Blog

To the extent that people think about the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) at all, they likely think of an institution that works to safeguard our health and well-being, and that of our environment. So, The New York Times made quite a splash recently when it reported that the agency had adopted a new policy under which it would stop considering the health benefits of two of the most harmful and pervasive air pollutants: fine particulate matter and ozone.

Two policy briefs published by the Center in recent months explain that even before the second Trump administration and the 119th Congress launched their broadsides against the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the scale and pacing of decarbonization was already lagging at investor-owned utilities. Most customers in the U.S. are served by investor-owned utilities. Due to their complicated mix of historical industry capture and political power, information asymmetries in the regulatory context, the profit motive of energy production and distribution, and tax policy, IOUs are often disincentivized from advancing an equitable clean energy transition. Our policy briefs explore several alternatives to the IOU model as part of a just transition to clean energy.

In 2025, President Donald Trump rolled out new initiatives at a dizzying rate. That story, in one form or another, dominated the news. This year, much of the news will again be about Trump, but he will have less control of the narrative. Legal and political responses to Trump will play a greater role, as will economic developments. Trump’s anti-environmental crusade may run into strong headwinds.

On November 13, 20 folks attended the second annual rural clean energy convening in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, co-sponsored by the Center for Progressive Reform and the Center for Energy Education. Attendees included academics, energy policy advocates, small-scale developers, technical experts, and government representatives. We built off last year’s convening, addressing the new North Carolina policy landscape and context given the repeal of federal funding, the state’s proposed unfavorable carbon plan, and rising energy burden in communities.

In the past year, Maryland residents have seen their heating bills skyrocket, which has largely been tied to increased costs of methane gas distribution. These costs are expected to worsen as increased spending on the distribution system must be repaid over the next several decades. At the same time, greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels in the home contribute substantially to climate change, and pollution from fossil fuel heating also has a substantial impact on residents’ health. In a new report published today, we explore policies designed to tackle these challenges and provide analysis and recommendations on how to make the transition to updated heating technologies and building electrification more equitable and effective for low-income Marylanders.

Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) hosted four days’ worth of hearings to gather public testimony on its proposal to rescind the 2009 endangerment finding and the suite of existing greenhouse gas (GHG standards for cars and trucks that the finding supplies the legal justification for. The vast majority of the participants testified in strong opposition to the proposal, and included a broad cross-section of our society: faith leaders; a high school student; community organizers; and concerned grandparents.

President Donald Trump is on a rampage. He has big plans for a mass repeal of existing regulations, he’s trying to use emergency declarations to short-circuit normal environmental protections, and he’s savaging environmental agencies. He’s also at war with the rule of law, dodging court orders, ignoring statutes, and punishing lawyers and law firms that have dared to challenge him. In area after area, Trump has tried to sweep aside legal constraints. Part of the point of Trump’s “shock and awe” campaign has been to overwhelm the ability of opponents and the courts to keep up with his legally questionable actions. Trump’s attack on the bureaucracy is also an attack on the rule of law because one of the key functions of bureaucrats is to ensure that the government follows the rules.

In one of President Donald Trump’s first executive orders, he eliminated a centralized system that Jimmy Carter initially set up to issue regulations governing environmental impact statements. Instead, he called on each agency to issue its own regulations, which seems to have caused the predictable amount of confusion. I’ve examined the new regulations from three agencies: the Department of Defense (DOD), the Department of Energy (DOE), and the Department of Transportation (DOT), which happened to be the first ones that I saw. There seems to be little rhyme or reason in the variations.

At the center of the Republican reconciliation bill that the U.S. Senate just sent back to the House is a renewal of President Donald Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that was originally set to expire at the end of this fiscal year. Republicans have been working graveyard shifts to force a vote before the July 4th holiday to lock in even bigger tax breaks for the wealthiest five percent of Americans for the next 10 years. To pay for this, as well as increases in immigration enforcement operations, congressional Republicans are proposing an historic $1.7 trillion in cuts to healthcare, food assistance, and clean energy jobs.