What’s coming in 2026 for energy and environmental policy

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There are many important energy and environmental developments in the works, both in the executive branch and in Congress. The following are two different lists. The first is a list of some of the most important regulatory developments and the second list details some of the most important legislation.

Regulations to watch

>Rule: Reconsideration of 2009 Endangerment Finding and Greenhouse Gas Vehicle Standards
Agency: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Status: The agency is reviewing comments. The final rule will likely be published in early 2026.

Comments: This will be one of the most important regulatory actions this administration and in recent memory. There are numerous legal arguments to undo the 2009 endangerment finding and to conclude that the EPA doesn’t have authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles. Hopefully, the EPA will include many of these arguments in its final rule. To learn more about the endangerment finding, please visit our endangerment finding web page. Here is CEI’s comment to the EPA.

>Rule: National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants: Coal- and Oil-Fired Electric Utility Steam Generating Units (would repeal aspects of the Biden 2024 Mercury and Air Toxics Standards rule)
Agency: EPA
Status: The agency is reviewing comments. The final rule will likely be published in early 2026. Here is CEI’s comment to the EPA.

>Rule: Repeal of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards for Fossil Fuel-Fired Electric Generating Units
Agency: EPA
Status: The agency is reviewing comments. The final rule will likely be published in early 2026.

Comments: The EPA will likely finalize a rule that will make it clear that the agency doesn’t have authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. This would help put an end to the agency acting like the nation’s grid manager. Here is CEI’s comment to the EPA.

>Rule: Updated Definition of “Waters of the United States”
Agencies: EPA and US Army Corps of Engineers (Corps)
Status: The comment period is open for the proposed rule. Comments are due by January 5, 2026.

Comments: For decades, the EPA and Corps have tried to expand federal regulatory power to the point of regulating almost every water imaginable. In 2023, the US Supreme Court in Sackett v. EPA finally helped to provide much-needed clarity on what waters are regulated under the Clean Water Act (what are “Waters of the United States” or WOTUS). The Trump administration must now develop a rule that is consistent with Sackett. Fortunately, the Sackett opinion, and the plurality opinion in Rapanos v. United States (2006) that the Sackett court embraced, helps to provide some clear guidance for what a rule needs to look like. The current proposed rule is a decent step forward, but changes are needed to make it consistent with Sackett.

See my recent piece “Some minimum requirements for a proper WOTUS rule” and CEI’s comment to the EPA and Corps when they sought initial public feedback on how to define WOTUS. 

>Rule: Clean Water Act Section 401 Water Quality Certification Improvement Rule
Agency: EPA
Status: A proposed rule is currently under review at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

Comments: The Clean Water Act gives a voice to states and tribes when it comes to protecting water quality. Before the federal government can issue certain permits and licenses, a state (or tribe) must either issue a certification or waive the certification requirement. Some states though have abused this process known as Section 401 certification by looking at issues that go well beyond water quality and other issues beyond the focus of the Clean Water Act. Any new proposed Section 401 rule should undo the Biden Section 401 rule and help to address Section 401 abuse. See CEI’s and the Pacific Legal Foundation’s comment to the EPA in response to the agency seeking public feedback prior to the pending proposed rule.

>Rule: Visibility Protection: Regional Haze State Plan Requirements Rule Revision
Agency: EPA
Status: The agency is reviewing comments from this Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.

Comments: The EPA was seeking comment on its Regional Haze Program. As CEI pointed out in our comments, “the Regional Haze Program, like most other decades-old programs administered by EPA, is now in need of significant course corrections if not outright repeal… No longer is the focus on improving visibility but rather to mandate the installation of costly control technologies on industrial facilities.”  We concluded that the agency “should restore state primacy over the program as envisioned in the statute – up to and including respecting state determinations that no additional control measures are needed to address visibility” and urged it to “fully acknowledge the changed circumstances since 1977, and especially the declining emissions trends that undercut the case for further costly constraints under the program.”

>Rule: The Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient (SAFE) Vehicles Rule III for Model Years 2022 to 2031 Passenger Cars and Light Trucks
Agency: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (Transportation)
Status: The comment period is open for the proposed rule. Comments are due by January 20, 2026.

Comments:The following comes from my colleague Marlo Lewis’s statement on the proposed rule, “CEI strongly supports the Department of Transportation’s proposal to reset the federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) program. Under the Biden administration, industrial policy czar wannabes, regulatory rent seekers, and climate campaigners carjacked the CAFE program, turning it into a power boost for California and the Environmental Protection Agency’s unlawful agenda to ban gas-powered cars, restrict Americans’ freedom of vehicle choice, and price millions of consumers out of the new-car market.”

>Rule: Notice of Availability of the 11th National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Draft Proposed Program: 1st Analysis and Proposal MAA104000
Agency: Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (Interior)
Status: The comment period is open for the proposal. Comments are due by January 23, 2026.

Comments: Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued a Secretary Order that would replace the Biden administration’s 2024–2029 National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program with a new five-year offshore drilling plan that would greatly expand the number of lease sales. This new proposed 2026-2031 National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program could include as many as 34 lease sales covering approximately 1.27 billion acres. Interior published its proposal on November 24 in the Federal Register. Here are CEI expert statements on this proposed plan.

>Rules: Endangered Species Act rules

Agencies: US Fish and Wildlife Service (Interior); National Marine Fisheries Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Commerce)

Status: The comment period is open for these proposed rules. Comments are due by December 22, 2025.

Comments: These suite of rules would help with species conservation. Among the rules is the proposed repeal of the Fish and Wildlife Service’s blanket 4(d) rule. This misguided policy treats threatened species as if they are endangered. Here are some PERC resources on problems with the blanket 4(d) rule. 


Legislation to watch

>Bill: SPEED Act (HR 4776)
Status: This bill was favorably reported out of the House Natural Resources Committee and is likely to be voted on by the full House this year.

Comments: This is a bipartisan National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reform bill. The bill codifies aspects of the Supreme Court case Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County. Among other things, the bill clarifies that NEPA is purely a procedural statute, states that when preparing an environmental document, an agency“may not consider effects that are speculative, attenuated from the project or action, separate in time or place from the project or action, or in relation to separate existing or potential future projects or actions,” and as explained by the Committee, “the bill requires that NEPA claims be filed within 150 days after the action is made public and must be filed by claimants who submitted a comment during the public comment period, have a claim related to their comment, and have been, or imminently will be, harmed by the proposed action.”

>Bill: PERMIT Act (HR 3898)
Status: The bill is in the House Rules Committee. The bill could be voted on as early as this week.

Comments: This bill includes numerous Clean Water Act reforms, including reforms to the Section 401 process discussed earlier and eliminating what are known as preemptive and retroactive vetoes of Section 404 permits by the EPA. These issues are discussed in my piece “The PERMIT Act is an important step for permitting reform.”

>Bill: State Planning for Reliability & Affordability Act (HR 3628)
Status: This bill will likely be considered in the House as early as this week.

Comments: This legislation would amend the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 to require state regulatory authorities to consider a new federal standard. This new standard would require state regulated electric utilities to ensure the availability of reliable electricity in their integrated resource planning. This entails getting electricity from reliable generation facilities. Central to the definition of such facilities is “the generation of electric energy on a continuous basis for a period of not fewer than 30 days.”

Big picture on legislation

In 2026, Congress will hopefully enact numerous energy and environmental reforms. One issue that is already getting attention and will continue to do so: permitting reform.

This year, the House will likely pass two permitting bills, the SPEED Act and PERMIT Act. This will help to get even more momentum for permitting reform.

Permitting reform could be sabotaged though if there are efforts to package misguided transmission reform into permitting reform efforts. Transmission reform shouldn’t be a way to connect unreliable electricity sources to the grid at the expense of consumers or the reliability and resilience of the grid.

Proper permitting reform will need to cover multiple statutes beyond just NEPA and the Clean Water Act. Some other statutes that need to be amended include the Clean Air Act and Endangered Species Act. My recent piece with my colleague Paige Lambermont “What permitting reform should and shouldn’t include” provides more perspective on permitting reform.

Conclusion

As can be seen from this far from exhaustive list, there is a lot happening when it comes to federal energy and environmental policy. As can also be seen, CEI has been playing a major role in these issues. Through the end of this year and into 2026, CEI will be proactive and work with allies to develop sound energy and environmental policy that promotes freedom, unleashes American energy, and reduces costs while expanding opportunities for Americans.