The rule change, first proposed last year, represents a fundamental shift from efforts by Democratic Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama to address climate change and clean up industrial pollution.

Environmental groups decried the change, saying it would come at a cost to Americans' health and further degrade the environment. EPA officials said the change would allow utilities to make the best decisions for their ratepayers rather than be forced to close aging or inefficient plants.

The rule is expected to face immediate legal challenges. In a related action, the EPA proposed a separate rule, expected to be made final next year, that could prevent future administrations from regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. The proposal follows on EPA's action earlier this year revoking a scientific finding that long has been the central basis for U.S. action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change.

Republican President Donald Trump called climate change "the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world" at a speech to the United Nations last year, and his administration withdrew the U.S. — for the second time — from the 2015 Paris climate accord that sets voluntary goals to curb planet-warming emissions.

Trump has boasted of U.S. energy abundance even as the Iran war continues to disrupt global fuel markets and gas prices top $4.31 a gallon, up more than a dollar from a year ago.