Senate Democrats Push Back Against the EPA’s Funding Freeze

Current conditions: The Pacific Northwest will soon get some relief from back-to-back atmospheric rivers • Wildfires burning in Canada appear to have survived two consecutive winters • Intense thunderstorms are forecast for Rome, Italy, where delegates are gathering this week to hopefully put a plan in place for halting global biodiversity loss.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Nonprofits plan to hand out EPA climate funds Zeldin wants to revoke

The battle over Biden-era climate funds continues. As a refresher: Under the Trump administration, the Environmental Protection Agency is trying to claw back some $20 billion in grants awarded through the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, an Inflation Reduction Act program for climate mitigation and adaptation initiatives. Yesterday a group of Senate Democrats called on EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to abandon the effort to revoke the funds, saying he is illegally ignoring congressional spending authority. And a group of five nonprofits (including United Way, Habitat for Humanity, Rewiring America, and others) who received some of the money said they will start handing it out in the coming weeks and months to “support energy efficiency upgrades, build homes, and boost lending capital for rural, affordable, and multifamily housing,” Politico reported.

2. Rhodium: U.S. clean energy investment still growing, but slower

Investment in clean energy and transportation reached $272 billion in the U.S. last year, which is a 16% rise on the previous year, according to Rhodium Group’s Q4 analysis. The “primary drivers of investment” were consumers who were buying clean technologies like EVs, heat pumps, and renewable electricity and storage solutions. Here is a look at those “retail” trends over the last four years:

Rhodium Group

Clean investment accounted for about 5% of U.S. private investment in the last quarter of 2024, up slightly from the same quarter in 2023. Total investment in Q4 was $70 billion, down 1% from Q3. Rhodium’s report said that while the overall investment trend signals growth, “it also reflects a deceleration from the previous streak of quarter-on-quarter increases.” In other words, growth seems to be slowing.

3. Trump wants to revive the Keystone XL pipeline. The company behind it doesn’t.

President Trump wants the Keystone XL oil pipeline project to be built, he said in a social media post yesterday. The 1,200-mile pipeline was supposed to carry about 800,000 barrels of Canadian oil sands crude per day to Nebraska, but has been rejected several times – most recently by President Biden in 2021 – over concerns about its environmental impacts. The company that had been trying to develop the pipeline, South Bow Corp., has since abandoned the project, and a spokesperson told Bloomberg the firm has “moved on.” In his post, Trump said, “If not them, perhaps another Pipeline Company.”

4. Greenpeace faces potential ruin in pipeline lawsuit

And speaking of pipelines, Greenpeace goes to court this week over the Dakota Access Pipeline, or rather the group’s opposition to it. Texas-based Energy Transfer is accusing Greenpeace of coordinating disruptive protests over the pipeline’s construction in 2016 and 2017. The pipeline has since been completed and is transporting oil, but still Energy Transfer is seeking $300 million in damages, an amount that could bankrupt the activist group. Greenpeace says it played a supportive role in the demonstrations, which were largely organized by Native American groups. It calls the trial “a critical test of the future of the First Amendment, both freedom of speech and peaceful protest under the Trump administration and beyond.”

5. China wants to finally tackle its air pollution

China is aiming to clean up its chronic air pollution problem this year, according to the country’s director of the Department of Atmospheric Environment, Li Tianwei. In the ongoing “battle for blue skies,” the country will roll out new emissions standards, increase the use of electric vehicles and low-carbon machinery at transportation hubs, and move more goods via rail and water, Reuters reported. The country will also focus on improving air quality forecasting and giving advanced warning when pollution is expected to rise. About 2 million people die in China every year from exposure to air pollution, according to the World Health Organization. Pollution levels have been falling in recent years, but still remain above WHO standards.

THE KICKER

Tesla sales in the European Union were down 45% last month compared to the same period in 2024. Meanwhile, overall EV sales in the EU were up 37%.