Laws

LAWS

LAWS

Until December 2020, no climate change laws had been passed under the Trump administration.

On December 27, 2020, however, Trump signed a $900 billion stimulus package bill.  Buried in that bill, as David Roberts explains, is a bill which will reduce the use of hydrofluorocarbons.  If this were the only energy provision in the bill, that still would make it one of the biggest climate stories of the year.  And, according the The Atlantic, tacked onto the text were several energy and environment bills that will steer the federal ship of state toward decarbonization. The bill extends tax credits for renewable energy and carbon capture, it funds energy-efficiency projects, and it recommends—in a legally nonbinding way—that the Department of Energy prioritize projects that will help generate 100 percent of U.S. electricity through “clean, renewable, or zero emissions energy sources.”

On June 30, 2021, President Biden signed legislation that will vigorously regulate climate-warming methane leaks from the oil and gas industry, a move supporters say is key to achieving his ambitious climate goals. The Senate vote in April was largely along party lines with three Republican Senators voting in favor of the resolution. In June the House had twelve Republicans joining the Democrats in favor. The signed resolution reverses an Environmental Protection Agency methane rule finalized last year and leaves in place a stricter 2016 EPA rule, finalized during the Obama administration.

Bills Signed: S.J.Res. 13, S.J.Res. 14, S.J.Res. 15

06/30/21  
S.J.Res. 13, which nullifies the EEOC rule titled “Update of Commission’s Conciliation Procedures”; S.J.Res. 14, which provides for Congressional disapproval of the Environmental Protection Agency rule relating to “Oil and Natural Gas Sector: Emission Standards…

Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021

12/21/20  
It is a $2.3 trillion[1] spending bill that combines $900 billion in stimulus relief for the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States with a $1.4 trillion omnibus spending bill for the 2021 federal fiscal year (combining 12…