Climate & Energy
Climate and energy policy encompasses the laws, regulations, and public investments that govern how the United States produces and consumes energy, manages greenhouse gas emissions, and responds to climate change. Central debates involve the pace of transition away from fossil fuels, the future of clean-energy tax incentives, federal land leasing for oil and gas, electric vehicle adoption, and the role of nuclear power.
The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) set a landmark federal framework for clean-energy investment, but the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA)—signed into law July 4, 2025—rolled back or accelerated the phase-out of a wide range of IRA provisions, restructuring the U.S. energy policy landscape. Simultaneously, the EPA's February 2026 rescission of its 2009 greenhouse gas endangerment finding eliminated the foundational legal basis for federal greenhouse gas regulation under the Clean Air Act. With rising electricity prices, surging data-center energy demand, new offshore drilling expansion, and contested EV incentives, the policy choices made in 2025–2026 are likely to shape U.S. energy infrastructure and emissions trajectories for decades.
Left perspective
Progressives and mainstream Democrats argue that climate change is an existential threat requiring urgent federal action to decarbonize the economy, transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, and protect public health from greenhouse gas pollution. They supported the IRA's broad suite of tax credits for solar, wind, EVs, home efficiency, and clean manufacturing as cost-effective tools to drive private investment, create jobs, and reduce emissions. They oppose the OBBBA's rollback of those incentives, the EPA's rescission of the endangerment finding, expanded offshore and ANWR drilling, and the administration's wind energy moratorium. Democrats have framed clean energy as an economic and energy-cost issue as well, arguing that rolling back incentives raises electricity prices, kills manufacturing jobs, and cedes strategic ground to China in the global clean technology race. Democratic legislators like Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL) and Rep. Mike Levin (D-CA) have introduced legislation to restore IRA credits and prevent anti-renewable burdens, while Senate Democrats including Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Martin Heinrich (D-NM) have spotlighted how fossil fuel dependence raises household energy and insurance costs.
Right perspective
Republicans and the Trump administration argue that affordable, reliable, and abundant energy—including oil, gas, coal, and nuclear—is fundamental to American economic competitiveness, national security, and household affordability. They contend that IRA clean energy subsidies were market-distorting, fiscally irresponsible, and tilted energy policy toward technologies that are unreliable or strategically dependent on Chinese supply chains. The OBBBA and associated executive actions are framed as restoring market discipline, ending what conservatives call 'green energy mandates,' and pursuing 'energy dominance' through expanded domestic fossil fuel production. Republicans support an 'all of the above' energy strategy that maintains fossil fuels while selectively investing in nuclear and technology-neutral approaches. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum have been the primary architects of this deregulatory push, with the EPA's repeal of the endangerment finding eliminating the Obama-era legal framework for greenhouse gas regulation. Some moderate Republicans—including Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), John Curtis (R-UT), Thom Tillis (R-NC), and Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV)—have pushed back on the most aggressive OBBBA energy credit rollbacks, arguing that business certainty and rural economic development require predictable tax policy.