President Biden’s 2025 Budget: Tackles the Climate Crisis and Promotes a Clean Energy Future
President Biden’s 2025 budget builds on historic investments made in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) that tackle the climate crisis and put our country on a path to a clean energy future. These laws together are repairing roads and bridges and making infrastructure more resilient to climate change, modernizing the power grid, developing and deploying cutting-edge clean energy technologies, investing in drinking water and wastewater infrastructure, and combating the climate crisis.
The IRA dedicated nearly $400 billion in climate solutions and clean technologies to deliver the single greatest investment in combating the climate crisis in American history — all while lowering costs for American families, creating jobs here at home, advancing climate justice, and positioning the United States as the global leader in clean energy. Thanks to this law, more than 271,000 new clean energy and manufacturing jobs and more than $352 billion in new investments have been announced across the United States.
Invests in America’s Climate and Energy Future
The budget funds several critical energy and environment priorities. While many of the initiatives are funded across several agencies, much of the funding for energy and climate is at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Energy (DOE). For 2025, the budget provides $11 billion and more than $51 billion, respectively, in discretionary budget authority for these agencies.
Invests in Climate Resilience – The budget touts $23 billion in climate adaptation and resilience across multiple agencies including $5.6 billion for the Department of Agriculture, $5.5 billion for the Department of the Interior, $4.4 billion for the Department of Homeland Security, $3.5 billion for the Department of Defense (DOD), and $2.5 billion for the EPA. Activities that promote climate resilience range from planting cover crops, to flood hazard mapping, using science to better understand climate change and improve land management practices, and mitigating the impacts of extreme heat in low-income and disadvantaged communities.
Supports and Expands the American Climate Corps – Last year, the Administration launched the American Climate Corps (ACC) to mobilize clean energy, conservation, and climate resilience workers. The ACC provides job training and service opportunities on a diverse set of projects to address climate change. The budget expands the ACC in two ways. First, it provides $23 million in 2025 discretionary funding for more than 1,700 additional ACC members as well as another $15 million for an ACC hub to provide coordination across implementing agencies. Second, it provides $8 billion in mandatory funding to further expand the number of climate workers.
Creates Jobs and Builds Clean Energy Infrastructure – The budget invests $1.6 billion in DOE for clean energy workforce and infrastructure projects including $385 million to weatherize and retrofit homes of low-income Americans, $113 million for manufacturing clean energy components in America, $95 million to electrify tribal homes and transition tribal colleges and universities to renewable energy, and $102 million to support building a resilient and reliable grid that can use electricity from clean energy sources.
Builds the Clean Energy Innovation Pipeline – The budget includes $10.7 billion for DOE, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Science Foundation, DOD, and other agencies to support researchers and entrepreneurs creating commercial clean energy products in areas such as offshore wind, industrial heat, sustainable aviation fuel, and grid infrastructure.
Bolsters Environmental Justice Efforts for Communities Often Left Behind – The budget builds on efforts such as the President’s Justice40 Initiative to continue energy equity and justice efforts for historically excluded communities. It invests almost $1.5 billion for EPA to support environmental justice efforts, with a new $25 million grant to develop Direct Implementation Tribal Cooperative Agreements for EPA programs in Indian Country.
Republican Priorities Put Our Future at Risk
Republican priorities would risk our climate and energy future and roll back progress made by Democrats through the IRA and other initiatives.
Republicans’ House-passed H.R. 1 would put polluters over people by providing giveaways and loopholes for corporate polluters, gutting our bedrock environmental laws, and jeopardizing clean air and safe drinking water. Among other things, it would repeal the IRA’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, Methane Emissions Reduction Program, and the $4.5 billion electrification rebate program designed to lower energy bills for families across the nation.
Republicans have attacked the IRA and climate issues in other bills as well, including H.R. 2811, the Default on America Act, which repeals or ends several tax provisions that promote renewable energy, build energy security, and foster environmental resilience. While attacking wind, solar, hydrogen and biodiesel, it also ends multiple credits for efficiency and clean fuels.