0, calling the now-scrapped regulation an unworkable burden on electricity producers.

The Chamber's Global Energy Institute, which issued the statement from Washington, D.C., framed the EPA's decision as a necessary correction to federal energy policy. The business group argued that the rule's requirements constrained the country's ability to generate electricity at a moment of sharply rising demand.

"The U.S. Chamber supports the EPA's decision to terminate the majority of the unworkable Clean Power Plan 2.0, which imposed unrealistic expectations on electricity producers and forced the country to compete with one hand tied behind its back," said Marty Durbin, president of the U.S. Chamber's Global Energy Institute.

The statement positions the repeal as a competitiveness issue rather than a purely environmental one. Durbin's argument rests on a straightforward claim: the regulatory requirements under the plan set expectations that power producers could not realistically meet, and that failure would carry economic costs.

Energy Security and AI in the Balance

Central to the Chamber's case is the link between electricity generation capacity and U.S. leadership in advanced technologies. Durbin pointed directly at artificial intelligence as a field where power availability now shapes national competitiveness.

"Eliminating these requirements allows the United States to generate the electricity needed to maintain our domestic energy security and our competitive edge in critical fields like artificial intelligence," Durbin said.

The remark reflects a growing concern among business groups that data centers and AI infrastructure are placing unprecedented strain on the U.S. power grid. In the Chamber's reading, federal emissions rules of the kind embodied in Clean Power Plan 2.0 would have limited the generating capacity available to serve that demand.

The EPA's final rule terminates the majority of the plan, according to the Chamber's statement. The group did not specify which elements of the rule survive, but its characterization of the repeal as covering most of the framework signals it views the action as substantively broad.

The Demand Argument

Durbin closed the Chamber's statement with a forward assessment of what power producers can now do under the relaxed regime.

"Freed from these constraints, America's power producers can now focus on meeting the nation's surging electricity demand with reliable and affordable power," he said.

The formulation matters. The Chamber is not merely celebrating deregulation for its own sake; it is tying the repeal to three specific deliverables: reliability, affordability, and the capacity to meet demand growth. That framing positions electricity supply as an input to economic performance, on par with labor or capital.

The statement also casts domestic energy security as a beneficiary of the repeal. By removing the plan's requirements, Durbin argued, the United States preserves its ability to generate power at the scale required to keep critical industries — with AI named explicitly — on competitive footing.

The Chamber's endorsement puts one of the country's largest business lobbies squarely behind the EPA's deregulatory move. As electricity demand continues to climb, the effectiveness of the repeal in delivering the reliable, affordable power Durbin described will serve as the measure of whether the Chamber's confidence was warranted.