White House Requests Slashes to Climate Programs in Rescission Package

Current conditions: Thunderstorms today will span 1,000 miles from Detroit to Dallas • NOAA’s Hurricane Hunters aircrews will begin their 2025 season by gathering weather data from a disturbance off the Southeast coast of the U.S.• Romanian officials are rerouting a stream to prevent the further inundation and collapse of one of Europe’s largest salt reserves following historic floods.

THE TOP FIVE

1. White House takes aim at climate programs in rescission package

The White House on Tuesday formally asked Congress to rescind $9.4 million in federal funds to make permanent some of the Department of Government Efficiency’s spending cuts. The 24-page proposal includes clawing back $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds PBS and NPR, as well as $8.3 billion from the U.S. Agency for International Development and the African Development Foundation. Congress has 45 days to pass the measure.

Of particular note to Heatmap readers is the proposed recission of $1.7 billion of the $3.6 billion appropriated for the Economic Support Fund which, in the words of the State Department, “promotes the economic and political foreign policy interests of the United States by providing assistance to allies and countries in transition to democracy.” That has historically included working with partners to mitigate the impacts of climate change, although the White House said it aims to “refocus remaining resources on activities that align with an America First foreign policy.” Similarly, the White House asked Congress to rescind $125 million from the Clean Technology Fund, which provides financial resources for developing countries to invest in clean energy projects, arguing that it does “not reflect America’s values or put the American people first.” The White House also asked Congress to pull the full $460 million appropriated to Assistance for Europe, Eurasia, and Central Asia, which, it argued, has become a “mechanism for funding wasteful programs, including … climate programming.”

2. Constellation, Meta sign 20-year Illinois nuclear deal

Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, Meta, has agreed to a 20-year deal with Constellation Energy to purchase the output of its Clinton Clean Energy Center, an Illinois-based nuclear plant. The deal, which begins in June 2027, includes a power purchase agreement that will entitle Meta to roughly 1.1 gigawatts of energy from the plant’s single nuclear reactor. It also allows the company to “buy the clean attributes of the nuclear-power generation to offset its less-green electricity use elsewhere” — including powering natural gas-reliant data centers in other parts of the country, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Though the financial terms weren’t disclosed, Constellation Chief Executive Joe Dominguez said, “It’s billions of dollars of capital that you’re signing up for to run a plant for 20 more years.” Meta will support the continued operation of the plant as well as upgrades and relicensing, which will prevent the facility’s premature closure, the companies said.

3. California Supreme Court to hear solar rate challenge

The California Supreme Court will hear arguments today brought by environmental groups in a lawsuit against the California Public Utility Commission for slashing the credits customers receive for selling electricity generated by rooftop solar back to the grid. The new financial structure, called NEM 3, went into effect in 2023, and in some cases cut credits by 80%. This has “stymied efforts to expand rooftop solar in the state, particularly in communities of color and low-income neighborhoods and led to huge layoffs in the solar industry,” Solar Power World explains. NEM 3 encouraged customers to use battery storage systems with their rooftop solar installations, a move viewed as friendlier to California utilities.

The Center for Biological Diversity, the Environmental Working Group, and the San Diego-based Protect Our Communities Foundation attempted to overturn NEM 3 after it went into effect, bringing their case to the California Court of Appeals, which ultimately upheld CPUC’s decision, leading to the California Supreme Court case. “It’s a fight that’s likely to continue, given that the Supreme Court appears poised to rule narrowly — and perhaps not even on the policy debate itself,” Politico’s California Climate newsletter notes.

4. Texas lifts boycott of BlackRock after it backs off climate action

Texas has removed BlackRock from a list of firms the state says “boycott” the fossil fuel industry, thereby allowing public agencies and pension funds to once again hire the firm, invest in its funds, and purchase shares of the asset manager, Bloomberg reports. State Comptroller Glenn Hegar specifically cited BlackRock’s retreat from climate action as influencing the decision.

BlackRock was first placed on the Texas divestment list in 2022 due to its involvement in the Climate Action 100+ initiative to reduce corporate greenhouse gas emissions, as well as Net Zero Asset Managers. Since then, BlackRock has removed itself from both programs. “We never set out to punish any of these firms, and the hope was always that any firm we included on the list would eventually take steps to ensure they were removed,” Hegar said in his remarks.

5. National Weather Service looks to hire new forecasters after mass layoffs

The National Weather Service is looking to hire back 125 meteorologists and specialists to its understaffed forecast offices, some of which have ceased around-the-clock monitoring and weather balloon launches due to lack of personnel, CNN reports. The move follows the NWS losing more than 560 employees this year due to the Trump administration’s efficiency cuts and early retirement offers, and functionally means lifting the federal hiring freeze for the agency so it can bolster its workforce heading into the fire, drought, extreme heat, and hurricane seasons. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is also looking to transfer 155 employees from better-staffed offices to “critical” positions at sparser offices, CNN adds.

But as I’ve reported, it is not so simple to restaff federal agencies after major layoffs. In addition to the deep staffing shortages that preceded and were exacerbated by Trump’s layoffs, the government has also damaged the appeal of working in the public sector. Most people don’t want to work for the government for the paycheck, Don Moynihan, a professor at the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, told me last month, but rather for the “opportunity to do meaningful work, and for job stability and security” — both of which have been damaged by the administration’s ongoing hostility toward federal workers.

THE KICKER

The American Clean Power Association

The U.S. installed 7.4 gigawatts of utility-scale solar, wind, and energy storage in the first three months of 2025 — the second-strongest quarter on record behind only Q1 of 2024, the American Clean Power Association reports.