I Want to Talk About Solar Geoengineering and You Should Too!

It’s been a little over a month since the Federation of American Scientists’ (FAS) inaugural panel on Climate Interventions at DC Climate Week, hosted alongside the Chesapeake Climate Action Network…and I’m still thinking about it. 

Why? Because with our climate rapidly deteriorating, the idea that there’s an underresearched suite of technologies that could buy us more time to decarbonize and save countless lives is one that sticks with you. 

Sure, shooting particles into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight back into space, or spraying seawater on glaciers to stop them from falling into the ocean, sound like ideas from a science fiction novel. But so does New Orleans falling into the ocean, or extreme heat making parts of the world unlivable, or (more nerdily) Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) collapse. These things are all now in the realm of the possible – or already happening. So what do we do about it? 

For one, I think we hear out the experts that take these technologies, collectively known as “climate interventions” or “climate stabilization” approaches, seriously. Some of those experts spoke on the DC Climate Week panel and gave me the brain worm that is this blog.

The panelists made one thing loud and clear: we need better tools to respond to the climate crisis, as well as transparent, equitable research governance frameworks for developing them. 

Climate Interventions 101

If you’re new to the climate intervention space, welcome! The TL;DR: if we can’t stop the most catastrophic impacts of climate change with current tools quickly enough, then we need a bigger toolbox.

To put it another way, think of climate interventions as a life jacket instead of a rescue boat. In this metaphor, the rescue boat is continued clean energy deployment and carbon capture, entrepreneurial re-thinking of our climate laws and policies, and a holistic approach to decarbonization that’s grounded in transparency, equity, and legitimacy. Climate interventions are what keep you afloat long enough for the real help to arrive.

The panelists focused on one specific type of climate intervention: solar geoengineering, also called Solar Radiation Modification (SRM). SRM aims to artificially lower global temperatures by reflecting incoming sunlight back into space, thereby potentially stalling the worst impacts of climate change. There are three main types of SRM approaches: Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI), Marine Cloud Brightening (MCB), and Cirrus Cloud Thinning (CCT). SAI is usually the subject of most conversation given that it has by far the greatest potential to affect temperatures on a global scale.

Research ≠ Deployment 

The panelists were clear that talking about the need for SRM research isn’t the same as calling for deployment (i.e., ultimate large-scale use of SRM techniques). Take hurricanes – Meteorologists study hurricane patterns not because they want a hurricane to make landfall, but to understand what might happen if it does. You can support the research without being pro-hurricane. Same idea here.

Since there’s no world in which we don’t benefit from learning all we can about these technologies and their potential risks and benefits, research should be nonnegotiable. 

The Big Deal About Research Governance 

The next question is: who’s in charge and gets to make the decisions about how we do said research? That’s what “research governance” is about. Research governance sounds like one of those abstract terms that elites use to confuse people but really just refers to the nuts and bolts of how research into SRM (and other climate interventions) gets done – what the regulations are, who’s involved, and what principles inform decision making.

The panelists felt strongly that the “who” of research governance is almost as important as the “what.” A global intervention needs global involvement in the research design. Impacted countries and communities need a seat at the table to shape the work and think collectively about how research moves forward.

Whether impacted communities are involved can be the difference between success and failure. Two attempted outdoor experiments, SCoPOx (at Harvard) and SPICE (in the UK), failed to secure public buy-in from the beginning. Both were shut down and became unnecessarily politicized. Australia offers a counter-example. That country has successfully carried out MCB research without much backlash because it prioritized public engagement and targeted something tangible the public cares about (protecting the Great Barrier Reef) in its outreach. When you hit people in their hearts, they’re more likely to listen. 

Multilateral Action, Please!

SRM is global in nature, so it matters how other countries are approaching (or ignoring) this issue. As of now, there’s no multilateral governance framework for climate interventions, or even an appropriate forum for developing one. Which is a little crazy considering there seems to be a multilateral group for almost everything. Given this, a path forward may be for small groups (or “clubs”) of countries to begin setting norms, standards, and research frameworks together, similar to other international science coordination. For example, the Global Methane Pledge is a coalition of countries that agree to take voluntary action to reduce global methane emissions. A similar research coalition could form around SRM, or climate interventions more broadly. 

Research requires money. Currently, only the United Kingdom (UK) funds climate interventions research at any significant scale. And even the UK’s program, structured under their Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), has a budget of only about $76 million USD – a minuscule amount compared to other critical research areas. Multiple countries working together could pool resources to increase the amount of funding in climate intervention research, and probably should, given what I’ll call “The Stardust Situation”. That situation is the reality that when the government leaves gaps, the private sector sometimes fills them. And in the SRM space, an American-Israeli private company called Stardust is developing its own particles for SAI to fill the gap. Stardust has raised about $60 million to date – almost the entire budget of ARIA. 

One could argue that private-sector innovation is good, and there’s some truth to that. But as Hannah Safford put it recently, we might also “not like the choices” that the private sector makes without any guardrails or shared goals and norms around SRM research and experimentation. After all, few people these days are loving our unregulated AI overlords. But, and I’ll quote Hannah again, the United States “government has shown more interest in banning climate science than in thoughtfully governing emerging technology.” The panel agreed it’s past time for this to change.

Building Something New

To sum it up: research can’t responsibly proceed without governance, but governance shouldn’t strangle research. Figuring out that balance is the work ahead in the SRM space. The path is filled with tough questions, but the exciting thing is that we have an opportunity to respond right the first time, since we already know what doesn’t work. So many policy areas are either deeply politicized and/or cluttered with outdated laws or old, creaky institutions. This isn’t the case for climate interventions. Here, we can build new frameworks for climate interventions research and governance that have equity, transparency, and legitimacy baked in from the start. We don’t have to fit a square peg into a round hole. That’s something I won’t stop thinking about anytime soon. 

Interested in FAS’ or CCAN’s work on climate interventions? Visit the FAS & CCAN websites.

Disaster Policy Nerds Explain the Good, Bad, and Ugly in FEMA Review Council Report

It’s here! After months of delay, the council tasked by President Trump to review the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) released its final report earlier this month. 

If you’re not a disaster policy nerd like we are, here’s some quick background.

Up until the founding of FEMA in 1979 under President Jimmy Carter, disaster response in the United States was largely disorganized and reactive. The agency has since gone through several major updates. Passage of the Robert T. Stafford Act in 1988 established the formal mechanism for disaster declarations and federal disaster response, while in the years following the 9/11 attacks FEMA transitioned from an independent cabinet agency to part of the newly established Department of Homeland Security. 

Recently, FEMA has come under intense scrutiny from the second Trump administration for being seen as ineffective, bureaucratic, and in some cases politically biased against him. While FEMA has had issues in the past related to delayed response times and survivors receiving aid (and criticism with how it handled Hurricane Maria), reports show that many of these issues may be related to an increase in major disasters due to climate change, as well as a lack of regular training, sufficient funding, and adequate staffing – rather than structural issues with the agency. In addition, traditionally “red” states (like Texas, Louisiana, and Florida) typically receive more FEMA funding due to the amount of disasters they experience, so claims of political bias are largely unfounded. 

Yet when Trump took office for the second time, there were calls to get rid of FEMA altogether. However, after pushback from citizens and lawmakers and several major disasters, the aforementioned council has opted to avoid recommending completely dismantling the agency. Instead, the council proposes major changes to the way FEMA operates (the council repeatedly refers to a “transformed agency”), via ten general recommendations. Here’s our quick snapshot of the good, the bad, and the ugly of these recommendations, with more detail below:

Also, a quick note on the United States’ approach to disasters: there is generally an overemphasis on acute economic impacts, and not what they do to systems as a whole long-term. As many disaster researchers will tell you, while hazards can be natural, disasters are not. Disasters are the result of hazards adversely impacting people and their communities due to decisions that increase vulnerability and risk exposure. If we limit our approach to disaster recovery to include only economies and infrastructure, we’ll tend to overlook other critical factors, like public health, social connection, and community wellbeing, that contribute to these vulnerabilities. Just because a house has been rebuilt or power has been restored does not mean recovery has been achieved. Before we implement sweeping changes to the agency responsible for disaster response, it’s important that we as a nation consider this in our approach to disasters.

With that aside, onto the deeper dive into the good, the bad, and the ugly of the review council’s report.

The Good

First, the council re-emphasizes FEMA’s core mission of “[reducing] the loss of life and property and [protecting] the Nation from all hazards”, with the guiding principle of disaster response being “locally executed, state or tribally managed, and federally supported”. This is in line with the survivor-led response approach that many local recovery groups have recommended. Communities have the local knowledge and boots-on-the-ground presence needed to ensure that recovery efforts are appropriate for their situations and contexts, but often lack the funding to implement tailored solutions. The council suggests that FEMA strengthen regional coordination, which could in turn support community- and survivor-led response. 

Another positive is the council’s emphasis on rapid mitigation and hardening support to increase efficiency and prevent damage from future disasters. This includes modernizing the federal disaster response by implementing the National Resilience Strategy and updating flood risk information and land use to prevent building in flood plains, both common-sense solutions that can prevent the worst damage from disasters before they even occur. They additionally recommend a two-phase program that would replace the Hazard Grant Mitigation Program (HGMP) with a new program designed to more rapidly distribute federal funding to states (the first 5% of federal funds within the first 30 days following a disaster declaration, followed by an additional 10% within six months). The council calls this new program the “Refined Risk Reduction” Program (R3P), and could potentially address issues survivors have brought up with administrative burden around disaster aid, such as by modifying the Individual Assistance Program and consolidating relief applications into a single direct payment program. There are also specific relief allocations for renters (who often get left out of recovery discussions), including the equivalent of three to six months of rent.

Finally, a recommendation could be either positive or negative (depending at least partially on the details of implementation) is changing how surviving homeowners get reimbursed for individual assistance, including how the amounts are calculated. Currently, home repair assistance payments are capped at $25,000 and based on loss estimates, regardless of property value. The council suggests changing this cap to no more than 15% of the home valuation (so a home valued at $250,000 would qualify for a maximum payment of $37,500), but expanding the purpose of such payments to cover everything from home repairs to funeral costs – i.e., requiring the payments to stretch further than they do currently. Another issue is that FEMA funding has been found to favor wealthier individuals, and basing funding on home valuation has the potential to further drive disparities in aid. Supplemental funding opportunities and/or proactive aid and assistance for lower-income families could potentially reduce this risk.

The Bad

Perhaps the most concerning recommendation of the council is its call for a “lean FEMA workforce”. While the council is less aggressive overall in demanding FEMA staffing reductions than previous drafts (and now just calls for a strategic review of requirements to “determine appropriate staffing levels”), further staffing reductions could exacerbate issues we’re already seeing with FEMA from previous personnel cuts. Disaster survivors have also condemned further FEMA staffing cuts. The council also suggests adjusting how insurance rates are calculated under the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and shifting more flood insurance policies to private markets, which could prohibitively increase premiums, decrease regulation, and lead to more uninsurance and underinsurance in risk-prone areas unless there are appropriate safety measures in place. 

Finally, the council recommends decreasing the overall federal share of disaster assistance funding from 75–100% to 50–75% of costs, with states expected to cover the rest. Many states do not have resources to cover the difference – at least in the near term. With a sufficient transition period, though, more heavily weighting state responsibility for disaster aid may increase sustainability in the long term given that the Disaster Relief Fund repeatedly runs low on funds, and that there are concerns with fund depletion as disasters continue to increase in frequency and severity. Another concern is the council’s prioritization of “high performing states”. While this would encourage more states to have hazard mitigation plans in place, it could result in biased decision-making that would favor certain states, and may leave states with fewer financial resources or rare disaster occurrence with less support when it’s most needed.

The Ugly

The biggest overall issue with the council’s suggestions is that they recommend a 2–3 year timeline for states and tribal governments to prepare their fiscal and physical resources to lead disaster response efforts (rather than relying on FEMA). This is an unrealistic timeline, as many states do not currently have sufficient emergency management resources, legislation to establish and support relief funding, or identified revenue streams to pay for the increased cost-share for states. And on top of that, some state governments (like Texas) only meet every two years, making the 2-3 year timeline impossible. Another issue with the council is the apparent bias in its makeup. While it did include representatives with leadership and emergency management experience from hard-hit states like Florida, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Virginia, there was a notable lack of members from other disaster-prone parts of the country, like California.

Another problem is the council’s recommendation of using a parametric insurance program to replace FEMA’s current Public Assistance Program (the main funding source for community-level disaster recovery). Parametric insurance is a type of insurance where payments are disbursed almost immediately following certain trigger events, and while it has demonstrated potential in rapidly distributing funds after certain hazardous events, there are too many variables to feasibly consider replacing the entire Public Assistance Program in 2-3 years. For example, the council includes an example of determining payment amounts by hurricane category (e.g.,: a Category 2 hurricane would disburse less funds than a Category 4). However, hurricane categories are based on wind speed alone, and hurricanes with weaker winds can still do extensive damage through other means, like storm surge and rainfall (Hurricane Ike in 2008 and Hurricane Harvey in 2017 are two such examples). These complexities would have to be accounted for when establishing the thresholds of a parametric insurance framework, and without rigorous pilot testing, runs the risk of over or underpaying states following disasters.

One final concern is the council made no mention whatsoever of the BRIC (Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities) grant program. This absence from the report likely means BRIC is not a priority for current leadership, despite it being one of the largest sources for proactive mitigation funding for states and communities. BRIC has been the subject of much consternation following its abrupt cancellation in April of 2025 and its later reinstatement in March of 2026 (following a lawsuit from several states). However, there is now a heavy focus on “shovel-ready projects” (i.e. physical infrastructure projects that have already been planned out). While this sounds good for efficiency, as we noted earlier, not all infrastructure critical to community wellbeing and recovery is physical and “shovel-ready”. Things like social and public health infrastructure are just as important for disaster recovery, but tend to be overlooked in recovery efforts. In limiting BRIC funding to these types of projects, states and local governments will be unable to be truly proactive in their mitigation efforts to prevent future damage from disasters. 

Conclusion

The review council’s recommendations are not as bad as they could have been and FEMA’s continued existence seems to be safe (for now). Indeed, many of the recommendations could yield positive results, especially when it comes to reducing the burden and obstacles that survivors face in getting help. However, some of the recommendations (like using parametric insurance methods, reducing state assistance, and attempting to implement sweeping changes over a fast 2–3 year timeline) could pose problems for states, communities, and survivors, and a longer transition period with pilot testing will be needed to ensure these changes happen efficiently and effectively. 

Four Innovations Driving Climate Progress in State Government

Subnational governments—cities, states, and counties—took some of the earliest steps in the United States to protect air quality, water quality, and public health. Over the last several decades, as the federal government has wavered in its commitment or failed to take a leadership role on climate change, states and cities have continued to act, both by bold pronouncements and aggressive targets and in more quiet, subtle ways that have eased the path for clean energy and other investments. This has resulted in a diverse cohort of cities and states that have made great progress in advancing clean energy and other climate solutions and are well-positioned to continue this leadership and innovation. 

However, the federal government is taking aim at subnational authority and leadership, including threats to states’ actions deemed “overreach.” This threat from the federal government not only limits the ability of subnational governments to develop innovative tools to address climate challenges, but can hinder opportunities for economic development by limiting access to lower cost energy solutions, stifling innovation in emerging industries, and hampering global competitiveness. 

Subnational Governments as Innovators and Leaders

Subnational governments, in liberal and conservative states, have long been the drivers of clean energy and climate progress in the United States. 

Iowa adopted the first renewable portfolio standard in the United States in 1983, which laid the foundation for the state to remain one of the top renewable energy producing states in the country. George W. Bush and Christine Todd Whitman took aggressive actions as governors to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Like Iowa, this early commitment in Texas has proven durable as the state continues to lead on renewable energy and energy storage deployment – due in large part to the state’s work to accelerate deployment of renewable energy projects, including permit streamlining and speeding interconnection for new projects. Renewable electricity generation reached a new high in the United States in 2024 and four of the top five producing states were “red” states .

U.S. cities and states have also taken a lead to affirm global commitments to achieve greenhouse gas emission reductions. In 2005, the U.S. Conference of Mayors launched its climate commitment when 141 mayors committed to meeting the emission targets included in the Kyoto Protocol. That same year, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger issued an executive order in California, establishing economy-wide greenhouse gas emission reduction targets for 2010, 2020, and 2050. 

Subnational actions are far more than symbolic. As of today, 33 states have climate action plans, 24 states have economy-wide greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, and 36 states have renewable energy or clean electricity standards. These commitments spotlight state leadership and serve as a reminder of the role of states’ authority and commitment to environmental leadership and their ability to serve as a backstop to federal inaction. They are important in several important ways. These commitments to reduced emissions and clean energy targets send a signal to developers, investors, and other governments that they have customers, markets, and willing partners. This has driven investment in companies and created opportunities for workers and industries in these states. 

Subnational leadership is equally important for reimagining the systems, governance, and institutions to make these targets, goals, and investments a reality. For example, cities and states have developed streamlined permitting and inspecting processes for residential solar and energy storage installations (167 jurisdictions in 47 states), identified least conflict areas for large scale renewable energy projects (California and Washington), and developed innovative finance structures and institutions to support clean energy investment and development (e.g., Green Banks in 29 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico). Scaling these innovations can accelerate the energy transition and boost economic development, workforce development, and local communities.

The Need for Subnational Leadership

Subnational leadership on decarbonization is a practical necessity. Modeling shows that meeting global emission reduction commitments requires actions by subnational governments and businesses. In the United States, existing commitments by subnational governments and businesses could reduce national emissions 25% below 2005 levels by 2030. State level action can be approximately cost-comparable to federal (top-down) action and it tends to focus more on electrification of energy end uses, clean energy, and direct air capture, all solutions that fall under the authority of subnational. 

Subnational governments hold primary authority over infrastructure development, siting and development of energy generation and transmission, energy efficiency in buildings, and land use decisions that determine development and conservation patterns. For example, scaling electrification to levels needed to achieve climate goals requires massive build out of clean energy resources and installation of heat pumps and other electric appliances at the household level. At the same time, state and local economies and communities are intimately connected to legacy industries that have shaped local fiscal structures, workforce, and cultures. Therefore, realizing the transformation necessary to decarbonize requires strategic action by state and local government.

Current regulatory structures are not optimized to navigate the challenges of decarbonization. Decarbonization is a systems challenge that depends on successful transformation of technical, social, and economic systems. Decarbonizing the energy system requires building new, clean energy and transportation systems, while at the same time making the investments needed for an orderly transition away from carbon in legacy industries like oil and gas. This dual approach enables environmental progress, while also protecting the workers and communities reliant on legacy industry. This requires linking environmental goals and policy in alignment with economic development, industrial policy, and environmental justice and equity goals. Failing to take an integrated approach repeating patterns of earlier transitions that concentrated pollution and contributed to growing inequity and environmental justice problems. Subnational governments are well positioned to take this integrated approach. 

Working at a state or local level means that policies can be tailored to meet local contexts (e.g., economic, political, or social) in a way that top-down federal policies cannot. This is especially important because “successful implementation” means more than reducing emissions. Successful implementation means meeting climate and environmental goals while promoting prosperity and equitable opportunities for all residents, businesses, and communities. Success depends on accelerating project implementation while also addressing affordability issues and promoting society-wide benefits. Successful implementation stories are needed across a diversity of places to demonstrate approaches that are easy for others to follow and will resonate with cities and states that face different political, economic, and social situations. State and local government provide the right scale for building these solutions.

Challenges to Subnational Leadership and Innovation

It must be noted, especially at this point in time, that while the United States has a strong tradition of subnational leadership, it is not guaranteed. Subnational governments are experiencing many challenges that threaten to erode their leadership position—some inherent in the nature of the energy transition and other external factors.  

A challenge of the energy transition is the need to build up new, clean energy systems while also carefully phasing out old, polluting systems. Governments need to accelerate investment in new clean energy, while continuing to invest in legacy industries. Failing to do both can introduce threats that can erode or even stall progress on decarbonization. California is experiencing this challenge now as the state navigates the impact of reduced demand for gasoline, a success of the state’s clean transportation policies, and what that means for the state’s oil and gas industry. The instability for oil and gas has resulted in the planned closure of two of the state’s refineries. While these closures will reduce pollution in host communities, they will also result in lost jobs and revenue and have the potential to increase the price of gasoline for California consumers. These dynamics have required the state to take actions to stabilize the oil and gas industry, while also accelerating its clean energy investments.

These challenges, inherent to the transition, are being exacerbated by other factors that threaten to erode subnational leadership and innovation, including:

While daunting, these challenges make the need for subnational innovation more important than ever. 

Current Opportunities for Subnational Leadership and Innovation

Now, more than ever, subnational governments need to be places for regulatory ingenuity and action in the face of strong headwinds. The urgency of climate change requires immediate acceleration of the implementation of climate solutions—to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, protect public health and wellbeing, align economic development with environmental goals, and build resilience to changing climate and extreme events. Cities and states are best positioned to design policies to accelerate clean energy, innovation, and economic development because they can design approaches that work in different social, political, and economic contexts. 

Innovation lies in the “how”—how to scope the challenges and design solutions that recognize the complexity of the decarbonization challenge. Subnational governments have already demonstrated several the power of regulatory innovation in several areas that show how rethinking regulatory and governance systems can accelerate progress: 

These innovations by subnational governments show how government can accelerate the deployment of clean energy and other climate projects, implement projects that work in specific contexts, and deliver benefits to people and local economies. 

Innovation 1. Least Conflict Siting

Uncertainty, conflict, and complex permitting and siting processes are major impediments to project implementation. Developing new approaches to siting and permitting can reduce uncertainty and delays that can increase project costs and diminish developer confidence. State and local governments can develop and deploy several innovative tools that can make it easier and less expensive to implement climate solutions, while also increasing transparency and engagement.

Cities, states, and counties can improve the siting and permitting processes by removing barriers to implementation, engaging with diverse stakeholders, and reducing costs for developers, government, and residents and businesses. For siting, this can include thinking at a regional or multi-project scale to identify priority areas for development. Engaging stakeholders early in the process can reduce objections and challenges later in the project process. Least-conflict siting processes provide one approach to innovate in the siting process. 

Siting Innovation: Least Conflict Siting Process 

Least conflict siting is a data-driven, participatory siting process guided by stakeholder priorities. A least conflict siting process uses spatial data that reflect stakeholder priorities (e.g., prime agricultural lands, sensitive habitat, etc.) to identify areas for infrastructure siting that avoid areas of high conflict. Using a participatory, stakeholder-driven process can avoid conflict at later stages in the development process, reduce uncertainty for developers, and provide a more transparent process for local residents, business, and other stakeholders. By identifying least conflict lands, stakeholders can then focus on removing obstacles to development on those lands (e.g., access to transmission). The process is non-binding, so can be adjusted as conditions or priorities change. 

A least conflict siting process has been used in two regional contexts. The Center for Law, Energy, and the Environment and the Conservation Biology Institute piloted a least conflict siting approach for solar energy development in the western San Joaquin Valley in California in 2016. The project aimed to identify areas with least conflict for renewable energy development in a six-month process. A least conflict siting process has also been piloted for the Columbia Plateau in Washington. The project spanned eight months and concluded in 2023. 

Both processes used geospatial data made accessible to all stakeholders through a collaborative gateway. Following this pilot program, Washington State passed a law in 2023 to improve project siting and permitting includes this least-conflict approach as a tool to be referenced for large scale renewable projects. 

While this approach was developed in the context of large-scale renewable development, a least conflict-type process can be applied to a range of project types. This could include minerals mining, carbon removal, or transmission projects. The least conflict approach surfaces priorities and concerns in each region and the results of the process can be applied to different types of climate and energy projects, providing an opportunity to provide efficiency. A least conflict siting process requires commitment from a local permitting authority (e.g., local government), project developers, and stakeholders, including environmental, business, economic development, and other groups. The process also requires some investment to establish a robust process, including: spatial data showing energy, environmental, and other characteristics on the landscape, robust engagement, and strong facilitation.

Innovation 2. Automated Permitting

Delays in permitting increase project costs for developers and households. Developing transparent and simpler approaches to permitting can reduce delays, errors, and costs. Analysis of rooftop solar permitting in the United States shows that nearly 80% of a system’s cost is attributable to “soft costs.” These include design, project management, permitting, inspections, and interconnection. Reducing these soft costs through streamlined and/or automated processes can significantly reduce the costs of these projects. Streamlining can address many stages of the permitting process, including application, evaluation, and inspection – saving time and money for applicants, installers, and permitting agencies. For large-scale projects, mapping the permitting process to identify opportunities for creativity, flexibility, and efficiency can improve the permitting process. 

Permitting Innovation: Automated Permitting and Inspection

Cities and counties are the permitting authorities for many clean energy projects, including rooftop solar and storage systems. Permit Power is a U.S.-based non-profit organization focused on reducing the bureaucratic impediments to deploying residential solar and battery storage. The organization’s research finds that a typical residential solar installation in the United States is up to seven times more expensive than a similar installation in Australia or Germany. To address this disparity, Permit Power is working at the state and local level to advance permitting and interconnection reform to reduce barriers to residential solar and battery storage projects. 

Developers have identified permitting and inspection as major barriers to residential solar and storage project deployment—increasing both the cost and timeline for projects. Several states have adopted laws allowing or requiring cities and counties implement automated or streamlined permitting processes, while others have opted in on their own. The state laws that encourage or require automated permitting for solar projects have taken different approaches, generally with a nod to maintaining flexibility. New Jersey’s law directed a state agency to develop an automated permitting platform, but also to allow local jurisdictions to adopt an alternate platform with oversight from the state agency. Texas and Florida passed laws allowing the use of automated platforms but not requiring them. Maryland passed a law requiring local jurisdictions to use an automated permitting platform.

The Solar Automated Permit Processing Plus (SolarAPP+) provides a free, widely applicable platform to streamline permitting for rooftop solar and solar plus storage projects. SolarAPP+ is available free to jurisdictions designed to make the installation process easier for contractors and permitters, reducing needed staff resources, project timelines, and permitting delays. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) developed SolarAPP+ in collaboration with industry and building inspectors. The platform streamlines permit approval for installations that meet specific requirements.

SolarAPP+ was launched in 2021. At the end of 2023, 167 permitting jurisdictions have adopted or piloted use of the SolarAPP+, and close to 600 additional jurisdictions have expressed interest in the application. Annual evaluations of the platform’s use show that permits for code-compliant systems is nearly instantaneous and that SolarAPP+ projects complete the full permitting process faster than installations that use the traditional permitting process. The evaluations also document savings in staff time and reductions in project delays. 

SolarAPP+ is now managed by an independent foundation and is available to all jurisdictions free of charge. 

Innovation 3. Making Projects Work for All By Using Community Benefit Tools

A risk of moving projects at a more rapid pace is the potential for harmful, unintended impacts on communities and the environment, including concentration of industrial activities, damage to habitat and natural systems, and reductions local quality of life. At the same time, these projects can bring economic development, workforce, and associated benefits to host communities. Community benefits tools can reduce conflict and improve project delivery by minimizing harms and harnessing benefits from these investments. 

Community benefit tools can provide a mechanism for ongoing accountability and transparency for host communities, businesses, residents, and other stakeholder groups. These tools include community benefits agreements, community and cooperative ownership structures, and community oversight structures. If carefully crafted, community benefits tools have the potential to deliver meaningful benefits to infrastructure host communities, provide opportunities for community oversight and shared governance of projects, and reduce friction between developers and communities. Including community organizations and stakeholders as planning and implementation partners is vital to the success of these tools. 

Subnational governments can require or create incentives for the development and use of community benefits tools for project deployment and they also have an important role to play in building community capacity to engage in the development and deployment of community benefits tools. They are also well-positioned to create the guidance and accountability tools to create the conditions for more effective community benefits structures. However, the existence of a community benefits agreement or related tool is not sufficient in and of itself, these tools need to be developed and designed well to deliver benefits to communities. 

Importantly, linking community benefits to siting and permitting innovations can provide durable assurances of project performance and that a project will deliver benefits to a host community. 

While requirements and incentive structures have promise, it is critical that tools are available to ensure that community benefits agreements are done well. These include guidelines for agreement development and technical and legal assistance for communities to ensure that agreements deliver real benefits to communities. It is worth noting that developing project by project community benefits agreements could result in two unintended and undesirable outcomes: the added process could slow down or discourage wanted projects and host communities end up with piecemeal benefits that cannot deliver meaningful and transformative investments in a community (e.g., comprehensive workforce development, integrated infrastructure investments, etc). Imagining scaled approaches (e.g., across a city or county scale) to deliver community benefits in a holistic manner across multiple projects in that area could increase efficiency for developers and support transformative investments in places hosting multiple projects or project elements. 

Community Innovation: Models to Deliver Community Benefits 

Community benefits agreements associated with development projects can deliver meaningful benefits to host communities, including investments in infrastructure, workforce development, and other community investments. State or local governments can require community benefits frameworks for projects in a specific geography (e.g., a community benefit ordinance) or create incentives for the development community benefits agreements or other structures to streamline project development (e.g., California Assembly Bill 205).

Detroit adopted a Community Benefit Ordinance in 2016. The ordinance requires that projects valued above $75 million or that receive significant subsidies from the city provide additional benefits to the community where a project is sited. When the ordinance is triggered, a Neighborhood Advisory Council from the project’s impact area is formed to work directly with the developer. The City of Detroit tracks progress on the commitments made through the agreements developed under the ordinance. Since its passage, eleven projects have finalized agreements under the ordinance and four more are in progress. Regular review of the ordinance’s performance has identified areas for improvement but monitoring shows that it has delivered measurable benefits in Detroit communities. 

In accordance with California Assembly Bill 205 (2022), the California Energy Commission (CEC) has developed an Opt-In Certification program for clean energy projects including large-scale renewable energy (i.e., greater than 50MW), energy storage, and some clean technology industrial facilities. Through the opt-in certification program, the CEC can issue a permit for the project and enable it to forego permitting by local land use authorities and most, but not all, state permits. To qualify for the Opt-In Program, a project must meet a set of requirements, including entering into at least one legally-binding and enforceable agreement that benefits one of more community-based organizations in the project area (e.g., a community benefits agreement). For most qualifying projects, the Opt-in Program provides a faster timeline for environmental review (within 270 days of a project’s complete application, in most cases). However, implementation of the Opt-In Program is limited to date. 

Innovation 4. Develop Innovative Financing Tools

Funding and finance for climate actions is a major barrier to advancing action, especially as the federal government claws back and reduces federal funding for energy, environmental, emergency response, and other programs that states, cities, and project developers have depended on. Now more than ever, developers, cities, and states need to be innovative in how they access and deploy funding and finance tools to support project development. 

Subnational jurisdictions can initiate various revenue generation strategies to support project development. They can also access or establish different funding (i.e., grants) and financing strategies (i.e., loans) to support public and private project development. Subnational revenue generation tools include bonding authority, taxing structures, credits programs, and implementation of pricing programs (e.g., congestion pricing in New York City). They can also establish and/or access financing institutions like green banks and public-private structures to finance project development. 

Subnational governments need to deploy a suite of revenue generation, funding, and financing strategies to support implementation and unlock access to private capital and investment. This is especially true given current threats to municipal finance, including withdrawal of federal funds, increasing climate risks and disasters, and the fiscal dimensions of the energy transition that affect local revenue structures. An analysis of options to support implementation of San Francisco’s Climate Action Plan found that the City needed to access all tools available to it to achieve the levels of investment necessary to implement the plan. This included development of new tax and fee structures, use of financing districts, integrating climate actions in the City’s schedule of general obligation bonds, establishment of a green bank, and implementation of pricing policies, including congestion pricing. Since the time of the analysis, the City of San Francisco passed Proposition A in March 2024, the city integrated climate-related actions into a scheduled general obligation bond to support affordable housing. 

Financing Innovation: Public Finance for Transmission Infrastructure

Thirty states either have or are considering development of a green bank. A green bank provides access to capital for clean energy and other sustainable projects by issuing loans to projects that might otherwise have difficulty accessing capital. Programs within the California’s Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank (I-Bank), the State’s financing institution to support public infrastructure and private development projects that benefit California’s economy and quality of life, serve as the state’s green bank. Recent legislation established a program within the I-Bank to support investment in transmission infrastructure.  

Transmission infrastructure is needed in many regions to distribute clean, renewable energy from where it is generated to load centers. California anticipates a quadrupling of in-state renewable energy generation by 2045, which will include offshore wind generation off the northern and central coasts, large scale solar generation in the Central Valley, and geothermal energy from the inland south regions of the State. Currently new transmission is funded though investor-owned utilities that pass costs on to ratepayers or by private developers.

To provide an alternative model, California recently established a public financing mechanism for new transmission infrastructure, the California Transmission Accelerator Revolving Loan Fund Program. The Accelerator will exist in the State’s I-Bank, the State’s financing institution to support public infrastructure and private development projects that will benefit California’s economy, jobs, and quality of life. The Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development will develop a financing and development strategy in coordination with the State’s energy agencies to guide the implementation of the Transmission Accelerator. The program is designed to reduce burdens on ratepayers by using State funds to support needed transmission infrastructure development.    

Closing Thoughts

We are at a critical moment for climate progress—given both the urgency of climate change and political polarization in the United States. However, this combination provides an opportunity for creative thinking and  innovation at the subnational level. State and local governments have an opportunity, and perhaps obligation, to reimagine the regulatory, institutional, and governance structures to design decarbonization strategies that work for state and local economies, communities, and the environment. If undertaken at scale and implemented quickly, these subnational actions can have a significant impact on carbon emission reductions. 

Some ways to help realize this innovation include:

Hot Takes: What the FY27 Presidential Budget Request Means for Climate and Energy

President Trump released his FY27 budget plan last week. What should we think about it?

Once upon a time, the President’s budget was a realistic proposal to Congress about what the federal government should spend money on. These days, it’s essentially just a declaration of everything the President would do if Congress didn’t matter at all.

There’s an argument, then, that we shouldn’t take the President’s budget too seriously: after all, recent history shows us that Congress doesn’t. President Biden repeatedly asked for, and failed to receive, massive IRS expansion, housing investment, and tax hikes on the wealthy and corporations; President Trump last year suggested massive cuts to federal science funding that Congress essentially ignored.

Yet the current Trump administration has also shown that it’s not taking seriously Congress not taking it seriously: including by impounding funds and pursuing other avenues to push its spending (and cutting) priorities through using executive action.

The way to calibrate is by treating the President’s budget as a fever dream…albeit one that might come true. With that in mind, here are some of the key dream sequences we’re paying attention to from a climate, environment, and energy perspective. Warning: some may keep you up at night.

Topline numbers

In terms of non-defense discretionary spending, the $660 billion FY27 request is a 10% decrease from current levels – a smaller swing than last year’s $557 billion FY26 request, which proposed a 23% cut that Congress largely ignored. However, the difference can be attributed almost entirely to the fact that Congress reset the baseline upwards when it rejected those FY26 cuts, as well as to proposed increased spending at the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (for improving medical care) and Department of Justice (including funding for increased law enforcement in cities, funding FBI salaries, and re-opening Alcatraz).

For climate and energy policy specifically, FY27 largely runs the same plays as FY26: slashing line items related to climate change and advancing a fossil-oriented “Energy Dominance” agenda while rolling back clean energy and environmental justice investments from what this administration terms the Biden-era “Green New Scam”. As with FY26, the request targets climate, energy, and environmental programs with demonstrated bipartisan congressional support. One example is the CDFI Fund, which finances clean energy and community development lending in underserved communities and which Congress explicitly preserved last year after the administration first proposed eliminating it. 

Overall, the President’s FY27 budget request is less a new proposal than a budget formalization of many climate- and environment-related cuts that the Trump administration has pursued over the past year through executive action and impoundment. 

Energy

For the second year in a row, the Trump administration is requesting to cancel almost all remaining unobligated IIJA funding across the Department of Energy ($15.2 billion in total). What’s striking about these cuts is how indiscriminate they seem to be, including cuts to programs that align with this administration’s stated priorities (including critical minerals, geothermal energy, and hydropower). The throughline appears to be less about policy judgment than about demonstrating categorical opposition to anything passed under the IIJA banner.

Yet not all of this funding is being outright cancelled: some is being redirected. $4.7B of unobligated IIJA funding intended for Hydrogen Hubs is being steered toward baseload power and AI supercomputers instead. When you dig deeper into that redirect, it’s a mixed bag. $1.2B will go to new supercomputers at Argonne and Oak Ridge National Labs, as part of DOE’s new Genesis Mission. The remaining $3.5B would largely support coal, oil, and gas infrastructure upgrades and prevent 4 GW of coal plants from retiring as planned. The same tranche of funding will also support some genuinely needed improvements, such as strengthening grid reliability, installing new battery storage, and improving the power output of nuclear and hydropower facilities. Funding for geothermal, ostensibly an administration priority, is surprisingly absent given its status as a firm baseload power source.

Mixed messages around geothermal continue in the budget for the new Hydrocarbons and Geothermal Office (HGEO), created during DOE’s November 2025 reorganization by merging the Geothermal Technologies Office with Fossil Energy. The administration requests $676 million for the combined office, a 14.1% decrease from the FY26 enacted. The most striking line item within HGEO is a 329% surge in funding to modernize coal mining processes and extend the productive life of existing mines, including through the use of AI and robotics. Geothermal funding is preserved at $150 million, emphasizing pilots and R&D over commercial-scale projects. Again, what’s conspicuously missing – given the administration’s stated enthusiasm for geothermal as a firm baseload source – is any meaningful push toward commercial-scale deployment. 

Beyond the IIJA cancellations, the administration is requesting a massive 63% cut to the budget of the new Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation (CMEI) – the reorganized successor to the former Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy – compared to the FY26 budget of the offices folded into it. The only winner seems to be critical minerals, which receives a $281 million (339%) increase in funding compared to FY26. Similar to FY26, the request zeroes out the budgets for hydrogen, solar, and wind programs, as well as state and community energy programs and the Federal Energy Management Program. The request also nearly zeroes out budgets for bioenergy, vehicle, and building technologies, while making deep cuts to hydropower and industrial efficiency and decarbonization technologies. 

Cuts continue for DOE offices responsible for keeping America’s lights on. The Office of Electricity (OE) and the Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER) face cuts of 22% and 16%, respectively, from FY26 enacted levels: significant indeed at a moment when electricity demand is surging, extreme weather is straining grid infrastructure with increasing frequency, and the U.S. grid is already widely acknowledged to be aging and vulnerable. Underfunding these offices now carries real risk for the administration’s own energy dominance goals, let alone broader reliability and resilience.

Wildfire resilience

The two largest federal landowners – the Department of the Interior (DOI) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) – are both slated for significant cuts under this budget, at 13% and 19% reductions from FY26 enacted levels, respectively. The takeaway: while the FY27 budget makes some new investments in wildfire resilience, it does so against a backdrop of overall austerity.

That said, the budget request acknowledges the escalating urgency of the wildfire crisis. Wildland fire suppression resources at DOI received a modest 3.5% increase; preparedness and fuels management at the agency also saw a slight bump. Additionally, the budget introduces a Fire Intelligence and Technology line item in DOI’s budget funded at $123.5 million. This includes $20 million to support a Wildfire Intelligence Center that appears broadly aligned with proposals such as those laid out in the bipartisan Fix Our Forests Act (S. 1462), which FAS endorsed. 

The real-world efficacy of these wildfire-specific investments could be undermined by cuts to fire-relevant research and monitoring infrastructure. While the request states that “the USWFS will fund all wildland fire resources currently funded separately by [USDA and DOI],” proposed cuts to Forest Service programs such as State, Private, and Tribal Forestry and Forest and Rangeland Research could also impact fire resilience.  Budget cuts and layoffs at FEMA, NOAA, NASA, and EPA could also materially compromise capacity for other critical wildfire tasks the government is responsible for (e.g., fire detection, fire response, weather forecasting, smoke monitoring, and post-fire ecosystem assessment). For example, the NASA/USGS Landsat program helps us understand the impact of wildfires on the landscape and support better management. NASA’s FY27 budget justification allocates $109 million “to support a phased transition of the Landsat program to a commercial solution” rather than continued government involvement. The justification offers no detailed rationale for why privatization is the right path forward.

Cuts to USDA Forest Service Wildland Fire Management accounts reflect the Administration’s intent to consolidate wildland fire functions across DOI and the Forest Service. Echoing an earlier Executive Order, the budget proposes fully unifying the USDA Forest Service’s wildland fire resources and operations into Interior’s newly created U.S. Wildland Fire Service (USWFS). While DOI has reportedly begun consolidating wildfire operations across its own agencies under the USWFS, integration of the Forest Service is on hold; FY26 appropriations bills directed Interior and USDA to contract a feasibility study of this approach. It is unclear how this reorganization would interact with the recent proposal to move Forest Service headquarters to Salt Lake City. 

Environmental pollution 

From an environmental protection standpoint, the most glaring single number in this budget is President Trump’s proposal to cut EPA’s budget by $4.6 billion — a 52% reduction that would bring the agency to its smallest budget since the Reagan administration. How does the administration propose slashing the EPA’s budget by more than half? By targeting specific programs that have historically done some of the agency’s most consequential work.

Among the casualties: the program that oversees Superfund site cleanup. Superfund sites are locations that are so contaminated by pollution that they’re considered dangerous to human health. Think sites of former mines, toxic waste dumps, and other nastiness that make the families that live around them very sick. There are more than 1,800 Superfund sites across the United States, concentrated heavily in Texas, California, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Florida, and Washington. Without the Superfund program, cleanup won’t happen, and families living nearby – who often can’t afford to move or don’t even know the risk exists – will just keep getting sick. 

Like breathing clean air? Happy the ozone layer is healing? Too bad. If Congress follows the President’s proposed budget, then the Atmospheric Protection Program will be eliminated. The APP is the EPA office responsible for reducing air pollution, restoring the ozone layer, improving energy efficiency, and researching climate change. These aren’t marginal cuts. They’re core federal functions that have measurably improved air quality and public health over decades.

The contrast with what the EPA is being asked to invest in is telling. One notable increase in EPA’s budget is a $14 million boost for NEPAssist, the web-based tool that streamlines permitting under the National Environmental Policy Act. This boost reflects the administration’s vision of what EPA is for: making it faster to approve projects, but not study or reduce the pollution they might produce.

Energy affordability, extreme heat, and public health

The FY27 proposal once again tries to eliminate the only sources of funding to support families struggling with energy affordability. The proposed budget would fully defund the Low Income Home Energy Assistance program, which supports families with heating and cooling bills at a time when one in three American households are facing energy insecurity and electricity rates are surging across the country. The budget also zeroes out the Weatherization Assistance Program, which funds home retrofits that reduce energy consumption and help families stay safe during extreme heat and cold. Getting rid of both LIHEAP and WAP simultaneously leaves no federal backstop for the most vulnerable households at the precise moment that climate-driven temperature extremes are intensifying.

The FY27 proposal also targets research and data collection critical to evaluating extreme weather and heat’s risks and impacts. The proposed $1.6 billion cut to NOAA’s Office of Research and Development by $1.6 billion would eliminate programs to help communities prepare for and protect against extreme heat events, flooding, and other climate-linked weather hazards. The planned commercialization of NASA’s Landsat raises further concerns about data continuity and access, particularly for local governments and planners who depend on Landsat data to assess heat islands, drought conditions, and other environmental risks.

On the health system side, the budget would eliminate the Hospital Preparedness Program (HPP), the only program supporting health care systems ready for all hazards – including floods and storm surge that can inundate hospitals, and extreme heat waves that can overwhelm emergency rooms. HPP funding has helped regions such as the Pacific Northwest, where extreme heat has already been deadly, avoid repeating past disasters. The budget proposes redirecting these functions to the CDC’s Public Health Emergency Preparedness program, which experts have long identified as insufficient for the scale of the need.

Workers and families face additional exposure under this budget, which scales back prevention and enforcement dollars for workplace safety. The proposal budget cuts the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s budget by 10%, with reductions focused on enforcement capacity and workplace safety training funding. And two of the primary federal vehicles to support community-level climate resilience would be eliminated. The Community Services Block Grant and the Community Development Block Grant, have both been backbone sources of funding to support efforts to prepare communities for extreme weather’s impacts. For example, the Community Services Block Grant provides the operational funding for Community Action Agencies, which are a key pass-through organization for implementing efforts like home weatherization.

Climate and environmental science

The FY27 budget doesn’t just target programs aimed at reducing emissions and cleaning up our environment. It targets the scientific infrastructure that tells us what’s happening and how to fix it. The President’s budget request would systematically defund the agencies, offices, and university programs responsible for climate observation, modeling, and research across the federal government. NSF has historically been the nation’s primary funder of basic research, including the university-based science that generates most of what we know about climate systems, ecosystems, and environmental change. The administration proposes cutting roughly 55% (~$5 billion) from NSF’s budget, with about a third (~$1.8 billion) of this coming from the parts of NSF (geosciences, biological sciences, engineering, and polar programs directorates) most directly relevant to climate and environmental science. AI and quantum computing are the only areas the administration proposes to protect or grow within the agency.

The DOE’s Office of Science would take a $1.1 billion hit, with just under half of that coming from the Biological and Environmental Research program, which funds atmospheric science, climate modeling, and ecosystem research. The administration’s own budget language is candid about the intent: these cuts will, it states, “stop wasting Biological and Environmental Research resources on climate change” and refocus funding toward “AI-enabled earth-energy system modeling to support the Energy Dominance agenda.” At the same time, $1.1 billion is being invested in the new Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation (CMEI), though this number is both a cut compared to FY26 enacted levels from CMEI and is framed explicitly around supply chain security and domestic resource extraction rather than decarbonization.

For the second year in a row, the budget proposes eliminating NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, which houses the nation’s core weather forecasting and climate modeling capabilities (including the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, the birthplace of modern climate modeling). What’s notable about the FY27 request, as analyst Alan Gerard points out, is that it doesn’t even acknowledge OAR’s existence despite Congress having essentially fully funded it in FY26. This illustrates the administration’s willingness to pursue its biggest priorities by hook or by crook.

Finally, EPA’s research and development budget would be reduced to only what federal law legally requires, effectively eliminating the agency’s in-house capacity for the modeling, technical research, and expert analysis that underpins national environmental regulation. An EPA stripped of scientific capacity is an EPA that can neither generate the evidence base for new rules nor credibly defend existing ones.

FAS Launches New “Center for Regulatory Ingenuity” to Modernize American Governance, Drive Durable Climate Progress

WASHINGTON, D.C. — February 12, 2026 — The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) today announced the launch of the Center for Regulatory Ingenuity, a new hub designed to reimagine how the government tackles “wicked” modern problems while delivering everyday benefits for Americans.

“We can’t manage today’s problems with yesterday’s laws,” said Dr. Jedidah Isler, FAS Chief Science Officer. “The Center for Regulatory Ingenuity will bridge the gap between high-level policy design and on-the-ground implementation, ensuring that government promises translate into real-world results that Americans experience.”

FAS is launching the Center for Regulatory Ingenuity (CRI) to build a new, transpartisan vision of government that works – that has the capacity to achieve ambitious goals while adeptly responding to people’s basic needs. CRI does this by (1) creating high-trust environments to brainstorm and refine the big ideas that will breathe new life into government, and (2) building a “network of networks” that supports policymakers and practitioners in implementing those ideas at scale.

“The administrative state has delivered extraordinary achievements in the past, but today’s operating model is a complete mismatch for the complexity we face. As a result, trust in government has been in the basement for decades,” said Loren DeJonge Schulman, Director of Government Capacity at FAS. “Strengthening government capacity is an investment in democracy and deeply intertwined with climate progress. It requires thinking creatively about how to build the government we need, not endlessly pointing fingers at the government we have–CRI aims to do just that.”

CRI is launching with a focus on climate: a space where there’s an increasingly evident mismatch between the functions the government needs to provide and the tools it has to deliver. FAS is pleased to welcome Climate Group North America, ICLEI USA, and the Environmental Law Institute as core partners in this initial work.

“Today’s rollback of the endangerment finding underscores that we are in a new era for U.S. climate policy,” said Dr. Hannah Safford, Associate Director of Climate and Environment at FAS. “To be clear: there’s no credible scientific basis for that rollback, which FAS strongly opposes. At the same time, it’s worth recognizing that while foundational environmental laws like the Clean Air Act worked to curb industrial pollution, they weren’t designed to guide the economy-wide transition to clean technologies that’s currently underway. There’s tremendous opportunity for innovation on how we design and deliver climate policies that are equitable, efficient, effective, and durable. With EPA stepping back on this front, it’s time for others to step forward.“

With the support of contributors from across the ideological spectrum, CRI is already charting paths for a renewed administrative state, a more responsive government, and ambitious climate policy that lasts. These paths are explored in CRI’s inaugural essay collection, Bureaucracy as Social Hope: An Argument for Renewing the Administrative State. The first two of these essays, “Rebuilding Environmental Governance: Understanding the Foundations”, by Jordan Diamond and collaborators at the Environmental Law Institute, and “Costs Come First in a Reset Climate Agenda”, by Devin Hartman (R Street Institute) and Neel Brown (Progressive Policy Institute) are available now; the remainder will be released in coming weeks. Other authors featured in the collection include:

In addition, CRI is today releasing “From Ambition to Action: Shovel-Ready Policy Solutions for Climate Leaders”. This policy primer, crowd-sourced from dozens of experts and policy entrepreneurs, outlines how motivated public leaders – especially at the state and local level – can turn big ideas into reality, cutting emissions while delivering cheaper electricity, ensuring affordable housing, and improving transportation for all of America.

Moving forward, CRI intends to deliver more detailed playbooks illustrating how an approach grounded in regulatory ingenuity can improve outcomes and achieve goals in these key sectors, which collectively account for two-thirds of U.S. emissions and contribute at least 25% of U.S GDP. 

More information about CRI is available here. For updates, and to stay connected, click here. 



ABOUT FAS

The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) works to advance progress on a broad suite of contemporary issues where science, technology, and innovation policy can deliver transformative impact, and seeks to ensure that scientific and technical expertise have a seat at the policymaking table. Established in 1945 by scientists in response to the atomic bomb, FAS continues to bring scientific rigor and analysis to address national challenges. More information about FAS work at fas.org.

Media Contact: Katie McCaskey, kmccaskey@fas.org, (202) 933-8857

From Ambition to Action: A Policy Primer

How public leaders can boost climate progress, restore trust in government, and make lives better…starting today.

People across the nation are clamoring for solutions that make their lives better. And they’re frustrated by the responses they’re getting. Confronting massive inequality, Americans watch leaders finger-point on the price of eggs; yearning for security and stability, Americans watch politics lurch between radically different agendas. No wonder, then, that public trust in the U.S. government has been in the basement for decades. Americans are facing both everyday challenges and a deep, growing sense of discontent. But they’ve lost faith in government to resolve either.

That sense of stuckness doesn’t need to last. But change means focusing on outcomes, eliminating bottlenecks, and prioritizing delivery. It means embracing tools and talent that better connect big ideas to real-world results. It means resisting the temptation to chase buzzwords – from “abundance” to “dominance” to “affordability” – and focusing on the method over the message.

One place to start is with the shift to clean technologies, a place where there is powerful momentum. One in five cars globally are already electric, while heat pumps have outsold gas furnaces in the United States for four consecutive years. The vast bulk of new energy generation is renewable: globally, clean energy investment is now double the amount spent on all fossil fuels combined.

While the transition to clean technologies is unstoppably underway, it is also in its messy middle. Rival technologies and energy systems (and the economic and political systems on which they depend) are now colliding. Many counties and cities depend heavily on fossil fuel revenues; meanwhile, job quality and union density in the renewable energy industry leaves much to be desired. And core parts of our infrastructure – from the power grid to gas stations – are complex and expensive to convert to serve renewable and clean industries, even if those industries will ultimately boost affordability.

Put simply, remaining globally competitive on critical clean technologies requires far more than pointing out that individual electric cars and rooftop solar panels might produce consumer savings. But we also can’t afford to cede the space. Internationally, clean energy spending is booming. China’s clean energy industry by itself would be the world’s eighth largest economy if it were a country, and Europe’s investments have almost doubled over the last decade. Even if current estimates hold, fossil fuel demand will peak mid-century. If the U.S. continues to hold fast to existing policies until then, we’ll be 30 years behind the rest of the world’s energy economy, and it will be impossible to catch up. The bottom line? Good climate policy is good economic policy, and vice versa.

Good climate policy is also good politics. Climate-induced disasters are increasing by the day, and are impacting both safety and affordability. Americans generally see climate and energy policy as important as immigration. Most Americans, on both sides of the political aisle, support environmental regulations and clean energy development. Many say electricity costs are just as stressful as grocery bills, and they worry about higher insurance rates and local market problems. And they’re tired of entrenched corporate interests calling the shots.

What’s needed are creative, clever strategies that boost climate progress while delivering everyday benefits. The Federation of American Scientists (FAS), as part of our new Center for Regulatory Ingenuity (CRI), developed this primer to put a bunch of those strategies in one place. Our goal is for this primer to serve as a resource for public-sector leaders at the federal, state, and local levels who believe that government can do great things for our communities and our planet.

The strategies herein are open-sourced from a diverse network of contributors and collaborators, and are shovel-ready. Many of these strategies are already being deployed across the country. They’re designed to make energy, housing, and transportation better this year.

Indeed, we hope that readers see the actionability of these solutions not just as a benefit, but as an imperative. Americans aren’t looking for the magic message or the magic moment. They’re looking to government for leadership. Every day that government is paralyzed by gridlock, indecisiveness, or fear of failure is another day that it fails to realize the potential of the good that it can achieve, and that public trust in government further erodes. That’s a downwards spiral that we’ve got to stop.

Finally, we emphasize that this primer is a starting place. We’re at the precipice of a new era for climate and energy policy in the United States, and the strategies that will form the backbone of this new era – by adeptly fitting together government capacity, private innovation, and democratic decision-making – are just starting to come into view. As they do, CRI and its partners are committed to working hand-in-glove with bold doers and thinkers, sharpening our collective focus, and realizing the vision of a more responsive government, more optimistic society, and more resilient nation.

Getting to Work: Opportunities in Energy, Transportation, and Housing

Solving problems requires framing them accurately. As observed above, the truth is that clean technologies are increasingly dominant, and that the United States is rapidly falling behind. A response predicated on propping up the 20th-century fossil economy is doomed to fail. So too, we’ve learned, is a response that relies on the U.S. federal government to muscle the clean-technology transition forward single-handedly.

Fortunately, because so many clean technologies are now commercial, the opportunity for leadership on multiple levels, and multiple fronts, has never been more available – or more crucial. For example, simple economics will do much to propel wind, solar, and battery technologies if needed supporting infrastructure is in place and clean technologies are given the chance to compete on fair terms. Policymakers can worry less about expending political capital on expensive public subsidies for clean power, and focus instead on transpartisan policies enabling broad market access, streamlined interconnection processes, and swift power grid build-out. In the transportation sector, policies that ensure transparent vehicle pricing or increase market competition for legacy car companies may matter more than traditional regulatory standards.

This new reality also makes thoughtful economic, industrial, and social policy indispensable. The advent of new technology often comes with the promise of broad societal benefits, but making good on that promise is hardly a guarantee (witness the emergent effects of AI). It’s incumbent on government to ensure that the clean-technology transition reduces inequality and improves quality of life at scale, and that the transition doesn’t abandon workers in fossil-dependent regions and industries to the vagaries of the market. And it’s government, working across multiple scales, that can assess regional comparative advantages and figure out where the United States can still compete – as well as where it must innovate and diversify.

Government leaders, in short, have the unique ability to see all the way from the kitchen table to the commanding heights of the global economy, and to mediate between them.

We illustrate below the types of approaches that entrepreneurial policymakers can adopt to secure U.S. leadership on critical clean technologies, in ways that benefit all Americans. We focus on energy, transportation, and housing, which are collectively the largest sources of climate pollution and key elements of household and regional economies nationwide. The list below is not exhaustive, or comprehensive, but exemplary – a demonstration that there are real opportunities for change.

Unleashing Modern Energy

There’s massive untapped potential for clean energy in the United States. To realize it, we’ve got to make room for new energy to move.

This isn’t primarily a project of continued renewable energy subsidies: there’s good evidence that renewable energy can compete on a level playing field when it’s given the chance. Rather, the project is one of clearing away barriers to financing and building projects, fixing broken market incentives that favor existing players over new entrants and distort energy pricing, and accelerating construction of major grid infrastructure. 

This project looks a lot like the successful national push towards rural electrification that the United States led a century ago: a serious effort that aligns private and public investments to rethink how and where we deliver energy. In executing this effort, we must grapple with the full set of barriers to building – not just cost and permitting, but also thorny local siting processes, misaligned incentives for electric utilities, and lengthy wait times to connect projects to the grid. 

Today, of course, we’ve also got to reckon with the growing threats of cyberattacks and extreme weather to energy infrastructure, as well as the unprecedented, unpredictable energy demands of hyperscalers. Such challenges can only be managed by a mix of climate stabilization policies, economic risk-sharing strategies, and investments in infrastructure modernization. That’s not a cheap or easy proposition, but it is one with major lasting benefits.

At the consumer level, building more clean energy can help stabilize residential electricity prices (though many other factors also contribute to electricity prices and price volatility). More broadly, clean energy could unlock billions of dollars in potential efficiencies, such as by reducing costs associated with redundant natural gas transmission infrastructure. Expanding clean energy, especially distributed energy resources and virtual power plants, can also upgrade outdated grid infrastructure and secure it against cyber threats. But getting to these benefits requires government leadership.

Energy ingenuity could look like:

Making Transportation Cleaner and Cheaper

People just want to get to where they’re going safely, efficiently, and affordably. Yet despite record levels of federal transportation spending, traffic, emissions, and pedestrian deaths keep rising. And as the Cato Institute observes, “U.S. policy contributes to an inefficient and costly transportation system that reduces workers’ time and incomes.”

We can do better. This starts by recognizing that in much of the United States, cars are both essential and increasingly unaffordable. There’s opportunity for a suite of policies that break market strangleholds while expanding consumer choice, moving us away from involuntary dependence on expensive cars and towards a future with transit that people actually want to ride – as well as affordable yet excellent, and often zero-emission, personal transportation. Core federal clean transportation programs have supported $4.6 billion in domestic investments and created at least 14,000 jobs in manufacturing, demonstrating the large-scale benefits of such programs and the economic case for continued federal support. Because the tools involved are nearly all within the authorities of state and local governments, and independent of ongoing federal regulatory disputes, they also can go into effect quickly.

On the vehicle side, this agenda includes governmental efforts to address legacy company market power. Incentives and protections for domestic manufacturing are sensible so long as they boost local economies, support American workers, and drive American innovation – but they’ve got to be coupled with policies ensuring price transparency and other oversight mechanisms, to ensure that benefits flow to consumers rather than pad company profits. Unlocking a more affordable, competitive, zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) market – with more options for buyers at lower prices – is also a key political foundation to the next round of vehicle regulatory mandates, by creating a larger constituency for further progress.

On the system side, states and cities can significantly build up regional budgets with savvy transportation investments. The data are clear that transit and walkability investments bring more valuable housing into cities and connect people with jobs, raising economic activity and raising property values. Investments in electric-vehicle charging similarly boost local business revenue and spurs economic vitality. Communities thrive when their members have transportation options (that all work well), instead of being steered towards legacy vehicle technology and wrestling with creaky 20th-century infrastructure.

On the vehicle side, transportation ingenuity could look like:

On the system side, transportation ingenuity could look like:

Building Affordable, Abundant Housing

Housing shouldn’t be a luxury: it’s a prerequisite for a stable, healthy life. Yet Americans – facing prohibitively high (and increasing) rental costs as well as unrealistic down payments and pathways to ownership – are struggling to meet this basic need. And with extreme weather on the rise, renters and owners alike are facing concerns about physical safety and skyrocketing insurance as well as price hurdles. The emissions that the housing sector produces only worsen these problems.

Delivering more affordable, resilient, and climate-friendly housing means making it easier to build housing of all shapes and sizes; tailoring solutions to rural communities, urban communities, and different geographies generally; and striking a better balance between development for housing and development for other purposes. These strategies need to be paired with deep investments in government capacity to facilitate permitting and approval of new housing construction, as well as to facilitate more complex projects – like retrofits, infill development, and office-to-residential conversion – at scale. Also critical is reimagining community and stakeholder engagement on housing questions, aiming to maintain trust, democratic process, and local buy-in without overvaluing the perspectives of existing homeowners, developers, or any other particular constituency. at the expense of the rest of the community.

Housing ingenuity could look like:

Making Solutions Stick: The Cross-Cutting Benefits of Government Capacity, Pro-Democracy Design, and Innovative Financing

Each of the policy solutions above offers a way to boost climate progress while delivering everyday benefits across energy, transportation, and/or housing. But how do we make those solutions stick? With trust in government at historic lows, public-sector leaders must quickly follow ambition with action, investing in both ideas and the building blocks that turn ideas into reality. Below, we outline how public leaders can use three of these core building blocks – government capacity, financing, and pro-democracy design – to get on the scoreboard early…and stay there for the long term.

Government Capacity

Government capacity refers to the ability of government to get things done, whether through efficient processes, effective talent, or fit-for-purpose tools. Americans are frustrated by the slow pace of government, but they don’t want the functions that keep them safe and supported dismantled: they want them improved. Accomplishing this requires more than new programs or new funding streams or new inventions. It requires leaders to seriously (and systematically – not via a “wrecking ball” approach) consider which government functions are working, which need to be overhauled, and which should be retired.

Rebuilding government capacity is inseparable from strengthening democracy itself. Both of these goals are wholly intertwined with climate progress. When government acts competently, transparently, and in partnership across levels, it restores public faith that collective action is possible and worthwhile. When it can’t, even well-designed policies stall under the weight of fragmented authority, procedural burden, risk aversion, and institutional inertia. Treating government capacity as a core investment is therefore much more than administrative housekeeping. It’s a prerequisite for durable climate progress.

To boost government capacity, public leaders can:

Finance

Capital is a powerful tool for policymakers and others working in the public interest to shape the forward course of the economy in a fair and effective way. Very often, the capital needed to achieve major societal goals comes from a blend of sources; this is certainly true with respect to climate action and facilitating the transition to clean technologies.

States, cities, banks, community-driven financial institutions (CDFIs), impact investors, and philanthropies have long worked in partnership with the federal government on clean-technology projects – and are stepping up in a new way now that federal support for such projects has been scaled back. These entities are developing bond-backed financing, joint procurement schemes, and revolving loan funds – not just to fill gaps, but to reimagine what the clean technology economy can look like.

In the near term, opportunities for subnational investments are ripe because the now partially paused boom in potential firms and projects generated by recent U.S. industrial policy has generated a rich set of already underwritten, due-diligenced projects for re-investment. In the longer term, the success of redesigned regulatory approaches will almost certainly depend on creating profitable firms that can carry forward the clean-technology transition. Public sector leaders can assume an entrepreneurial role in ensuring these new entities, to the degree they benefit from public support, advance the public interest: connecting economic growth to shared prosperity.

To be sure, subnational actors generally cannot fund at the scale of the federal government. But they can have a truly catalytic impact on financing availability and capital flows nevertheless. 

To boost finance, public leaders can:

Public Participation

Public participation in climate action is often treated as a procedural requirement to be satisfied late in the process, rather than as a core function of governing well. The result is familiar: performative town halls, notice-and-comment processes that invite frustration rather than insight, and transparency tools that are easily weaponized by organized interests. This dynamic erodes trust, slows projects, and fuels the perception that government is both unresponsive and incapable. Yet participation, when designed well and tailored to the moment, is not an obstacle to effective governance:  it is how government discovers what will work, where friction will arise, and how to build solutions that communities will defend rather than resist. Treating participation as a functional component of state capacity means seeing it as an input to smarter design, faster implementation, and more durable outcomes.

Upgrading how government listens and engages is vital to upgrading how government delivers. When residents see clearly how their input shapes decisions, participation builds legitimacy and reduces the incentives for obstruction and litigation later in the process. When agencies invest in the infrastructure, tools, roles, and expectations that make participation meaningful, they create a feedback loop that improves policy design and strengthens democratic trust at the same time. And when climate leaders meet the public where they are in terms of how they experience and make consumer choices in the the climate transition, we can strengthen the connective tissue between government action and public trust.The recommendations below are aimed at helping public leaders move beyond compliance-driven engagement toward participation models that are relational, deliberative, and integrated into the machinery of experience and delivery. This approach ensures that climate solutions are not only technically sound, but socially resilient and democratically grounded. These take time, but we encourage recognition that they enable enormous time, risk and failure saved. 

To boost public participation, public leaders can:

About The Primer

Ambition to Action was authored by Angela Barranco, Zoë Brouns, Megan Husted, Kristi Kimball, Arjun Krishnaswami, Hannah Safford, Loren Schulman, Craig Segall, and Addy Smith.

Many individuals contributed ideas and input to this primer. The authors are grateful to the following individuals and organizations for their time, expertise, and constructive feedback: Patrick Bigger, Laurel Blatchford, Heather Clark, Ted Fertik, Danielle Gagne, Kate Gordon, Betony Jones, Nuin-Tara Key, Alex McDonough, Sara Meyers, Shara Mohtadi, Saharnaz Mirzazad, Beth Osborne, Alexis Pelosi, Sam Ricketts, Bridget Sanderson, Lotte Schlegel, Igor Tregub, Louise White, and Clinton Britt. The content of this primer does not necessarily reflect the views of individuals or organizations acknowledged. Any errors are the sole fault of the authors.

To scale up climate solutions, local governments need to accelerate system changes

When I ran for city council in Boulder, Colorado in 2023, everyone talked about climate change. Forum after forum, all ten candidates spoke up for the climate. 

And cities saying climate change matters is typical. The number of US cities with adopted climate action plans is in the hundreds. 

That’s what we need, since cities drive the bulk of greenhouse gas emissions and are on the front lines of climate havoc. 

More specifically, for large-scale climate solutions to work, cities have to really stretch. That’s according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which says cities need to rapidly become compact, efficient, electrified, and nature‑rich urban ecosystems where we take better care of each other and avoid locking in more sprawl and fossil‑fuel dependence. 

Yet, big-picture progress in the United States is critically insufficient. Those are the words of Climate Action Tracker, an independent scientific analysis evaluating climate commitments. The US has pledged to reduce 2030 GHG emissions levels by 50–52% below 2005, yet the latest projections show we are on track to achieve at best only 29–39%—assuming no further backsliding.

And earlier this month, the Trump administration withdrew our federal government from the international climate agreement process.

So when local governments say “we’re on it,” what is a concerned citizen to think?

What local government climate solutions look like 

Climate advocates are used to talking about climate action. But for local governments, the measuring stick for climate progress isn’t simply action. What counts is measurable progress towards specific, substantive transitions.

Transitions to walkable, compact neighborhoods where abundant, space-efficient middle housing near jobs and services let most residents meet daily needs within a short walk or bike ride, reducing trip lengths and housing and transport costs.

To transit-rich, highly bikeable towns where frequent, accessible service and a connected, protected network allow seniors and youth travel independently and where per-capita car dependence falls.

To fully-electrified communities in which homes and transportation run on clean, distributed power, working efficiently, that delivers lower bills, healthier indoor air, and outage resilience, with benefits accruing equitably to residents.

To enhanced landscapes of bioswales, permeable streets, restored wetlands, and drought- and fire-resilient shade trees that cool neighborhoods, absorb stormwater, and buffer heat, flood, and smoke risks.

To resilient local food systems that blend urban agriculture with regional producers, food hubs, cold storage, and compost-to-soil loops to deliver reliable, affordable, nutritious food even during heat, drought, or supply disruptions.

There is good news: The transitions we need, and the solutions and capacity we need to implement them, are showing new signs of life. That’s evident in two trends. 

One trend is local governments playing a bigger role in climate solutions. The number of U.S. cities reporting to the CDP, a global system for disclosing climate progress, has grown to over 150. Now more than 200 US cities have committed to 100 percent clean electricity. And cities’ climate action plans are showing a visible shift from a focus on municipal operations to community‑wide impacts of buildings, transportation, and waste, and more sophisticated thinking about resilience.

As the federal government has retreated, advocates are increasingly realizing cities and counties have tools to lead. Local governments manage streets, land use, buildings, public fleets, transit, and major service contracts. They can strongly influence state-level actors, like energy utilities and air quality programs, and be providers of those services directly.

There is proof of this awakening in the large numbers of people suddenly running for local office on climate. Political organizing coalitions such as Run on Climate and Climate Cabinet helped elect more than 50 local leaders running on climate in 2025. One of the year’s most high-profile candidates, Zohran Mamdani, won with “fast and free” buses–one of the measures IPCC has highlighted as a meaningful mitigation measure that saves more money than it costs–as a centerpiece of his campaign.

The other trend is a greater focus on wellbeing. Research included in the latest IPCC report shows demand-side measures can cut end-use emissions by roughly 40 to 70 percent by 2050 while improving daily life and making communities stronger. And wellbeing is the currency of local governments and local politics. Concrete quality of life issues dominate local elections and policymaking, which is where climate action takes root—or doesn’t.

Climate action prompted by a desire for healthier, happier, and less expensive lives is happening. People are adopting electric cars, e-bikes, heat pumps, and induction stoves because they work better, are cheaper to operate, and healthier. The intersection of climate solutions and wellbeing is central to a 2025 bestseller Abundance  and to the national conversation it kicked off about defining and achieving “abundance.” The topic of wellbeing was a bright spot at the COP30 climate talks via the World Health Organization’s report, “Delivering the Belém Health Action Plan.”

These two trends reinforce each other. Local governments oversee the services where wellbeing, decarbonization, and resilience meet. When those services are designed as a system, investments can compound to create more value for more people, who then have a stake in continuing the transition. And the importance of rallying around local governments to carry climate solutions forward is becoming clearer as U.S. national policy looks structurally less reliable than most experts used to think.

Difficult conditions for change 

But local governments face headwinds. Existing policies and markets, like those that have created widespread car dependence and extensive natural gas systems, create momentum that favors the status quo and encourages continued investments that lock us in further. Simply put, it’s easiest to keep doing it the way we’ve done it before, and then we dig ourselves in deeper.

Local governments purposefully design systems to keep things stable. Most likely, whatever your town or county is doing is based on the direction of long-term plans, from departmental plans to bigger comprehensive plans. Those plans often come up for renewal only every few years or longer, and if you miss that window or fail to follow procedures, making big change is nearly impossible. Related, local governments tend to have policies and practices for conducting community engagement that deliberately create a high bar for making major turns.

On top of all that, local governments in the U.S. are suffering a long-term decline in investment that leaves them with significant and growing cash flow constraints, heavy workloads, limited time to deliberate, and pressure to deliver. The pandemic and recent national political forces reduce their maneuverability even more.

Political will necessary but not sufficient—concrete transitions are needed

In order to drive climate transitions under such tough conditions, political will is necessary but it is not sufficient. For local governments to scale up climate solutions, they need to take tangible, visible steps to change systems, consistent with evidence-based recommendations, outlined by institutions like the IPCC. 

Here is what that can look like – and what advocates can look to encourage:

1. Transition plans  

Climate issues touch everything, so all local governments can point to doing climate things. But the difference between lists of activities and high-reward strategic commitments that make good use of time is everything. The latter requires a clear plan to make transitions happen, with defined outcomes and milestones, and dogged pursuit.

Ambitious climate action at the local government level means being clear about the transition(s) the community is focused on, which could include the previously mentioned examples, along with what successful completions looks like and by when. This involves working on at least two tracks concurrently—both integrating ambitious transformations into long-term planning exercises, for which adopting changes may or may not be available right away, and taking whatever more tactical action is possible now to support such planning and concrete action to the fullest extent possible.

2. User experience  

Cities often add a bike lane in one place or restore a bus line in another. What truly changes behavior is a complete experience that makes the pro-climate option the intuitive choice. Kids can bike around town without parents fearing they could be hit by a driver. You can count on bringing a large electric bike anywhere and park it safely. Buses are within a 10-minute walk of home and arrive every 10 minutes. Utility investments in electrification actually lower monthly bills. To make climate transitions attractive and sticky, we have to confront gaps that get in the way of people’s experience from their vantage point.

A practical opportunity for local governments is to use the tools of user experience (“UX”) and be responsible for how the ecosystem works and feels from the immersive standpoint of users. UX is an interdisciplinary field that uses research, psychology, and design to remove friction and ensure a seamless journey for users.

3. Public service delivery  

One of the core jobs of local government is to provide public services like zoning, safe transportation, building standards, air quality protections, and emergency management. Providing services is also generally the justification for spending public money. And services are where the planning activities that local governments tend to be so careful about materialize in the real world. So if local governments are going to be engines of climate action, then day-to-day service delivery—their core product—is where most of that action will show up. Climate action will appear in what gets approved, funded, built, maintained, enforced, measured, and improved.

Local governments already deliver public services. So the opportunity is to evaluate how core local government services can or should be tuned and/or reorganized to drive climate and resilience outcomes. This includes formal adoption in comprehensive plans, capital improvement programs, and strategic plans, and clear alignment with budget priorities. When leaders routinely report on progress and adjust course publicly, it signals that climate transitions are a core organizational responsibility rather than a side project.

4. High-level ownership 

Plans only come to life when people who have the right level of power and accountability own delivery. Inside local government, that means both the elected body (mayor, city council, and/or their equivalents) and executives (city manager, their deputies, and in the case of a “strong mayor” form of government, the mayor) adopt the initiative as their own. Roles and accountability are defined and gaps are addressed. Resources are allocated through direct investments and through partnerships that expand capacity.

High-level ownership of climate solutions in local government happens when transitions are included in the agency’s highest-level plans and strategies.This includes formal adoption in comprehensive plans, capital improvement programs, and strategic plans, and clear alignment with budget priorities. It also looks like leaders routinely communicating to the public about the transitions under way, the progress against them, and how community members can help support the journey.

5. Playbook of procedures

Local government commitments are heavily shaped and constrained by procedure, like protocols for what gets a hearing and when, annual or biennial work plans, and comprehensive plans that may come around only every few years or longer. Communications between elected officials and staff may be limited by city ordinance, and communications among elected officials may be very limited by state law. There are also often arcane, highly-localized meeting customs. Getting things done requires working through these procedures and often landing decisions in small windows that are easy to miss. 

A playbook for how climate transitions are going to make their way into staff proposals, planning processes,and budgeting is fundamental to turning a good idea into something real. Such a playbook is needed to spell out who does what, when, and through which formal channels, so that key decisions do not depend on heroic one-off efforts. It also helps new staff and elected officials quickly understand how to use existing procedures to advance climate goals, rather than be derailed by them.

Conclusion

To scale up climate solutions through local government, we need at least two things. First, political will, which is familiar to most advocates. Looking into 2026 and beyond, climate advocates have great opportunities to continue increasing the proportions of elected local bodies who are led by politicians serious about climate solutions. Everyone has a role to play: run for local office, support local climate candidates, use whatever powers of creativity and persuasion you have–from writing to speaking to organizing and beyond–to help make climate action a core election issue in your community. 

The second—and where we need greater shared focus—is to make local governments responsible for specific, strategic commitments to systems change. To do that, help build transition plans that commit to providing great user experiences, an approach to public service delivery that is aligned with those objectives, ownership by city council and the city manager or mayor, and a clear playbook for how strategic climate commitments are going to be adopted and rolled out.

Not everything is going right for the climate movement. But there are some fantastic bright spots, and one of those is big new local government innovations that are starting to unfold.  

Looking into 2026, I’m excited to be a part of the movement to help local governments drive the next generation of climate progress. And a big hat tip to FAS with its regulatory rethink and government capacity work as well as ICLEI USA, both partnering with local officials like me to map out how cities can translate ambitious climate goals into durable systems change. 

There are great things ahead, and so much room to work together.

Impacts of Extreme Heat on Children’s Health and Future Success

Extreme heat poses serious and growing risks to children’s health, safety, and education. Yet, schools and childcare facilities are unprepared to handle rising temperatures. To protect the health and well-being of American children, Congress should (1) set policies that guide childcare facilities and schools in preparing for and responding to extreme heat, (2) collect the data required to inform extreme heat readiness and adaptation, and (3) strategically invest in necessary infrastructure upgrades to build heat resilience.

Children are Uniquely Vulnerable to Extreme Heat Exposure and Acute and Chronic Health Impacts

At least five factors drive children’s vulnerability to negative health outcomes from extreme heat, like heat-related illnesses and chronic complications. First, children’s bodies take a longer time to increase sweat production and acclimatize to higher temperatures. Second, young children are more prone to dehydration than adults because a larger percentage of their body weight is water. Third, infants and young children have challenges regulating their body temperatures and often do not recognize when they should act to cool down. Fourth, compared with adults, children spend more time active outdoors, which results in increased exposure to high ambient heat. Fifth, children usually depend on others to provide them with water and protect them from unsafe outdoor environments, but children’s caretakers often underestimate the seriousness of the symptoms of heat stress. Research shows that extreme heat days are linked to increased emergency room (ER) visits for children, especially the 16% of children living at or below the federal poverty line. Extreme heat also exacerbates children’s chronic diseases, like asthma and eczema, increasing health care costs and decreasing children’s overall quality of life.

The Consequences of Chronic Extreme Heat Exposure on Children’s Learning and Well-Being 

Studies show that excess temperatures reduce cognitive functioning. Hot weather also impacts children’s behavior, making them more prone to restlessness, irritability, aggression, and mental distress. Finally, nighttime extreme heat exposure can disrupt sleep patterns, making it harder to fall asleep and stay asleep. These factors can all reduce children’s ability to focus, learn and succeed in school. For each 1°F rise in average annual temperature in school districts without air conditioning or proper heat protections, there is a 1% drop in learning. The Environmental Protection Agency found that these learning losses could translate into nearly $7 billion dollars in annual future income losses if warming trends continue.

Extreme Heat’s Threat to Schools and Childcare Facilities

Rising temperatures force school districts and childcare facilities into a dilemma: choosing between staying open in unsafe heat or closing and disrupting learning and care. 

Staying open can expose students and young children to extreme indoor and outdoor temperatures. The Government Accountability Office found that 41% of U.S. schools need to upgrade their heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems: upgrades that will cost billions of dollars that schools in low-income areas do not have. Similar infrastructure challenges extend to childcare facilities. Extreme heat also makes outdoor recess more dangerous, as unshaded playgrounds and asphalt surfaces can heat up far above ambient temperatures and pose burn risks. 

Yet when schools close for heat, children still suffer. Even five days of closures for inclement weather in a school year can cause measurable learning loss. Additionally, students may lose access to school meals; while food service continuation plans exist, overheated facilities can complicate implementation. Many children, especially in low-income families, also don’t have access to reliable cooling at home, meaning that when schools close for heat, these children receive little respite. Finally, parents are directly impacted as well: school closures also mean parents lose access to childcare, forcing many to miss work or pay for alternative arrangements, straining vulnerable households. 

Advancing Solutions that Safeguard American Children from the Impacts of Extreme Heat

To support the capacity of child-serving facilities to adapt to extreme heat, Congress should direct the Department of Education to develop extreme heat guidance, technical assistance programs, and temperature standards, following existing state-level policies as a model for action. Congress should also direct the Administration for Children and Families to develop analogous policies for early childhood facilities and daycare centers receiving federal funding. Finally, Congress should direct the U.S. Department of Agriculture to develop a waiver process for continuing school food service when extreme heat disrupts schedules during the school year. 

To support improved federal data collection efforts on extreme heat’s impacts, Congress should direct the Department of Education and Administration for Children and Families to collect data on how schools and childcare facilities are experiencing and responding to extreme heat. There should be a particular focus on the infrastructure upgrades that these facilities need to make to be more prepared for extreme temperatures — especially in low-income and rural communities.Lastly, to foster much-needed infrastructure improvements in schools and childcare facilities, Congress should consider amending Title I of the Elementary & Secondary Education Act or directing the Department of Education to clarify that funds for Title I schools may be used for school infrastructure upgrades needed to avoid learning losses. These upgrades can include the replacement of HVAC systems or installation of cool roofs, walls, and pavement, solar and other shade canopies, and green roofs, trees, and other green infrastructure, which can keep school buildings at safe temperatures during heat waves. Congress should also direct the Administration for Children and Families to identify funding resources that can be used to upgrade federally-supported childcare facilities.

Safeguarding Agricultural Research and Development Capacity

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) experienced a dramatic reduction in staff capacity in the first few months of the second Trump administration. More than 15,000 employees departed the agency through a combination of firings of probationary staff and two rounds of a deferred resignation program, shrinking USDA’s total workforce by 15%. 

The administration’s government downsizing campaign is just getting started. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins recently unveiled a reorganization plan aimed at moving key agency functions outside of the National Capital Region. While the plan does not include new reduction in force targets, further staff attrition is expected as positions are relocated. 

The agency’s reorganization plan is not just an organizational change in the name of shrinking the administrative state or reducing bureaucracy. The reorganization, replete with planned office closures and an explicit shrinking of agricultural research capacity, is poised to reshape the American food system, a driver of public health, environment, and economic outcomes across the country. 

Why Agricultural R&D is a Crucial Investment 

The federal government has historically played a significant role in improving the productivity of U.S. agriculture. By boosting yields and output, public agricultural research and development (R&D) has in turn reduced food prices, enhanced food security, and enabled farmers to produce more with less land and other inputs. Today, with farmers facing high input costs relative to returns, growing pest and disease pressures, and a rapidly shifting trade landscape, new innovations are needed to help producers face challenges. 

Every dollar invested in public agricultural R&D has generated $20 in returns—a huge historic return on USDA’s already small research budget. This is especially true relative to other industries. The Department of Energy spends roughly 7 times more on R&D than the Department of Agriculture. When it comes to climate-focused funding in particular, the federal government spent 22 times more on clean energy innovation than R&D agencies spent on climate mitigation in agriculture.

Continued agricultural R&D investments are expected to generate significant economic returns on investments and contribute to improved climate resilience, food security, and regional and rural economic development outcomes. For example, doubling public agricultural R&D funding over the next decade would increase U.S. productivity by about 60% compared to a business-as-usual scenario, while also expanding crop and livestock output more than 40%, reducing prices by more than a third, and substantially cutting greenhouse gas emissions, particularly from avoided deforestation. 

Despite the value for farmers and consumers alike, public investment in U.S. agricultural research from USDA, other federal agencies, and states declined significantly from $7.64 billion in 2002 to $5.16 billion in 2019—a nearly 30% reduction, adjusting for inflation. This decline is the leading contributor to a slowdown in agricultural productivity growth. The 2024 Global Agricultural Productivity Report found that U.S. agriculture has not been growing more productive, while India, for example, has a robust annual productivity growth rate of 1.7 percent.

Instead of doubling down to strengthen the nation’s agricultural research capacity and reverse this trend, the administration’s reorganization plan bets on consolidation as a path to efficiency.

Region-Specific Research is at Stake

Preceding USDA’s reorganization announcement, the Office of Management and Budget sent a memo advising all federal agencies to develop plans for programmatic reorganization and significant reductions in force. The memo emphasized several key principles to guide a government-wide reduction in force, including a reduced real property footprint. It is therefore no surprise that several branches of USDA that have vast networks of local and regional offices spanning the nation, including the Agricultural Research Service and Forest Service, would come under scrutiny. 

The Agricultural Research Service (ARS) is USDA’s in-house research agency. At the start of 2025, there were 95 ARS laboratories and research units across 42 states employing 8,000 scientists and support staff. This vast network includes soil scientists improving crop water productivity in Texas, experts leading dairy forage systems research in Wisconsin, and plant breeders developing improved protein content in soybeans in North Carolina. On the surface, the real estate footprint of ARS could look inefficient. But, this interpretation fails to recognize the importance of region-specific research and the ability of researchers to deliver farmer-focused, regionally-relevant breakthroughs, exactly the type of service to USDA’s customers the Secretary claims as a goal in the reorganization plan. 

The administration justified the overhaul by citing the need to locate agency functions closer to USDA customers. However, more than 90% of USDA’s employees already work outside the National Capital Region, including all but one ARS site. The ARS site slated for closure in the reorganization plan is located in Beltsville, Maryland, outside of Washington, DC.

Appearing before the Senate Agriculture Committee, Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Stephen Vaden assured Senators that only four research centers would be affected by USDA’s reorganization in addition to the closure of the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center.

USDA has yet to announce which four ARS sites will be affected and whether the research done at the ARS location in Beltsville will be relocated and continued, or cancelled entirely.  

USDA’s reorganization comes as the agency implements a broader funding freeze on competitive research grants, further threatening the non-federal agricultural scientific research workforce. The administration’s decision to conduct an extended program-by-program review that significantly delayed research grant cycles impacts agricultural research programs at land grant universities across the country. ARS sites are often co-located with public Land Grant institutions, with both benefiting from shared resources and often partnering on research efforts. These delays and ongoing uncertainty threaten the economic returns that publicly funded research has consistently generated for both farmers and consumers.

Consolidation is Not Always a Solution for Efficiency

The Trump administration has often cited consolidation as a path to efficiency. But history shows that USDA reorganizations have weakened, not strengthened, the agency’s capacity. From the Obama administration’s 2012 “Blueprint for Better Services” to the 2019 Trump administration relocation of USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) and National Institute for Food and Agriculture (NIFA), past efforts framed as efficiency measures instead led to staff attrition, loss of institutional knowledge, and setbacks in core research and grantmaking functions. The reorganization now under consideration risks repeating those mistakes at a far greater scale.

For example, the 2019 relocation of ERS and NIFA to Kansas City led to significant staff attrition and a loss of institutional knowledge. This worsened productivity at all levels, a performance hit that took years to  bounce back. In fact, it took USDA more than two years to recover from mass staff attrition and the agency is still facing challenges from the decision to relocate two of its major research facilities from Washington, DC. Two years after relocating, ERS and NIFA’s workforce size and productivity declined significantly. Many of the positions that were lost or left vacant were central to the agency’s functions. As a direct result, the relocation reduced the number of ERS reports and NIFA took longer to process scientific research grants. The Government Accountability Office found that USDA did not account for the cost of staff attrition that results from moving federal facilities and did not follow best practices for effective agency reforms and strategic human capital management. The 2019 relocation effort minimally involved USDA employees, Congress, and other key stakeholders. In addition, both agencies did not follow best practices related to strategic workforce planning, training, and development, which may have contributed to the time it took to recover to baseline staffing levels. 

We’re seeing a similar scenario replay in real time with the reorganization plan that was announced in July, but at a much broader scale that can have severe impacts to U.S. agriculture. So far, USDA has not released a detailed reorganization plan or provided any economic or workforce analysis to evaluate how relocation and consolidation would affect its mission or the communities it serves. USDA’s decision to shutter the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, its flagship research site near Washington, D.C., has drawn criticism from Congress, farm groups, and scientists alike. The agency conceded it had no supporting analysis for the closure, even as the decision threatens to upend vital research programs and dismantle longstanding collaborations.

Unlike the Obama administration’s 2012 proposal to end a dozen ARS programs, which was a direct response to a significant 12% reduction in discretionary funding from Congress, the current reorganization proposal has been announced during a period of strong bipartisan support for agricultural research. Thanks to this support, USDA’s R&D funding has recently rebounded, with funding for ARS and other research agencies surpassing $3.6 billion in 2024, just shy of the funding levels in the early- and mid-2000s. The administration’s reorganization plan threatens to stall or reverse this progress, jeopardizing whether the agency will be able to administer research funding allocated by Congress. Willingness to push forward a reorganization with little regard for legal or procedural constraints or Congressional oversight will cause staff and mission capacity to bear the brunt of the fallout. 

Policy Implications

Loss of Institutional Knowledge and Capacity 

USDA has begun to grapple with the implications of an unprecedented loss of experienced personnel. This mass exodus spans critical agencies from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) and Farm Service Agency to research divisions like ARS, NIFA, and ERS. These losses undermine food safety, rural development, and science-based policymaking. Pressures on staff to take deferred resignation offers earlier this year culled some of the most seasoned and deeply knowledgeable staff. In a letter to Congress, union groups representing USDA employees outlined that “despite the importance of ARS research, 98 out of 167 food safety scientists have recently resigned”, leaving the future of food security research for all Americans at risk.

Reducing staff capacity also risks the agency’s ability to administer its slate of competitive grant programs that fund critical research. Even if Congress continues to fund research programs at existing discretionary spending levels, research funding will backslide if USDA lacks adequate staff to review applications and get funding out the door each year. Such delays could lead to rescission requests for unspent funds despite existing NIFA programs being regularly oversubscribed with applications from scientists at land-grant universities and other research institutions. The loss of experienced staff not only jeopardizes the continuity of ongoing agricultural R&D, but it also hobbles USDA’s capacity to pivot swiftly in crises like disease outbreaks, market shocks, or climate emergencies. Replacing this intellectual capital will be difficult, costly, and time-consuming, with long-lasting ramifications for program effectiveness, policy depth, and trust in USDA’s scientific and operational integrity.

Decline of U.S. Agricultural R&D Capacity

Sweeping freezes and cancellations of USDA research grants are dealing a severe blow to the non-federal agricultural R&D community, with entire programs suddenly paused or eliminated. The National Sustainable Agricultural Coalition estimates that across all programs, $6B of USDA grants have been frozen or terminated. These disruptions to extramural competitive research are compounded by the ongoing exodus of USDA’s most experienced in-house research staff, threatening to set back U.S. agricultural science for years. China already invests more heavily in agricultural R&D than the U.S., and these setbacks further erode America’s ability to compete on food security, climate resilience, and rural innovation. Unlike other scientific fields, agricultural research has direct and immediate end users. Farmers depend on improved cultivars, conservation practices, access to cheap energy, and pest management tools. When R&D pipelines stall, the consequences eventually ripple into the fields, orchards, and markets that sustain rural economies and national resilience. Agricultural research can have long lag times, making it even more dangerous to abandon investments in agricultural innovation today that will leave U.S. producers empty handed and less competitive in the years ahead.

Erosion of Trust and Stability in Rural Communities

Beyond the immediate impacts on research institutions, the sudden freezing and cancellation of USDA programs destabilize the very communities those programs are designed to serve. Farmers, rural co-ops, and community organizations build their planting, labor, and investment decisions around multi-year USDA commitments. When those commitments are abruptly halted, producers face stranded costs, disrupted harvest cycles, and foregone markets. Community-based organizations and local governments lose confidence in USDA as a reliable partner, undermining adoption of conservation practices, renewable energy, and local food initiatives. This breakdown in trust makes it harder to recruit farmers into new R&D pilots or climate-smart initiatives in the future, even if funding is later restored. The long-term result is a weakened feedback loop between federally funded science and its most critical end-users. This could lower the utility and on-farm adoption of tools, technologies and practices informed by future research. This weakens the economic return on taxpayer dollars dedicated to research projects. At worst, this broken feedback loop leaves rural economies more vulnerable to economic shocks.

Policy Recommendations

Congress holds the ultimate authority over federal appropriations and agency oversight, and thus has significant leverage to shape the future of USDA’s reorganization. How lawmakers exercise that authority will determine whether this reorganization strengthens or undermines the nation’s agricultural research and rural service infrastructure. Through targeted oversight, Congress can insist on transparency, protect against unlawful impoundments or relocations, and ensure continuity so that farmers and rural communities continue to benefit from the innovations generated by USDA’s research agencies. Options available to Congress include:

  1. Directing the USDA Office of Inspector General to assess USDA’s budget and legal authority for reorganization and relocation, ensuring taxpayer dollars are used lawfully and effectively.
  2. Requiring USDA to conduct an economic and workforce impact analysis with direct engagement of USDA staff to measure how reorganization affects agricultural research, rural economies, and service delivery.
  3. Calling for USDA to provide transparent justification for its decision to consolidate into five hubs, including criteria, alternatives considered, and implications for farmer access to research, extension services, and technical assistance.
  4. Requesting details on how USDA plans to retain staff expertise and capacity to operate existing grant programs at their current size, in accordance with funding appropriated by Congress, ensuring the continuity of vital agricultural research and services.

The proposed consolidation and reorganization of USDA illustrate both the risks and the possibilities ahead. Without careful oversight, these moves could erode research capacity, diminish workforce expertise, and disrupt vital services for farmers and rural communities. Yet we also know there are champions inside and outside government, across party lines, who recognize the value of agricultural R&D and its central role in national food security. With their leadership, there remains a pathway to repair what is broken, ensure transparency and accountability in reorganization efforts, and ultimately build an agricultural R&D infrastructure that delivers lasting benefits for all.

Beyond Binary Debates: How an “Abundance” Framing Can Restore Public Trust and Guide Climate Solutions

Public trust in U.S. government has ebbed and flowed over the decades, but it’s been stuck in the basement for a while. Not since 2005 have more than a third of Americans trusted the institution that underpins so much of American life.

We shouldn’t be surprised. Along with much progress, over the past two decades the U.S. became more unequal, saw stagnation or decline in many rural counties, stumbled into a housing crisis, and experienced worsening health outcomes. When the government can’t deliver (especially in core areas like health, housing, and economic vitality), trust in it wanes while the false promises of autocrats grow more appealing.

The strength of American democracy, in other words, hinges in large part on how well our government functions. This urgency helps explain why, at a moment when the United States is flirting with autocracy ever more vigorously, a book on precisely this topic became a #1 bestseller and prompted a debate around the “abundance agenda” that has turned quasi-existential for many in the policy world.

The abundance agenda, as described by Jonathan Chait, is “a collection of policy reforms designed to make it easier to build housing and infrastructure and for government bureaucracy to work”, such as by streamlining regulations that constrain infrastructure buildout while scaling up major government programs and investments that can deliver public goods. 

Unfortunately, popular discourse often flattens the conversation around abundance into a polarized binary around whether or not regulations are good. That frame is overly reductionist. Of course badly designed or out-dated regulatory approaches can block progress or (as in the case of the housing policies that the book Abundance centers on) dry up the supply of public goods. But a theory of the whole regulatory world can’t be neatly extrapolated from urban zoning errors. In an era of accelerating corporate capture, both private and public power structures act to block change and capture profits and power. We need a savvier understanding of what happens at the intersections between the government and the economy, and of how policy translates to communities at local scales.

We should therefore regard “abundance” less as a prescriptive policy agenda than as a frame from which to ask and answer questions at the heart of rebuilding public trust in government. Questions like: “Why is it so hard to build?” “Why are bureaucratic processes so badly matched to societal challenges?” “Why, for heaven’s sake, does nothing work?”

These questions can push us in a direction distinct from the usual big vs. small government debates, or squabbles about the welfare state versus the market. Instead, they may help us ask about interactions within and between government and the economy – the network of relationships, complex causation, and historical choices – that often seem to have left us with a government that feels ill-suited to its times.

At the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), we, along with colleagues in the broader government capacity movement, are exploring these questions, with a particular focus on agendas for renewal and advancing a new paradigm of regulatory ingenuity. One emerging insight is that at its core, abundance is largely about the dynamics of incumbency, that is, about the persistence of broken systems and legacy power structures even as society evolves. A second, related, insight is that the debate around abundance isn’t really about de-regulation or the regulatory state (every government has regulations), but rather about how multi-pronged and polycentric strategies can break through the inertia of incumbent systems, enabling government to better deliver the goods, services, and functions it is tasked with while also driving big and necessary societal changes. And a third is that the abundance discourse must center distributive justice in order to deliver shared prosperity and restore public trust.

Moving the Boulder: Inertia, Climate Change, and the Mission State

The above insights are particularly helpful in guiding new and more durable solutions to climate change – a challenge that touches every aspect of our society, that involves complex questions of market and government design, and that is rooted in the challenges of changing incumbent systems.

Consider the following. It’s now been almost 16 years since the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued its 2009 finding that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are a public danger and began trying to regulate them. To simplify a complex history, what happened on the regulatory front was this: the Obama administration tried to push regulations forward, the Trump administration worked to undo them, and then the cycle repeated through Biden and Trump II, culminating in the EPA’s recent move to revoke the endangerment finding.

We can certainly see the power of incumbency and inertia within this history. Over a decade and a half, the EPA regulated greenhouse gases from new power plants (though never very stringently), new cars and trucks (quite effectively cutting pollution, though never with mandates to actually electrify the fleet), and…that’s about it. The agency never implemented standards for the existing power plants and existing vehicles that emit the lion’s share of U.S. GHGs. It never regulated GHGs from industry or buildings. And thanks to the efforts of entrenched fossil-fuel actors and their political allies, the climate regulations EPA managed to get over the finish line were largely rolled back. 

None of this should be read as a knock on the dedicated civil servants at EPA and partner federal agencies who worked to produce GHG regulations that were scientifically grounded, legally defensible, technically feasible, and cost effective, even while grappling with the monumental challenges of outdated statutes and internal systems. But it certainly speaks to the challenge of securing lasting change.

The work of economist Mariana Mazzucato offers clues to how we might tackle this challenge; she paints a portrait of a “mission state” that integrates all of government’s levers to define and execute a particular objective, such as an effective, equitable, and durable clean energy transition. This theory isn’t a case for simplistic deregulation, nor is it a claim that regulations somehow “don’t work”. Rather, it suggests that (especially in a post-Chevron world) another round of battles over EPA authority won’t ultimately get us where we need to go on climate, nor will it help us productively reshape our institutions in ways that engender public trust.

The shift from one energy system foundation to another is messy – and it is inherently about power. As giant investment firms hustle to buy public utilities, enormous truck companies side with the Trump administration to dismantle state clean freight programs, and subsidies for clean energy are decried as unfair and market-distorting even though subsidies for fossil energy have persisted for nearly a century, it’s clear that corporate incumbents can capture public investments or capture government power to throttle change. Delivering change means thinking through the many ways incumbency creates systems of dependencies throughout society, and what options – from regulations to monetary policy to the ability to shape the rule of law – we have to respond. To disrupt energy incumbents and achieve energy abundance, in other words, we must couple regulatory and non-regulatory tools.

After all, the past 16 years haven’t just been a story of regulatory back-and-forth. They are also a story of how U.S. emissions have fallen relatively steadily in part due to federal policies, in part to state and local leadership, and in part to ongoing technological progress. Emissions will likely keep falling (though not fast enough) despite Trump-era rollbacks. That’s evidence that there’s not a one-to-one connection between regulatory policy and results.

We also have evidence of how potent it can be when economic and regulatory efforts pull in tandem. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was the first time the United States strongly invested in an economic pivot towards clean energy at scale and in a mission-oriented way. The results were immediate and transformative: U.S. clean energy and manufacturing investments took off in ways that far surpassed most expectations. And while the IRA has certainly come under attack during this Administration, it is nevertheless striking that today’s Republican trifecta retained large parts of the entirely Democratically-passed IRA, demonstrating the sticking power of a mission-oriented approach.

Conducting the Orchestra: The Need for an Expanded Playing Field

Thinking beyond regulatory levers (i.e., a multi-pronged approach) is necessary but not sufficient to chart the path forward for climate strategy. In a highly diverse and federalist nation like the United States, we must also think beyond federal government entirely.

That’s because, as Nobel-winning economist Dr. Elinor Ostrom put it, climate change is inherently a “polycentric” problem. The incumbent fossil systems at the root of the climate crisis are entrenched and cut across geographies as well as across public/private divisions. Therefore the federal government cannot effectively disrupt these systems alone. Many components of the fundamental economic and societal shifts that we need to realize the vision of clean energy abundance lie substantially outside sole federal control – and are best driven by the sustained investments and clear and consistent policies that our polarized politics aren’t delivering.  

For example, states, counties, and cities have long had primary oversight of their own economic development plans, their transportation plans, their building and zoning policies, and the make-up of their power mix. That means they have primary power both over most sources of climate pollution (two-thirds of the world’s climate emissions come from cities) and over how their economies and built environments change in response. These powers are fundamentally different from, and generally much broader than, powers held by federal regulatory agencies. Subnational governments also often have a greater ability to move funds, shape new complex policies across silos, and come up with creative responses that are inherently place-based. (The indispensable functions of subnational governments are also a reason why decades of cuts to subnational government budgets are a worryingly overlooked problem – austerity inhibits bottom-up climate progress.)

The private sector has similar ability to either constrain or drive forward new economic pathways. Indeed, with the private sector accounting for about half of funding for climate solutions, it is impossible to imagine a successful clean-energy transition that isn’t heavily predicated on private capabilities – particularly in the United States. While China’s clean-tech boom is largely the product of massive top-down subsidies and market interventions, a non-communist regime must rely on the private sector as a core partner rather than a mere executor of climate strategy. Fortunately, avenues for effectively engaging and leveraging the private sector in climate action are rapidly developing, including partnering public enterprise with private equity to sustain clean energy policies despite federal cutbacks.

An orchestra is an apt analogy. Just as many instruments and players come together in a symphony, so too can private and public actors across sectors and governance levels come together to achieve clean energy abundance. This analogy extends Mazzucato’s conception of a mission state into a “mission society”, envisioning a network that spans from cities to nation states, from private firms to civil actors, working in concert to overcome what Ben Rhodes calls a “crisis of short termism” and deliver a “coherent vision” of a better future.

Building Towards Shared Prosperity

For the vision to be coherent, it must resonate across socioeconomic and ideological boundaries, and it must recognize that the structures of racial, class, and gender disparity that have marked the American project from the beginning are emphatically still there. Such factors shape available pathways for progress and affect their justice and durability. For instance: electric vehicle adoption can only grow so quickly until we make it much easier for those living in rented or multifamily housing to charge. Cheaper renewables only mean so much when prevailing policies limit the financial benefits that are passed on to lower-income Americans.

To borrow, and complicate, a metaphor from Abundance: distributive justice questions are fundamentally not “everything bagel” seasonings to be disregarded as secondary to delivery goals. They are meaningful constraints on delivery as well as critical potentialities for better systems, and are hence central to policy and politics. No mission state or mission nation, addressing the polycentric landscape of networked change needed to shift big incumbent systems, can afford to dismiss or ignore them. Displacing those systems requires wrestling with inequality and striving to create shared prosperity through new approaches that are distributively fair.

That’s an approach rooted in orchestration, one that asks why some instruments drown out others, and how to alter relationships between players to produce better results. It understands that we can’t solve scarcity without centering distributive justice, because as long as deep structural disparities and structural power exist there is strong potential for the benefits of rapid energy or housing buildout to be channeled towards those who need them least. And it is capable of restabilizing the center of American society and restoring trust in U.S. government because it realistically grapples with the interests of incumbents while paying more than lip service to the interests of a dazzlingly diverse American public.

This re-fashioned abundance agenda can provide actual principles for administrative state reform because it knows what it is asking regulators, and the larger intersecting layers of government and civil society, to do: Systematically remove points of inertia to accelerate shared prosperity in a safe climate, while anticipating and solving for distributive risks of change.

Because again, the abundance debate isn’t really about whether or not regulations are good. It’s about unfreezing our politics by being clear and courageous about our goals for a society that works better and is capable of big things.

This is not the first time Americans have envisioned a better future in the midst of national crisis, or the first time we have collectively disrupted failed incumbent systems. From our messy foundation, to the beginnings of Reconstruction during the Civil War, to the architects of the New Deal envisioning an active and effective government in the midst of the Dust Bowl and Depression, the history of our nation is full of evidence that a compelling vision of truly democratic government can pull Americans back together despite deep and real problems. Each time, these debates have scrambled existing binaries, and driven realignment. We are on the verge of realignment again as the systems built up over the fossil era break down and our neoliberal order fragments. This is the right time to engage, together, in orchestrating what comes next.

Too Hot not to Handle

Every region in the U.S. is experiencing year after year of record-breaking heat. More households now require home cooling solutions to maintain safe and liveable indoor temperatures. Over the last two decades, U.S. consumers and the private sector have leaned heavily into purchasing and marketing conventional air conditioning (AC) systems, such as central air conditioning, window units and portable ACs, to cool down overheating homes. 

While AC can offer immediate relief, the rapid scaling of AC has created dangerous vulnerabilities: rising energy bills are straining people’s wallets and increasing utility debt, while surging electricity demand increases reliance on high-polluting power infrastructure and mounts pressure on an aging power grid increasingly prone to blackouts. There is also an increasing risk of elevated demand for electricity during a heat wave, overloading the grid and triggering prolonged blackouts, causing whole regions to lose their sole cooling strategy. This disruption could escalate into a public health emergency as homes and people overheat, leading to hundreds of deaths. 

What Americans need to be prepared for more extreme temperatures is a resilient cooling strategy. Resilient cooling is an approach that works across three interdependent systems — buildings, communities, and the electric grid — to affordably maintain safe indoor temperatures during extreme heat events and reduce power outage risks. 

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Too Hot not to handle
Resilient Cooling Policy and Strategy Toolkit

This toolkit introduces a set of Policy Principles for Resilient Cooling and outlines a set of actionable policy options and levers for state and local governments to foster broader access to resilient cooling technologies and strategies.

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This toolkit introduces a set of Policy Principles for Resilient Cooling and outlines a set of actionable policy options and levers for state and local governments to foster broader access to resilient cooling technologies and strategies. For example, states are the primary regulators of public utility commissions, architects of energy and building codes, and distributors of federal and state taxpayer dollars. Local governments are responsible for implementing building standards and zoning codes, enforcing housing and health codes, and operating public housing and retrofit programs that directly shape access to cooling. 

The Policy Principles for Resilient Cooling for a robust resilient cooling strategy are:

By adopting a resilient cooling strategy, state and local policymakers can address today’s overlapping energy, health, and affordability crises, advance American-made innovation, and ensure their communities are prepared for the hotter decades ahead.

Position on the Cool Corridors Act of 2025

The Federation of American Scientists supports H.R. 4420, the Cool Corridors Act of 2025, which would reauthorize the Healthy Streets program through 2030 and seeks to increase green and other shade infrastructure in high-heat areas.  

Science has shown that increasing sources of shade, including tree canopy and other shade infrastructure, can cool surrounding areas as much as 10 degrees, protecting people and critical infrastructure. The Cool Corridors Act of 2025 would create a unique and reliable funding source for communities to build out their shade infrastructure.

“Extreme heat is a serious threat to public health and critical infrastructure,” says Grace Wickerson, Senior Manager for Climate and Health at the Federation of American Scientists. “Increasing tree canopies and shade infrastructure is a key recommendation in FAS’ 2025 Heat Policy Agenda and we commend Reps Lawler and Strickland for taking action on this.”