FACT SHEET: The President’s Budget Creates Good-Paying Clean Jobs, Cuts Energy Costs, and Delivers on the President’s Ambitious Climate Agenda

Since taking office, President Biden has delivered on the most ambitious climate, conservation, and environmental justice agenda in history—taking bold action to reduce climate pollution across every sector of the economy, protecting more than 26 million acres of lands and waters, and restoring the vital role of science in guiding federal decision-making. The Administration continues to implement the President’s historic Investing in America agenda—including the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law—the largest investment by any country in history in in clean energy, energy security, clean air and water, environmental justice, combatting climate change, and to enhance our climate resilience.

As a result of the President’s economic and climate leadership, clean energy jobs are on the rise across the country, American manufacturing is booming, companies have announced hundreds of billions of dollars in clean energy investments, and the country is on a path toward cutting climate pollution in half from 2005 levels by 2030 and achieving economy-wide, net zero emissions by no later than 2050. The President also launched the Justice40 Initiative to embed environmental justice into clean energy and climate programs; this goal ensures that communities that are on the frontlines of climate change benefit from this historic investment in climate solutions.

The Budget protects and builds on this monumental progress, making pro-growth investments in clean energy across the Nation, cutting energy bills for families, creating good-paying jobs, advancing environmental justice, ensuring critical technologies are made in America, supporting locally led conservation of our lands and waters, and building climate resilience for American communities and infrastructure. The President’s Budget:

Reduces Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Advances Clean Energy While Creating Jobs and Cutting Energy Costs

Creates Jobs by Building Clean Energy Infrastructure. The Budget invests $1.6 billion through the Department of Energy (DOE), more than double from when President Biden took office, to support clean energy workforce and infrastructure projects across the Nation, including $385 million to weatherize and retrofit homes of low-income Americans, $113 million to create good jobs and ensure reliable supply chains by manufacturing clean energy components here at home, $95 million to electrify Tribal homes and transition Tribal colleges and universities to renewable energy, and $102 million to support utilities and State and local governments in building a grid that is more secure, reliable, resilient, and able to integrate electricity from clean energy sources. These investments, which complement and bolster the historic funding in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, will create good-paying jobs and help revitalize American manufacturing—all while driving progress toward the Administration’s climate goals, including 100% carbon pollution-free electricity by 2035. 

Lowers Energy Costs and Catalyzes Clean Energy and Economic Growth in Rural Communities. The Budget builds on the $13 billion provided in the President’s historic Inflation Reduction Act for rural development programs at the Department of Agriculture (USDA) to reduce energy bills for families, expand clean energy, transform rural power production, and create tens of thousands of good-paying jobs for people across rural America. The Budget provides $1 billion for loan guarantees for renewable energy systems and energy efficiency improvements for farmers and rural small businesses, and $6.5 billion in authority for rural electric loans to support additional clean energy, energy storage, and transmission projects that would create good-paying jobs. In addition, the Budget includes $60 million in zero-interest loans for the Rural Energy Savings Program, which would help rural Americans implement durable cost-effective energy efficiency measures in their homes, lowering energy costs and contributing to the President’s clean energy goals. Additionally, the Budget includes over $5 billion, an increase of nearly $900 million from the FY 2023 enacted level without earmarks, for efforts across the Federal Government that support economic revitalization, job creation, and other priority needs in hard-hit coal, oil and gas, and legacy power plant communities.

Reduces Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Tackles the Climate Crisis. The Budget builds on the historic climate investments made in the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and includes over $2.9 billion in Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) climate-related programs to address the climate crisis by reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, expanding upon the GHG Reporting Program and Sinks Inventory, implementing provisions in the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act to continue phasing out the production and import of hydrofluorocarbons, advancing equitable implementation of EPA authorities and directives in Indian Country, and engaging with the global community to respond to the shared challenge of building resilience in the face of climate impacts. The Budget includes $10.6 billion in the DOE climate and clean energy research, development, demonstration, and deployment programs, which advances efforts crucial for achieving the goal of a 50- to 52-percent reduction from 2005 levels of economy wide net greenhouse gas pollution in 2030 and economy wide net-zero emissions no later than 2050, while also cutting energy bills for American families and building U.S. leadership in the global clean energy economy.

Reduces Home Energy and Water Costs. Reducing household energy and water costs continues to be a priority for the Administration. The Budget provides $4.1 billion for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP)—building on the $7 billion in additional funding the Administration has secured for LIHEAP since 2021—to help families access home energy and weatherization assistance, which are vital tools for protecting vulnerable families’ health in response to extreme weather and climate change. In addition, since the Low-Income Household Water Assistance Program (LIHWAP) expired at the end of 2023, the Budget proposes to allow States the option to use a portion of their LIHEAP funds to provide water bill assistance to low-income households.

Continues to Advance Clean Energy Development on Public Lands. The Budget includes $142 million to continue the Administration’s progress in deploying clean energy on public lands and waters, spurring economic development and creating thousands of good-paying jobs. This funding supports the leasing, planning, and permitting of solar, wind, and geothermal energy projects, and associated transmission infrastructure that would help mitigate the impacts of climate change.

Strengthens and Accelerates Permitting Activities. The Budget invests in environmental permitting capacity to ensure the effective and efficient delivery of modernized infrastructure across the Nation while promoting positive environmental and community outcomes. The Budget includes over $1 billion to support environmental review and permitting processes that are effective, efficient, and transparent, guided by science and shaped by early and meaningful public engagement and input.

Invests in Climate Science and Innovation

Builds the Clean Energy Innovation Pipeline. The Budget includes $10.7 billion, an increase of $2.7 billion over FY 2021 Enacted levels, across DOE, NASA, the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Department of Defense (DOD), and other agencies to support researchers and entrepreneurs transforming innovations into commercial clean energy products, including in areas such as offshore wind, industrial heat, sustainable aviation fuel, and grid infrastructure. Since the start of the Administration, the President has requested and Congress has enacted year-over-year increases in the total government-wide funding for clean energy innovation. Across DOE, the Budget provides over $325 million to support the research, development, and demonstration of technologies and processes to increase the domestic supply of sustainable critical minerals and materials essential for several clean energy technologies. The Budget provides more than $500 million for green aviation at NASA, over $500 million for clean energy research at the NSF, and $845 million for DOE efforts to accelerate the viability of commercial fusion energy. The Budget also funds eight crosscutting DOE Earthshots initiatives which could substantially reduce the cost of energy for the American consumer through innovations in clean energy generation, energy efficiency, and storage.

Advances Climate Science. The Budget includes $4.5 billion for climate research across NASA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NSF, and other agencies. This includes $150 million at NASA to develop the next-generation land-imaging mission (Landsat Next) and more than $600 million for NASA in research grants to enhance understanding of Earth systems, including climate and natural hazards. It includes $900 million for NSF, which supports a broad portfolio of research that includes atmospheric composition, water and carbon cycles, climate resilience technologies including for communities heavily affected by climate change, social, behavioral, and economic research on human responses to climate change, among other topics. The Budget also invests $275 million at the Department of the Interior (DOI) to continue to leverage science to better understand the impacts of climate change, and to inform and improve land management practices from the Federal to the local level. The Budget invests $407 million at DOE to support fundamental research, including modeling and scientific user facilities to enable enhanced predictability of dynamically changing climate, environmental, and Earth systems, which includes predictability of climate trends and extremes that influence the design and deployment of next generation energy systems.

Maintains World Leading Research through the CHIPS and Science Act Investments. The Budget invests $20 billion across major research agencies to boost American innovation and re-establish American leadership in research and scientific discovery. At the National Science Foundation, these investments include support for regional innovation programs, investments in emerging technologies (such as artificial intelligence and quantum information science), and STEM workforce programs. Funding for the Department of Commerce’s (DOC) National Institute for Standards and Technology will support activities responsive to the President’s Executive Order on the Safe, Secure and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence and fund construction and maintenance of research and development facilities. In the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, the Budget supports artificial intelligence, high performance computing to improve climate modeling, clean energy technologies including fusion, and positions the United States to meet the demand for isotopes.

Strengthens Resilience

Strengthens Climate Resilience in Communities and Ecosystems. Across America, communities are enduring historic and catastrophic flooding, wildfires, extreme heat, drought, and more, while longer-term changes in temperature affect ecosystems and the economies that depend on them. The intensifying impacts of climate change are costing lives, disrupting livelihoods, and causing billions of dollars in damages. The Biden-Harris Administration has made historic investments in climate adaptation and resilience, including more than $50 billion from the President’s Investing in America agenda. Building on the National Climate Resilience Framework, the Budget invests $23 billion in climate adaptation and resilience across the Department of Commerce (DOC), DOI, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), USDA, Army Corps of Engineers, EPA, and DOD to address the increasing severity of extreme weather events fueled by climate change. This includes resources for flood hazard mapping, including the development of new data to support future flood conditions so that communities and Americans have the most up-to-date information regarding their flood risk; investments to mitigate the impacts of extreme heat in low-income and disadvantaged communities; and $105 million for DOE to plan, design and demonstrate community-scale energy solutions to support grid resilience. The Budget also provides funding to ensure farmers, ranchers, and forestland owners meet production goals in the face of a changing climate while conserving, maintaining, and restoring natural resources on their lands.

Invests in America’s Brave Wildland Firefighters. The Budget builds on the Administration’s historic investments in the wildland firefighting workforce at USDA and DOI by supporting the implementation of permanent and comprehensive pay reform, the enhancement of health services, the hiring of additional permanent and temporary wildland firefighters to increase capacity, and the improvement of Government housing. These investments would help address long-standing recruitment and retention challenges, increase the departments’ capacity to complete critical risk mitigation work, and further the Administration’s commitment to build a more robust and resilient wildland firefighting workforce as the frequency and intensity of catastrophic wildfires continue to increase due to climate change.

Increases Drought Resilience. The Budget helps ensure communities across the West have access to a resilient and reliable water supply by investing in rural water projects, water conservation, development of desalination technologies, and water recycling and reuse projects. The Budget complements the nearly $1.7 billion provided in 2025 for western water infrastructure through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, as well as the nearly $4.6 billion that was provided by the Inflation Reduction Act for drought mitigation and domestic water supply projects through the Bureau of Reclamation. 

Strengthens Climate Resilience and Reduces Housing Insecurity in Rural Communities. A lack of adequate affordable housing has been a long-standing problem in rural communities—one that is exacerbated by low energy efficiency of the aging housing stock, meaning higher costs for families. To help address this, the Budget proposes additional funding for USDA multifamily and single-family housing, and again proposes to eliminate the gap that penalizes low-income rural borrowers by inequitably requiring repayment for certain USDA Direct loans.  The Budget provides strong support for USDA’s multifamily housing and housing preservation programs. Through these investments, the Administration advances equity by reducing rent burdens for low-income borrowers and preserving low-income tenant-based housing in rural America. The Budget again proposes to reduce operating costs and increase the resilience of rural housing to the impacts of climate change through a proposal to require energy and water efficiency improvements and green features in USDA’s rural housing programs that include construction, such as housing repair loans and grants.

Advances Environmental Justice

Delivers for Communities Often Left Behind. The Administration continues to take bold steps and prioritize efforts to deliver environmental justice in communities across the United States, including implementing the President’s Justice40 Initiative and keeping up the momentum of the historic Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act environmental justice investments. The Budget bolsters these efforts by supporting several key initiatives to accelerate energy equity and justice for all Americans, including communities overburdened by pollution, investing nearly $1.5 billion across EPA in support of environmental justice efforts, including investments that will support cleaner air and cleaner water in frontline communities. This includes a new $25 million grant to develop Direct Implementation Tribal Cooperative Agreements to carry out crucial EPA programs in Indian Country with an emphasis on addressing the impacts of climate change.

Reduces Health and Environmental Hazards for At-Risk Communities. The Budget provides $8.2 billion to address DOE legacy waste and contamination in communities used during the Manhattan Project and the Cold War for nuclear weapons production. The Budget includes other key investments in programs that reduce environmental hazards like EPA’s Superfund program, Brownfields program, and Toxic Substances Control Act implementation. The Administration will ensure the investments for the management of toxic chemicals, including per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, cleanup of legacy pollution, and long-term stewardship of these sites align with the Justice40 Initiative to benefit disadvantaged communities.

Invests in Clean Air. The Administration continues to support investment in EPA’s work of limiting emissions of harmful air pollutants and tackling the climate crisis. The Budget provides a total of $1.5 billion for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, an increase of $690 million since the beginning of the Administration, to continue the development of national programs, policies, and regulations that control air pollution and radiation exposure. This funding includes a historic $187 million for the Atmospheric Protection Program to support implementation and compliance with greenhouse gas emission standards and to tackle the climate crisis at home and abroad. Also included is $100 million for the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act (DERA) grant program, which funds grants and rebates to reduce harmful emissions from diesel engines, and $70 million for the Targeted Airshed Grants (TAG), which helps reduce air pollution in the most polluted nonattainment areas.

Advances Climate Justice and Ensures Compliance with the Nation’s Environmental Laws. At DOJ, the Budget renews its investment in the Office of Environmental Justice to protect overburdened and disadvantaged communities from the harms caused by environmental crimes, pollution, and climate change. The Administration continues investments at EPA to ensure compliance with environmental laws, including $172 million for compliance monitoring efforts including funds to conduct inspections in underserved, disadvantaged, and overburdened communities, and funds to rebuild the inspector corps.

Trains the Next Generation of Leaders in Emerging Fields

Supports and Expands the American Climate Corps. Last year, the Administration announced the launch of the American Climate Corps (ACC) to mobilize a new, diverse generation of more than 20,000 clean energy, conservation, and climate resilience workers and leaders, and this year, the first cohort of ACC members will begin their service. The ACC will provide job training and service opportunities on a wide range of projects that tackle climate change in communities around the country. The Budget provides $15 million to support and expand AmeriCorps’ ACC hub and $23 million to support over 1,700 additional ACC members, as well as $8 billion in mandatory funding to support an additional 50,000 ACC members annually by 2031. This builds on additional investments to support climate-related workforce development and service initiatives across all seven ACC agencies.

Promotes Equity in STEM Education and Workforce Training. In support of the CHIPS and Science Act’s priority of building a diverse, STEM-capable workforce, the Budget provides $1.4 billion for STEM education and workforce development programs at NSF that have an emphasis on diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. The Budget also includes funding for programs focused on increasing the participation of groups historically underrepresented in science and engineering fields by supporting curriculum program design, research on successful recruitment and retention methods, development of outreach or mentorship programs, fellowships, and $256 million in funding to build capacity for advancing energy research and developing a new energy workforce, as well as an additional $100 million for enhancing general research capacity at HCBUs, TCCUs, and MSIs through the Department of Education. The Budget also provides $46 million to NASA’s Minority University Research and Education Project, to increase competitive awards to minority-serving institutions to recruit and retain underrepresented and underserved students in STEM fields.

Broadens Access to Registered Apprenticeships in Clean Energy and the Industries of the Future. The Budget increases support for Registered Apprenticeships, an evidence-based earn-as-you-learn model that is a critical tool for training future workforces for good jobs that don’t require a college degree in the clean energy, construction, semiconductor, transportation and logistics, education, health, and other growing and in-demand industries. The Budget invests $335 million, a $50 million increase above the 2023 enacted level, and supports expanding existing Registered Apprenticeship programs in clean energy-related occupations.  This investment would also be used to reduce barriers and expand access, training, and opportunities that can increase the number of workers from historically underrepresented groups, including people of color, women, and people with disabilities, who participate in Registered Apprenticeships.

Doubles Down on America’s Global Climate Leadership

Achieves the Administration’s Historic Climate Finance Pledge. The Budget provides a path to achieving the President’s $11 billion commitment for international climate finance, including $3 billion for the President’s Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience (PREPARE). A signature initiative, PREPARE supports more than half a billion people in developing countries to adapt to and manage the impacts of climate change, including through private sector mobilization. In 2023, PREPARE brought 21 new companies and partners on board, with commitments to accelerate adaptation action in vulnerable developing countries that have mobilized more than $2 billion. The Budget also supports a $500 million FY 2025 contribution through mandatory funding to finance the Green Climate Fund (GCF), as part of the $3 billion multi-year pledge to expand climate adaptation and mitigation projects in developing countries, and $100 million for the Amazon Fund to combat deforestation and preserve the world’s largest tropical rainforest. The Budget builds on historic international climate finance progress made over the course of this Administration, in which estimated 2023 levels of $9.5 billion represent a near-sixfold increase from 2021.

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