A year since the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was signed into law, this historic climate legislation has already led to $278 billion in private investment that will support more than 170,000 clean energy jobs across the country. And the work is just getting started. Manufacturing incentives in the law, which encourage companies to build the […]

Our country is going to rapidly deploy and manufacture clean energy technologies to a scale never seen before, thanks in large part to historic laws passed by the Biden-Harris administration and Congress. This shift is already unleashing new jobs and economic opportunities around the country, but many communities reliant on fossil fuel production – coal, […]

This blog was co-authored with Danielle Arostegui, Senior Analyst, U.S. Climate. This week, President Biden unveiled a far-reaching infrastructure package to build back the economy in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, while protecting existing and future generations from the most severe consequences of climate change and addressing historic inequities in access to clean air […]

In this culminating report, EDF and Resources for the Future condense lessons across four previous reports that can inform federal policy for supporting U.S. fossil fuel workers and communities in the shift to a clean economy. Wesley Look, Daniel Raimi, Molly Robertson, and Dan Propp of RFF and Jake Higdon of EDF contributed to the […]

After winning on the strongest climate platform of any major party presidential nominee in history, the Biden-Harris administration has a mandate to confront the existential crisis of climate change. This blog series will explore what it will take to restore and strengthen climate leadership both across the country and on the global stage. The leaders […]

EDF and Resources for the Future (RFF) partner on a new research series to inform policymaking on fairness for fossil fuel workers and communities in transition. The shockwaves from the COVID-19 pandemic continue to reverberate across the United States, with tens of millions unemployed and workers in every sector in need of support. The energy […]

Would you believe there’s a state that cut pollution and cleaned up its air, while creating jobs and sustaining economic growth? And where economic incentives, rather than costly regulations, are stimulating innovation and investment? California passed the earliest, most comprehensive law to set a cap on carbon pollution, along with numerous other complementary policies to […]

California state Senate President Kevin de León arrives at the conference center for the UN climate talks in Lima, Peru. Image used with permission from Senator de León. The chattering classes of the climate policy world are abuzz with their customary post-mortems following the latest breathless two-week session of the United Nations Framework on Climate […]

Source: Flickr/Nick Humphries A handful of states are already proving that economic growth and environmental protection can go hand in hand – and they’re using market forces, price signals and economic incentives to meet their goals. These results are particularly salient as states consider how to comply with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to […]

EPA’s Clean Power Plan, proposed today, is a roadmap for cutting dangerous pollution from power plants, and as with any map, there are many roads to follow. For this journey, states are in the driver’s seat and can steer themselves in the direction most beneficial to their people and to the state’s economy, as long as […]

California has the world’s eighth largest economy and a well-earned reputation as a global trendsetter on environmental policy. It should come as no surprise that Californians are out of the gate on the most urgent environmental challenge of our generation: building a clean energy future that protects the world from catastrophic global warming. Given that the […]

This post is by Derek Walker, deputy director of the State Climate Campaign and director of the California Climate Initiative at Environmental Defense Fund. Two weeks ago I posted about California’s Dangerous "Proposition 98", with hidden provisions threatening the state’s environmental laws. The alternative, Proposition 99, achieves the stated goals of Proposition 98 (protecting homeowners […]

Today’s post is by Derek Walker, deputy director of the State Climate Campaign at Environmental Defense Fund. On June 3rd Californians will vote on two competing ballot initiatives that purport to prevent abuse of "eminent domain" – the power of a government to take private property for public use. But only one of these – […]

Today’s post is by Derek Walker, deputy director of the State Climate Campaign at Environmental Defense Fund. Connecticut will soon become the fifth state, after California, New Jersey, Hawaii and Washington, to enact a mandatory cap on greenhouse gas emissions. The state’s Republican Governor, Jodi Rell, announced this week that she will sign the global […]

The author of today’s post, Derek Walker, is the Deputy Director of the State Climate Campaign at Environmental Defense. We need federal legislation to solve the global warming crisis – there’s no doubt about that. But state and local governments don’t have to sit around waiting while the federal debate goes on – and many […]

The author of today’s article, Derek Walker, is deputy director of the state climate initiative at Environmental Defense. Last week, New Jersey’s House and Senate Budget Committees passed a landmark global warming bill called the "Global Warming Response Act". It sailed through the full House and Senate two days later and Governor Jon Corzine says […]