Transition Finance Weekly - 7/10/2025
Surveying the Reco Wreckage; This Year’s “Anti-ESG” Damage; Mass. Steps Up
1. “Anti-ESG” Bills Continue Undermining Climate Action
Pleiades’ third annual Statehouse Report analyzes 106 bills introduced in states across the country, with 11 signed into law.
Our new report, released last week, provides an analysis of “anti-ESG” legislation pushed by fossil fuel interests and GOP culture-war politicians in the 2025 legislative sessions.
Even where these bills fail, they contribute to silencing climate ambition. Companies are pulling back from climate commitments and financial alliances in a phenomenon known as “greenhushing,” under pressure from state legislatures and a hostile federal administration.
This year’s bills involved some new aggressive tactics — like threatening proxy advisors with liability, and hijacking civil rights language to force banks and asset managers to serve fossil fuel firms, gun manufacturers, and even hate groups. Tactics like these don’t just cost money and promote fossil fuels at the cost of clean energy; they prohibit good financial management and make a mockery of fiduciary responsibility.
The good news: few bills passed, and those that did were largely watered down to reduce their severity and consequences.
Pleiades’ Frances Sawyer, co-author of the report: “Climate economic shocks are here. Right-wing extremists, backed by the fossil fuel sector, have been working nonstop to undermine responsible investment practices…. These policies are costly for investors, pension holders, municipalities, and taxpayers, and it’s critically important that states, investors, and companies hold the line against rising climate costs and risks.”
See more about the report in our July 2 newsletter “special edition”
2. More than 120 Dead in Texas Floods
Communities aren’t ready for what’s coming — or what’s already here.
More than 120 people are confirmed dead after climate effects intensified catastrophic flooding across the Texas Hill Country, with search and rescue efforts still ongoing. The weekend also brought deadly floods to Ruidoso, New Mexico — already devastated by wildfires — and parts of North Carolina, where rainfall from Tropical Storm Chantal overwhelmed local defenses.
Our physical infrastructure is not built for this: the American Society of Civil Engineers gives the nation’s levees, dams, and stormwater systems grades of D or worse. Our insurance system can’t handle it, either: FEMA’s flood maps, which determine who buys flood insurance, are decades out of date, leaving tens of millions unprotected.
Instead of investing in preparedness and adaptation, the Trump administration has pulled climate resilience funding, loosened engineering standards, and fired forecasters. That left NOAA and the National Weather Service understaffed in the very offices responsible for warning Texas communities last week. And local and state officials had declined to purchase warning equipment, too.
3. NC Gov. Vetoes Disastrous Rate Hike and Carbon Delay Bill
Stein kills Duke Energy’s $23B back-door rate increase.
In a bit of good news, North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein vetoed SB 266 last week — a bill that would have let Duke Energy delay its 2030 carbon reduction targets and charge ratepayers upfront for future fossil plants. Even aside from the emissions impact, analysts projected direct costs could have topped $23 billion by 2050.
The bill’s “Construction Work in Progress” (CWIP) provision, a giveaway to Duke Energy’s construction team, would have allowed Duke to bill the public for the costs of planned fossil plants before completion, even if they never came online. Solar and wind would not receive such preferences.
SB 266 would also have repealed Duke’s obligation to cut power-sector emissions 70% below 2005 levels by 2030. By allowing Duke to pull back on clean energy in favor of natural gas, that provision would have subjected the utility to price volatility, with customers ultimately paying more.
One risk: that the heavily gerrymandered legislature seeks to override the governor’s pen. We’ll be watching.
Gov. Josh Stein: “[A]s our state continues to grow, we need to diversify our energy portfolio so that we are not overly reliant on natural gas and its volatile fuel markets.”
4. Massachusetts Steps Up on Solar
As the feds try to drag us backwards, the Bay State shows the way.
Massachusetts has enacted a major expansion of its SMART solar incentive program, strengthening one of the country's most important state-level clean energy policies at a time when the Trump administration is rolling back federal support. The revamped SMART program boosts payments to solar owners and lets them float up every year according to a formula so they keep up with market conditions. It also expands low-income incentives and protects open space.
“The program makes Massachusetts a very healthy market for solar,” said Nick D’Arbeloff of solar business trade group SEBANE. It’s a timely reminder that when Washington stumbles, the states can still lead.
MA isn’t known for its sunshine or physical size, but it gets more than 25% of its electricity from solar — a success driven by good, consistent policy over time.
5. Last Week’s Reconciliation Bill Is a Disaster
And this week, Trump made things even worse.
The final reconciliation bill enacted last week will strip away core clean energy tax credits, gut consumer protections, and supersede state authority. It will raise energy costs by hundreds of billions of dollars by 2035, reverse hard-won emissions reductions, cut power generation at a time when it’s sorely needed, and kill $1T in GDP. And, of course, electric vehicle credits end in 90 days.
Now Trump’s issued an executive order taking aim at wind and solar deployment, calling on agencies to propose rules that — essentially out of spite — would make it even harder to qualify for the final round of 48E and 45Y tax credits.
The GOP has done all this in the name of “reining in” climate policy. But what it actually does is rips out the engine driving job creation, energy savings, and economic resilience in communities across the country. And who will pay the price? It certainly won’t be the oil and gas executives who got Trump elected and support Speaker Mike Johnson.
Commentator Paul Waldman: “In sum, with this bill we get fewer jobs, higher energy prices, a weakened economy, a less reliable grid, and higher carbon emissions. Republicans have gone from acknowledging climate change is real but insisting we should do nothing about it, to delivering all manner of harm to the country so they can make climate change worse.”
SPOTLIGHT: FEMA ROLLBACK WILL OVERWHELM STATES
The Trump administration has signaled its intent to dismantle FEMA — and a new report from Just Solutions lays out exactly what’s at stake.
As climate disasters grow in strength and frequency, states and communities are more reliant than ever on federal disaster support, which can quickly be deployed wherever the next disaster hits. States can’t go it alone: in states subject to frequent and acute weather events, annual disaster costs can be as much as 3X (Mississippi) or even 6X (Louisiana) the entire state annual budget.
But instead of expanding aid, the administration has delayed, denied, or defunded critical programs — leaving states to navigate billion-dollar disasters with less help and more uncertainty.
Without FEMA, disaster recovery becomes a political lottery: states are forced to wait, plead, or fend for themselves. The result? Slower response times, less resilience funding, and deeper inequities — especially for frontline communities already at risk.
