In the News
Sep 29, 2025
Climate hawks Reps. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) and Sean Casten (D-Ill.) released a discussion draft of their "Cheap Energy Act," a hodgepodge of tax, permitting and utility regulatory reform policies to boost renewables in a bid to lower electricity prices. They are hoping it presses the argument that Trump policies targeting renewables are going to keep raising power prices.
Sep 25, 2025
We can build a thriving and sustainable economy that empowers working people — not high-dollar political donors. And to do so, we need only look to states and communities that are already building these solutions. While we need to think big, we also have the tools we need to build a better future right in front of us.
That’s why I’m proud that we are coming together to launch SEEC Institute’s Thriving Economy Project, a comprehensive initiative to develop real solutions for the economic challenges facing American families and businesses due to rising energy costs, increasing global economic competition and growing climate disasters. I am proud of this project because it is focused on listening to the people who are already finding ways to thrive, whether with clean energy solutions, creative farming practices or building more resilient neighborhoods. It’s our goal to help them scale their successes.
Sep 24, 2025
Tax incentives for renewable energy projects would be restored and a low-income energy assistance program expanded under a draft bill House Democrats unveiled Wednesday.
The blueprint aims to stem rising energy costs for Americans by doubling down on wind and solar energy, building out transmission lines to bolster the electricity grid, and curtailing the Trump administration’s ability to favor fossil fuel projects over renewables. Reps. Sean Casten (Ill.) and Mike Levin (Calif.) released the framework, which includes provisions from multiple Democratic bills, including from Reps. Kathy Castor (Fla.), Paul Tonko (N.Y.), Yassamin Ansari (Ariz.), Susie Lee (Nev.), and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.).
Sep 24, 2025
House Democrats introduced a new package of proposals on Wednesday taking aim at rising electricity prices. The move signals a shift in how the party plans to talk about the energy industry — and an even bigger change in how the party plans to talk about climate change in the Trump 2.0 era. The new package, sponsored by Representatives Sean Casten and Mike Levin, would encourage new power line construction and strengthen utility regulation in much of the country. It would also restore longstanding tax credits for wind and solar energy, which were repealed as part of President Trump’s partisan tax and spending law earlier this year.
Sep 24, 2025
A pair of House Democrats released "consumer-focused" energy legislation Wednesday that would restore recently gutted clean energy tax credits, relieve permitting bottlenecks and prevent a president's ability to favor fossil fuels. The "Cheap Energy Act," from Reps. Sean Casten (D-Ill.) and Mike Levin (D-Calif.), is broader than a transmission-focused permitting bill the pair released last year.
Sep 22, 2025
Congressional Democrats have expressed frustration that the federal government is turning away from renewable sources of energy in its growing preference for fossil fuels. “This week, House Republicans continued their assault on affordable, homegrown clean energy, passing a slate of bills that double down on dirty, expensive fossil fuels,” the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition, a group made up of Democrats, said in a statement. “Instead of tackling the cost-of-living crisis, Republicans seem intent to live in the past, trying to resurrect abandoned pipeline projects and bringing back the ‘golden age’ of coal mining.”
Sep 17, 2025
More than 100 Democrats on Wednesday signed on to a letter sent to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin, calling on the agency to withdraw its proposed elimination of federal emissions standards for vehicles. “This is a clear abdication of EPA’s core mission to protect human health and the environment and a flagrant rejection of Congressional intent,” wrote the lawmakers, led by Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Ca.). Matsui is a co-chair of the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition alongside Reps. Mike Quigley (D-Il.) and Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.), who also signed the letter.
Sep 04, 2025
The House voted along party lines last night on GOP measures to nix Biden-era land management plans for Alaska, Montana and North Dakota. The House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition, a Democratic group, said the plans "balance multiple uses" and killing them is a "giveaway for Trump's corporate polluter friends.
Aug 07, 2025
House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition Co-Chair Rep. Paul Tonko, member Rep. Kathy Castor and 83 other Democrats signed a letter urging EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to reconsider repealing greenhouse gas emissions standards for fossil fuel plants.
Jul 30, 2025
After years of conservatives' pleas, the Trump administration on Tuesday proposed erasing the 2009 endangerment finding, the federal government’s bedrock scientific declaration on the dangers of greenhouse gases — a move that would run afoul of reams of research and topple most of the Environmental Protection Agency’s climate regulations, reports our Alex Guillén. House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition Democrats slammed the rollback, saying the decision to repeal the endangerment finding “represents a disturbing new level of extreme science denial by the very agency entrusted to protect the American public from pollution.” “Whether it’s the catastrophic flash floods in Texas, the wildfires that demolished Californian communities, or the scorching heat dome currently enveloping half of the U.S., it is no longer a question whether climate change endangers our lives,” they said in a statement.