Departments

Energy and Environment

Charting an equitable and just path to a 100 percent clean economy with net-zero climate pollution, protection of 30 percent of lands and waters, and community investments

Solar photovoltaic power plant farm installation. (Getty/Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket)

What We're Doing

Pursuing environmental justice

Investing in equitable climate solutions that address the country’s legacy of environmental racism while working to ensure that all communities have the right to breathe clean air, live free of dangerous levels of toxic pollution, access healthy food, and share the benefits of a prosperous economy

Creating good clean jobs at home

Laying the groundwork for an urgent transition to a clean energy economy that works for all, creating millions of good-paying jobs with the opportunity to join a union, and improving the quality of life for all Americans in the process

Protecting nature

Addressing the linked climate and biodiversity crises by working with a diverse coalition of states, tribes, and local stakeholders to conserve 30 percent of all U.S. lands and water by 2030 and promote natural solutions to the climate crisis that benefit all communities

Restoring U.S. climate leadership on the global stage

By urging strong and equitable domestic ambition for the U.S. government, restoring the United States to international leadership on climate action through bold emission reductions targets and plans to get there, climate finance, and strategic partnerships across the world

InProgress is a weekly newsletter that keeps you up to date on key policies and empowers you to advocate for change.

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Partners & Coalitions

The Energy and Environment Department engages with national, international, state, local, tribal, and environmental justice advocates to support the goals of climate, economic, environmental, and racial justice; bridge the gap between advocacy and action; and implement just and effective policies.

Climate Action Campaign

The CAC is a coalition of major national environment, environmental justice, and public health groups, working together to drive ambitious federal action to address the climate crisis.

Equitable and Just National Climate Platform

This coalition of environmental justice and national organizations advances economic, racial, and environmental justice to improve all communities’ well-being.

National Ocean Protection Coalition (NOPC)

The NOPC supports and implements ocean policies that balance a variety of environmental, commercial, industrial, recreational, and infrastructure interests.

Ocean Justice Forum

The forum works to create and advance an ambitious ocean policy agenda that promotes the goals of economic, racial, climate, and environmental justice.

Arctic Refuge Defense Campaign (ARDC)

The ARDC is a coalition of Alaska Native, climate, and conservation groups that works to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil and gas drilling.

Featured work

About our department

The Energy and Environment Department will build agreement around the climate change and conservation crises, with a focus on the demonstrable impacts people feel now to build urgency to act. We will deepen and expand our coalition, both domestic and in key foreign countries, around the scope of the challenges, and we will work on our own and with our partners to create ambitious, equitable, and just policies to protect  lands; oceans; and the health, safety, and prosperity of all communities. This includes addressing systemic racism and economic inequality, reducing pollution and its cumulative impacts in communities of color and low-income communities, and measurably improving the lives of people in the near term through our policies as we address environmental challenges. We will work with partners in key foreign countries to build agreement on agendas for ambitious global action, which will further bolster domestic support for action at home. To achieve our goals, we must confront fossil fuel corporations and their allies that are standing in the way of Americans’ desire to safeguard the planet and the survival and well-being of all life on earth.

Latest

Compact View

Dreaming of a Protected Ocean In the News

Dreaming of a Protected Ocean

In the spring 2024 issue of the Smithsonian's American Indian magazine, Angelo Villagomez draws on personal memories growing up on Saipan to describe how his culture, heritage, and family continue to inform his approach to conservation advocacy today.

American Indian magazine

Angelo Villagomez

How the Biden Administration Is Fighting for Clean Air and Water, Climate Protection, and Healthy Communities for All Report
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks in the Rose Garden of the White House before signing an executive order that would create the White House Office of Environmental Justice.

How the Biden Administration Is Fighting for Clean Air and Water, Climate Protection, and Healthy Communities for All

The Biden administration has launched the most ambitious climate and environmental justice agenda in history to ensure that every community has clean air and water, can access living-wage jobs and affordable clean energy, and is protected from climate change threats.

4 Things To Know About the EPA’s Upcoming Car Emissions Standards Article
Photo shows a black plaque with gold lettering reading

4 Things To Know About the EPA’s Upcoming Car Emissions Standards

The Environmental Protection Agency’s finalized emissions standards for cars and light trucks in model years 2027 through 2032 will drive billions of dollars in public health, climate, and economic benefits.

Leo Banks

‘Clean Up To Green Up’: Building a Clean Energy Workforce and a Brighter Future in Detroit Video

‘Clean Up To Green Up’: Building a Clean Energy Workforce and a Brighter Future in Detroit

The Green Door Initiative is using federal investments from President Joe Biden's Justice40 Initiative and the Inflation Reduction Act to ensure that all people—regardless of race, income, or ZIP code—have access to good jobs and live in safe and healthy communities.

We Need Smart Policy for Automakers to Profit on EVs In the News

We Need Smart Policy for Automakers to Profit on EVs

Former Rep. Andy Levin (D-MI) asserts the need for the United States to implement a charging infrastructure that can meet consumers’ needs in an op-ed published in WardsAuto.

WardsAuto

Rep. Andy Levin

Securing Clean Air, Clean Water, and a Healthy Environment for All Video

Securing Clean Air, Clean Water, and a Healthy Environment for All

Industrial facilities are most often located in or near Black, brown, and low-income communities who face the brunt of harmful industrial pollution, climate change impacts, and other environmental and public health hazards—something Harold Mitchell experienced firsthand in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Fortunately, the Biden administration’s long-overdue environmental justice investments can ensure that all people—regardless of race, income, or ZIP code—have clean air and clean water and live in safe and healthy communities.

The Biden Administration Can Deliver on Ocean Conservation Promises Made by the Bush and Obama Administrations Article

The Biden Administration Can Deliver on Ocean Conservation Promises Made by the Bush and Obama Administrations

Publishing final management plans for three marine monuments that have languished in bureaucratic limbo for as many as 15 years would deliver effective management for nearly half the protected waters in the United States.

Angelo Villagomez, Beth Pike, Laurie Peterka, 1 More Jen Felt

CAP Leads Letter to Administration Urging Clean Energy Incentive Eligibility for U.S. Territories Sign-On Letter

CAP Leads Letter to Administration Urging Clean Energy Incentive Eligibility for U.S. Territories

The Center for American Progress coordinated a letter from civil society organizations to the administration, urging the Treasury Department to allow territories to fully access direct pay and transferability for clean energy tax credits.

The Biden Administration Has Reached Conservation Records in 2023 Article
U.S. President Joe Biden walks to sign a proclamation to designate Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni - Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument.

The Biden Administration Has Reached Conservation Records in 2023

After three years in office, it is clear that the Biden administration is safeguarding public lands at a record rate; in the coming year, it must continue its conservation progress through community-led, justice-centered landscape protections.

Sam Zeno

Facing the Fire: Phoenix Airport Workers Demand Protections Against Extreme Heat Video

Facing the Fire: Phoenix Airport Workers Demand Protections Against Extreme Heat

Amid record-breaking temperatures, Phoenix airport service workers filed an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) complaint against their employer and are demanding action to improve job conditions and safety measures.

The Biden Administration’s Opportunity To Protect the Brooks Range From Unnecessary Mining via Ambler Road Article
Photo shows an aerial view of a mountain range, mostly bare with no trees, against a grey, cloudy sky. A serpentine river snakes through the valleys between the mountains.

The Biden Administration’s Opportunity To Protect the Brooks Range From Unnecessary Mining via Ambler Road

President Joe Biden has the opportunity to safeguard the ecologically sensitive lands of the Brooks Range in northwest Alaska from the threat of Ambler Road—a destructive path to a speculative mine that local communities have loudly opposed.

Sam Zeno

How Japan can drive faster toward a clean-energy future In the News

How Japan can drive faster toward a clean-energy future

In an op-ed for Kyodo News, Alan Yu and Glen S. Fukushima argue that while Japan’s support for new research into clean energy alternatives should be commended, the nation should also invest more heavily in deploying technologies that have already proven successful, such as solar and wind power.

Kyodo News

Alan Yu, Glen S. Fukushima

These Fossil Fuel Industry Tactics Are Fueling Democratic Backsliding Article
The COP28 logo is seen in Dubai.

These Fossil Fuel Industry Tactics Are Fueling Democratic Backsliding

As citizens around the world increasingly favor serious policy action to fight climate change, the fossil fuel industry is undermining democratic principles to stem the tide of climate action—spreading misinformation and obstructing elected governments’ climate efforts, promoting anti-democratic movements and candidates, and even undermining democratic rights.

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