Climate Change & Energy Policy

Updated July 2026 26 primary sources

Climate and energy policy has shifted sharply since 2025 as Washington rolls back federal climate rules amid ongoing legal and political fights.

EPA repealed the 2009 "endangerment finding" — Administrator Lee Zeldin called it "the single largest deregulatory action in U.S. history," projected to save $1.3 trillion (EPA).
The repeal, plus rollbacks of vehicle emissions and mercury/air toxics rules, triggered lawsuits — More than a dozen health and environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, Earthjustice, and the Natural Resources Defense Council, sued (The Guardian; Reuters).
Congress phased out clean-energy tax credits — The 2025 "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" ended many Inflation Reduction Act incentives, including EV purchase credits and home energy-efficiency credits (CNBC).
DOJ is fighting state "climate superfund" laws — It sued New York and Vermont to block them, and most similar state bills have stalled elsewhere in 2026 (E&E News; EID Climate).
The Supreme Court will weigh climate tort liability — It agreed to hear Suncor Energy v. Boulder County this fall on whether local governments can sue fossil fuel companies under state tort law for climate damages (SCOTUSblog).
Green New Deal-style proposals have faded from the Democratic mainstream — The party now pushes narrower measures, like a Green New Deal for public housing (Semafor).

The Two Positions

Where each side stands

Every point below is sourced to a real organization, official, or news report — click through to read it in full context.

Conservative

The endangerment finding was regulatory overreach that strangled the economy

Trump and Zeldin argue the 2009 finding became the legal basis for a sprawling "Green New Scam" of climate rules that cost trillions without any accompanying environmental benefit, and its repeal restores consumer choice in vehicles (EPA).

America's energy dominance strategy is a national and economic security imperative

American Petroleum Institute CEO Mike Sommers says the "Demand Decade" ahead, driven partly by AI data centers, requires unleashing more oil, natural gas, and LNG exports, calling permitting reform the top 2026 policy priority (Fox News).

Coal remains essential for grid reliability and national defense

President Trump's February 2026 executive order directs the Department of War to prioritize coal-fired power, arguing that intermittent renewable sources cannot guarantee the continuous baseload power that military installations require (GovInfo — Executive Order 14386).

State "climate superfund" laws are unconstitutional attempts to punish energy producers retroactively

The Department of Justice argues New York's and Vermont's laws violate the separation of powers, the Commerce Clause, and interfere with foreign affairs by imposing strict liability for decades-old, lawful energy production (National Today).

Aggressive climate regulation imposes massive costs on households with little climate benefit

The Heritage Foundation has long argued that EPA global-warming rules and similar climate agendas produce trillions in lost GDP, higher household energy costs, and hundreds of thousands of job losses (The Heritage Foundation).

Federal climate policy should stop trying to pick winners and instead let markets and cost-benefit analysis guide energy choices

Cato Institute scholars argue that policies like an inflated social cost of carbon distort investment decisions and that a more "rational" approach weighs the real costs of decarbonization against modest, manageable climate risks (Cato Institute).

Progressive

Repealing the endangerment finding is reckless and endangers public health

Union of Concerned Scientists senior scientist Julie McNamara called the repeal "wrong on statute, deceptive on science, reckless on impacts," warning it strips away the legal basis for regulating the country's largest source of greenhouse gases (Union of Concerned Scientists).

The rollback amounts to corruption benefiting fossil fuel interests at public expense

Climate advocates rallying outside EPA headquarters, including the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council, denounced the repeal as "corruption" that will worsen asthma, extreme weather, and economic damage (The Guardian).

State and local governments should be able to hold fossil fuel companies financially accountable through the courts

Backers of state "climate superfund" and tort litigation argue the "polluter pays" principle should apply to greenhouse gases just as it does to other hazardous pollution, an approach the Colorado Supreme Court allowed to proceed in Boulder County's case against Exxon and Suncor (Mintz).

A Green New Deal-style transformation is still necessary to stop the climate crisis and create good jobs

The Sunrise Movement continues to call for a rapid shift to 100% clean, renewable energy paired with millions of union jobs and racial and economic justice investments (Sunrise Movement).

Clean energy rollbacks are destroying jobs and investment, including in Republican districts

Climate Power estimates Trump administration actions have caused the loss or delay of over 172,000 clean energy jobs, and E2's tracking shows tens of thousands of construction jobs and billions in investment canceled in 2026 alone (The Guardian; E2).

Coal subsidies prop up a declining, polluting industry instead of investing in the future

E2's Bob Keefe warned that Trump's coal lifeline is turning the U.S. into "a disconnected petrostate," raising electricity prices while deterring the clean-energy investment that could otherwise flow to American communities (PBS NewsHour).

Common Ground

Key facts both sides cite

Data and polling that inform the debate — both camps draw on these figures, even when they read them differently.

2025 ranked among the hottest years ever recorded — NASA and NOAA data show 2025 as the second- or third-warmest year globally since record-keeping began, behind only 2024 and effectively tied with 2023 (NASA; NOAA).

Americans remain deeply split by party on climate causes, though overall views have been stable — Pew Research finds 48% of U.S. adults say climate change is mostly due to human activity, including 75% of Democrats but just 21% of Republicans, a roughly 54-point partisan gap that has persisted since 2016 (Pew Research Center).

Concern about climate change is near historic highs even as satisfaction with the environment hits a record low — Gallup's 2026 poll finds 44% of Americans worry "a great deal" about global warming — among the highest since 1989 — while only 35% rate U.S. environmental quality as excellent or good, a record low (Gallup; Gallup).

The Inflation Reduction Act's clean-energy investments have disproportionately flowed to Republican districts — E2 analysis found roughly 60% of IRA-linked clean energy projects — representing about 85% of total investment — landed in Republican congressional districts, even though no Republican member of Congress voted for the law (Renewable Energy World / E2).

Sources

Every citation on this page

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