Attorney General Jeff Jackson Fights for Clean Air

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, October 5, 2026
Contact: comms@ncdoj.gov
919-538-2809

RALEIGH —Attorney General Jeff Jackson is taking actions to restore air pollution safeguards at power plants and ensure North Carolinians can breathe clean air.

Attorney General Jackson and a coalition of 25 states, counties, and cities sued the federal administration for eliminating pollution limits for many of the country’s largest power plants. The coalition is filing a petition asking the U.S. Court of Appeals to strike down the rollback and restore the protections, and it is notifying the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that it intends to sue the agency over its failure to regulate pollution from many existing power plants. This follows his March lawsuit against the EPA over its rollback of vehicle pollution standards that will cost people nearly $1.5 trillion in higher fuel and maintenance.

“The EPA is giving companies a green light to pump pollution into the air we breathe, put our health in danger, and harm our state’s natural resources,” said Attorney General Jeff Jackson. “We’re taking the EPA to court to restore safeguards that were put in place to ensure a safe country and clean air for our children.”

In September, the EPA repealed the 2024 Carbon Pollution Standards, which required coal-fired and gas-fired power plants to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Power plants produce roughly a quarter of the country’s carbon dioxide emissions, and the repeal of the 2024 standards will increase pollution. That increase would worsen extreme heat and deadly storms, which would cost state and local governments more to recover from extreme weather. Increased pollution from power plants can also worsen asthma, heart disease, and other serious respiratory illnesses.

Attorney General Jackson’s lawsuit argues that the EPA unlawfully repealed the pollution limits without considering reasonable alternatives or the impact on public health and the environment. He and the coalition are asking the court to strike down the repeal and ensure the U.S. can continue limiting pollution from the country’s biggest polluters.

Additionally, Attorney General Jackson and the coalition notified the EPA that they intend to sue EPA over its failure to regulate greenhouse gas pollution from many existing gas-fired power plants. Despite issuing standards for new gas plants over a decade ago, the EPA has not fulfilled its legal obligation to limit pollution from existing gas plants, leaving North Carolinians without safeguards required by the Clean Air Act.

Attorney General Jackson has been fighting to protect North Carolinians from pollution. Recently, he announced a historic $590 million settlement with Chemours/DuPont over PFAS contamination. This came after he opposed the proposed PFAS deal between the EPA and Chemours because it would do almost nothing to address the damage the company has done in North Carolina. Last month, he called on the EPA to require monitoring of microplastics in drinking water, and earlier this year, he opposed the EPA’s proposed rollback on limits to four PFAS chemicals in drinking water and challenged the agency’s plans to roll back vehicle emission standards. In December 2025, he sent a comment letter to the EPA opposing the rollback of PFAS data collection and reporting. In January of that year, he filed a brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals defending nationwide drinking water standards for PFAS chemicals.

Attorney General Jackson is joined in filing this lawsuit by the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia, as well as the governor of Pennsylvania, the mayors of New York City and Chicago, and the City and County of Denver.

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