Governors, mayors, and town boards have initiated and expanded their commitments to climate action in recent years as never before. As Trump stepped away from international climate leadership and his first administration rolled back more than 98 Obama-era climate policies, ambitions and regulations, Governors Andrew Cuomo, Jay Inslee, and Jerry Brown responded in 2017 by launching the United States Climate Alliance – a bipartisan coalition of governors committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions consistent with the goals of the Paris Agreement. Since its founding, it has grown to 24 governors and Puerto Rico. Their states represent more than half of the nation’s population and sixty percent of the U.S. economy.
When Biden became President in 2020, he moved decidedly to undo Trump’s policies and by May 2023, his administration had added 67 new climate policies and overturned 88 of Trump’s environmental policies. Perhaps Biden’s most historic climate accomplishment is the strangely titled Inflation Reduction Act (signed into law in August, 2022) which provides states extraordinary opportunities for funding to promote home energy efficiency, fund decarbonization projects, create equitable green financial institutions, and more.
The second Trump Administration launched an aggressive campaign of climate deregulation immediately, the most profound of which is the 2/26 repeal of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) landmark 2009 endangerment finding, dismantling the legal framework that gives the government power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. It’s the administration’s biggest climate rollback to date—but not the only anti-climate move President Donald Trump and Republican officials have made recently. There are over 300 other different rollbacks of existing federal climate change mitigation measures so far, according to the Climate Backtracker by Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. Starting from the first day of his second term when Trump declared a “national energy emergency,” the Administration dismantled key elements of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, cut grants for clean energy projects, and stacked the EPA with a former fracking executive and fossil fuel lobbyists, leading up to the “single largest deregulatory action in American history,” as Lee Zeldin has described the repeal of the endangerment finding. With the legal foundation for federal climate policy removed, it’s up to the states to step up and fill in the climate void.
There is a fascinating US interactive map, populated in real time, showing a geographical overview of financial incentives and regulatory policies, state-by-state, that promote renewable energy and energy efficiency here.
As of February 2026, according to the CESA, 24 States, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, have enacted 100% clean energy goals and a number of those have enacted significant legislation. The National Caucus of Environmental Legislators has a bill tracker that lets us see pro-environment bills that have been filed in all state legislatures. You can use the tracker to find bills introduced in your state legislature, and tell your state senators and reps to co-sponsor what you support.
As far back as 2005, an initiative called The Regional Gas Initiative (RGGI) was created by the governors of seven Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from power plants within each participating state: Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, and Vermont, with Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Maryland joining in 2007 and Virginia in 2020. New Jersey withdrew in 2011 and Virginia in 2023--an action which is still the subject of litigation.
In 2015, Hawaii was the first state to establish a goal of 100% renewable electricity sources by 2045.
Created under the Inflation Reduction Act, the EPA’s two-phase Climate Pollution Reduction Grants Program provided federal funding for states, towns, tribes, and local governments to develop Priority Climate Action Plans (PCAPs) for reducing emissions before a March 2024 deadline, followed by Comprehensive Climate Action Plans (CCAPs) in 2025. All states but 5 (Iowa, Florida, South Dakota, Wyoming and Kentucky) participated in the program, receiving funding to produce their PCAPs to be eligible for competitive grant opportunities. 25 applications were ultimately selected for $5 billion in funding. You can view 211 PCAPs on the EPA’s PCAP Directory.
With the Trump Administration aggressively cutting grants and rolling back measures from the IRA, the current status of the program is unclear, but it is likely, especially with the repeal of the endangerment finding, further federal funding for reducing greenhouse gas emissions will not be provided. It will be up to states to produce their Comprehensive Climate Action Plans without federal incentives.
In response to Trump withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Agreement yet again, the co-chairs of the U.S. Climate Alliance, New York Governor Kathy Hochul and New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, wrote a letter to the U.N. Climate Change Executive Secretary, declaring the alliance remains committed to climate action and noting that “states and territories continue to have broad authority under the US Constitution to protect our progress and advance the climate solutions we need. This does not change with a shift in federal administration.”
Along with the U.S. Climate Alliance, organizations including the League of Conservation Voters and America is All In are working as coalitions of states and leaders at all levels of government to meet Paris Agreement targets and reduce emissions, advancing a U.S. Non-Federal Climate Movement. As Trump pulls the U.S. from international climate commitments, Governors like Gavin Newsom are stepping in to fill the leadership void. At the 2026 Munich Security Conference, Newsom participated in panel discussions and met with leaders to deepen international cooperation on climate from a state level.
States can take multiple approaches to stay committed to climate action without the federal government, including utility regulation, transportation investment, legislation like Climate Superfund Acts and disclosure regulation, and lawsuits.
One major tool for States to fight back against the Trump Administration’s climate policies is legal challenges, a tactic California honed in the first Trump Administration, during which the state filed 70 environmental lawsuits, winning the majority. Governor Gavin Newsom has allocated $50 million to funding legal costs of fighting the second Trump administration as Trump targets the state, threatening to withhold disaster aid during its devastating wildfires, and derailing its electric vehicle plans by cutting electric vehicle charging infrastructure funding.
As California Attorney General Rob Bonta explained, “One of the things we learned during Trump 1.0 is that Trump has an enormous capacity to break the law. There’s a way for regulations to be created and a way for them to be changed. If the law isn’t followed, as it often was not during the first Trump administration, we will sue, and as in the past, we will win.”
Governor Shapiro sued the Trump Administration in February 2025 for withholding funds committed to Pennsylvania under the Inflation Reduction Act. Those funds, including money for reducing GHG emissions, and reducing energy costs, were ultimately restored.
Another victory for states came in January 2026 when a federal court ordered the Trump Administration to restore funding for seven clean energy projects. The ruling noted that the grant-termination decisions specifically targeted states that voted Democrat in the 2024 election.
In February 2026, a coalition of 13 states - California, Colorado, Washington, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin - sued the Trump Administration over the cancellation of billions of dollars of funding for clean energy provided under the Inflation Reduction Act.
As the government cuts federal funding for climate change recovery, mitigation and adaptation efforts, states are pursuing that money in other ways, including superfund bills that target fossil fuel companies directly.
On May 30, 2024, Vermont passed the Climate Superfund Act, a landmark law holding fossil fuel companies accountable for their historic contributions to GHG emissions by allowing the state to recover financial damages from the companies. After a three day teach-in and sit-in conducted by environmental leaders and activists, Governor Hochul followed suit and passed the Climate Change Superfund Act on December 26, 2024, which allows New York to collect $75 billion from fossil fuel producers responsible for over 1 billion tons of GHG emissions from 2000-2024. In both acts, the funds collected from these oil and gas companies would support climate adaptation and mitigation projects. New York’s law includes an environmental justice component, with 35% of the collected $3 billion per year going to disadvantaged communities.
The federal government sued New York and Vermont over their climate Superfund acts on May 1, 2025, claiming these acts are unconstitutional oversteps by states. This follows Trump’s April 8th Executive Order “Protecting American Energy from State Overreach” which directed attorneys general to identify all state and local laws that burden energy resources, specifically prioritizing laws that are “purporting to address ‘climate change’ or involving ‘environmental, social, and governance initiatives’ or ‘environmental justice.’” The EO mentions climate Superfund laws in Vermont and New York, calling them “extortion” and “monetary extraction schemes.” Even amidst the federal legal challenges, which will likely go to the Supreme Court, 10 other states are considering their own Superfund laws.
While California’s Polluters Pay Climate Superfund Act didn’t pass, the state is currently considering a bill introduced in February 2026 which would shift the cost of climate disasters from survivors to oil and gas companies. With rising insurance costs in the aftermath of the 2025 Los Angeles Fires, the proposed Affordable Insurance and Recovery Act would place these costs on those most responsible - fossil fuel companies. There are similar bills under consideration in New York and Hawaii.
About three dozen lawsuits have been filed in the United States by state, local and tribal governments in the past decade. The most recent is from Michigan in which they allege BP, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Shell & the American Petroleum Institute acted as a cartel in an unlawful conspiracy to forestall meaningful competition from renewable energy. The suits generally seek monetary damages for costs that municipalities are incurring because of climate change. Many also make consumer fraud claims, arguing the companies covered up what they knew about the risks of using their products. Some have been dismissed, while others have been allowed to advance in the courts. None have made it to trial yet.
On February 23, 2026 the Supreme Court announced that it had agreed to hear a Colorado lawsuit first filed in 2018, seeking to hold two energy giants, Exxon Mobil and Suncor, liable for the effects of climate change, citing state laws. The oil industry is claiming it shouldn’t be sued in state courts over its role in global warming. The outcome could have wide bearing on dozens of other lawsuits around the country.
A complete list of States and the details of their goals can be found at https://www.cesa.org/projects/100-clean-energy-collaborative/guide/table-of-100-clean-energy-states/
In January, 2025, The New York Times created a 50 state project where they highlight climate and environmental solutions in individual states, including a 100-acre nature preserve in Hawaii, a car-free neighborhood in Arizona and geothermal energy that is helping to power Idaho’s capital. It’s a new Climate desk project being shepherded by reporters Cara Buckley and Catrin Einhorn.
STATES MARKED BELOW IN ORANGE ARE COMMITTED TO THE GOALS OF THE PARIS AGREEMENT.
The United States Climate Alliance is a bipartisan coalition of governors committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions consistent with the goals of the Paris Agreement. Smart, coordinated state action can ensure that the United States continues to contribute to the global effort to address climate change.
MAP DATA FROM THE UNITED STATES CLIMATE ALLIANCE
Map drawn and developed by Climate Change Resources Inc. Click on the states below to go to its page.
Click on a STATE BELOW to GO TO ITS PAGE
ALABAMA
ALASKA
ARIZONA
ARKANSAS
CALIFORNIA
COLORADO
CONNECTICUT
DELAWARE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
FLORIDA
GEORGIA
HAWAII
IDAHO
ILLINOIS
INDIANA
IOWA
KANSAS
KENTUCKY
LOUISIANA
MAINE
MARYLAND
MASSACHUSETTS
MICHIGAN
MINNESOTA
MISSISSIPPI
MISSOURI
MONTANA
NEBRASKA
NEVADA
NEW HAMPSHIRE
NEW JERSEY
NEW MEXICO
NEW YORK
NORTH CAROLINA
NORTH DAKOTA
OHIO
OKLAHOMA
OREGON
PENNSYLVANIA
RHODE ISLAND
SOUTH CAROLINA
SOUTH DAKOTA
TENNESSEE
TEXAS
UTAH
VERMONT
VIRGINIA
WASHINGTON
WEST VIRGINIA
WISCONSIN
WYOMING
