Climate Policy News You Can Use — March 2025

Published: March 31, 2025 by Daniel Neff

Climate Policy Leadership

Dear Colleagues,

Amidst the numerous priorities you have on your plate right now, we will continue to flag the important climate opportunities for businesses to consider. What we are encouraged by is simple: the vast majority (84%!) of the business community is keeping to their climate commitments, or better yet, accelerating them. Companies know the importance of climate policy to meet those goals, and the recent announcement of regulatory rollbacks at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), including a rollback of the Endangerment Finding (more below), could place that progress at risk. Business voice is imperative to maintain the important climate progress made in recent years. Please see below on the latest and reach out to us with any questions on where to best prioritize your efforts!

Reconciliation Merge Begins

Congress is back and conversations around merging the House and Senate budget reconciliation packages have begun. Procedural differences between the chambers remain, but after a productive meeting with the White House last week, the House and Senate are optimistic that they can pass a new budget resolution in the next two weeks. While there are significant details to still work out, House Republicans maintain their ambition to pass the bill by Memorial Day.

Meanwhile, advocacy efforts are ramping up in Congress as members continue to urge congressional leadership to avoid a full-scale repeal of the tax credits. Companies have been demonstrating clear leadership in pushing the importance of the tax credits to their business investments. Earlier this month, that progress was demonstrated in an updated letter from Republicans (now signed by 21 members) urging leadership to maintain the tax credits.

Take Action:

  • Continue to engage with Members whose districts you are investing in and tell them about the IRA tax credits and grant programs your company has benefitted from.
  • Align your trade associations with your IRA advocacy to maintain the programs and tax credits.
  • Still relevant, thank the growing list of members of Congress who signed the letter to Ways & Means Chair Jason Smith this month in support of the energy tax credits.

Go Deeper:

  • EDF and the Sabin Center have re-launched our IRA Tracker with a new functionality to track rollbacks, legal action, and other threats and changes to the IRA.

Endangerment Finding at Risk

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin shared a plan for several regulatory changes to crucial environmental safeguards—safeguards supported by robust scientific evidence, and developed through extensive consultation with industry stakeholders, communities, and civil society. This plan includes reconsidering the EPA’s Endangerment Finding—the legal foundation for regulating climate pollution under the Clean Air Act. Weakening or overturning the Endangerment Finding would create historic regulatory and financial risks for companies and investors.

The Endangerment Finding has been upheld multiple times by the Supreme Court and serves as the bedrock for consistent, science-based climate regulations. Undermining it would:

  • Expose companies to greater legal and financial liability from private litigation and shareholder claims.
  • Increase operational complexity across jurisdictions and regulatory uncertainty, as well as disrupt long-term planning.
  • Threaten long-term investments in clean energy and efficiency, jeopardizing job growth and economic benefits, and weaken U.S. competitiveness in global energy markets.

Take Action:

  • Engage with policymakers to raise your concerns and ask them to advocate directly to the EPA to protect this critical rule and engage with your trade associations to align your interests.
  • Reach out to us if you are interested in discussing details, strategies, or potential comments.

Go Deeper:

EU Omnibus Across the Pond

The EU Omnibus proposal remains under active discussion, with the European Parliament set to vote on the “stop-the-clock” mechanism tomorrow, April 1, 2025. This vote marks the first step in the legislative process for this significant package aimed at simplifying EU sustainability regulations.

Take Action:

  • We are gathering insights from EU-based companies and multinationals on the potential implications of the Omnibus package and broader policy considerations, as this will help define our advocacy strategy. If you’d like to share your perspectives, please reach out.

Go Deeper:

Keeping up with the Administration

DOE is reportedly creating a list of clean energy project grants to cancel, including projects for hydrogen hubs, carbon capture hubs, industrial demonstrations, long-duration energy storage, the Liftoff program, and distributed energy programs. Any project that has received less than 45% of appropriated or obligated funds is subject to review.

Meanwhile, the SEC has voted to end legal defense of the agency’s climate risk and greenhouse gas emissions disclosure rules in the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Please see EDF’s statement for more.

That is all for March. Thank you for reading, and if this was forwarded to you, email us to subscribe!

Best,
Daniel Neff on behalf of the Climate Policy Leadership Team