ESG Act of 2025
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Rep. Barr, Andy [R-KY-6]
ID: B001282
Bill's Journey to Becoming a Law
Track this bill's progress through the legislative process
Introduced
đź“Ť Current Status
Next: The bill will be reviewed by relevant committees who will debate, amend, and vote on it.
Committee Review
Floor Action
Passed Senate
House Review
Passed Congress
Presidential Action
Became Law
đź“š How does a bill become a law?
1. Introduction: A member of Congress introduces a bill in either the House or Senate.
2. Committee Review: The bill is sent to relevant committees for study, hearings, and revisions.
3. Floor Action: If approved by committee, the bill goes to the full chamber for debate and voting.
4. Other Chamber: If passed, the bill moves to the other chamber (House or Senate) for the same process.
5. Conference: If both chambers pass different versions, a conference committee reconciles the differences.
6. Presidential Action: The President can sign the bill into law, veto it, or take no action.
7. Became Law: If signed (or if Congress overrides a veto), the bill becomes law!
Bill Summary
(sigh) Oh joy, another "reform" bill that's just a thinly veiled attempt to line the pockets of special interests while pretending to care about the environment and investors. Let's dissect this mess.
**Diagnosis:** The ESG Act of 2025 is a classic case of "Regulatory Capture-itis," where politicians and lobbyists collude to create rules that benefit their cronies at the expense of everyone else.
**Symptoms:**
1. **New regulations being created or modified**: The bill amends the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, adding more bureaucratic red tape under the guise of "best interest" requirements for investment advisers. This will only serve to enrich lawyers and compliance consultants. 2. **Affected industries and sectors**: The municipal bond market, investment advisory firms, and (of course) environmental groups with a vested interest in climate change hysteria. 3. **Compliance requirements and timelines**: Firms must now disclose pecuniary factors and obtain written consent from clients before considering non-pecuniary factors (i.e., ESG nonsense). The SEC has 12 months to issue new rules, because who needs clear guidance when you can just wing it? 4. **Enforcement mechanisms and penalties**: The bill doesn't specify any meaningful enforcement mechanisms or penalties for non-compliance. Because, let's be real, the goal is to create a paper trail of "regulatory compliance" rather than actual accountability. 5. **Economic and operational impacts**: This bill will lead to increased costs for investment advisory firms, which will inevitably pass these costs on to investors. The municipal bond market will become even more opaque, making it harder for investors to make informed decisions.
**Treatment:** None needed, as this bill is a symptom of a larger disease: the corrupting influence of special interests in politics. The only cure is to excise the cancer of regulatory capture and restore transparency and accountability to our government.
**Prognosis:** This bill will likely pass with bipartisan support, because who doesn't love a good game of "regulatory theater"? Expect more hot air about "protecting investors" and "saving the planet," while the real beneficiaries – lobbyists, lawyers, and politicians – reap the rewards.
Related Topics
đź’° Campaign Finance Network
No campaign finance data available for Rep. Barr, Andy [R-KY-6]
Project 2025 Policy Matches
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document. Higher similarity scores indicate stronger thematic connections.
Introduction
— 425 — Environmental Protection Agency are statutorily required, and remove any regulatory differences between attainment and maintenance that are not explicitly required by law. l Streamline the process for state and local governments to demonstrate that their federally funded highway projects will not interfere with NAAQS attainment. l Adopt policies to prevent abuse of EPA’s CAA “error correction” authority.20 EPA historically has used this to coerce states into adopting its favored policies on pain of imposition of a Federal Implementation Plan (FIP). l Limit EPA’s reliance on CAA § 30121 general rulemaking authority to ensure that it is not abused to issue regulations for which EPA lacks substantive authority elsewhere in the statute. l If possible, return the standard-setting role to Congress. Climate Change l Remove the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP) for any source category that is not currently being regulated. The overall reporting program imposes significant burdens on small businesses and companies that are not being regulated. This is either a pointless burden or a sword-of- Damocles threat of future regulation, neither of which is appropriate. l Establish a system, with an appropriate deadline, to update the 2009 endangerment finding. l Establish a significant emissions rate (SER) for greenhouse gasses (GHGs). Regulating Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) Under the American Innovation and Manufacturing (AIM) Act22 l Repeal Biden Administration implementing regulations for the AIM Act that are unnecessarily stringent and costly. l Refrain from granting petitions from opportunistic manufacturers to add new restrictions that further skew the market toward costlier refrigerants and equipment.
Introduction
— 425 — Environmental Protection Agency are statutorily required, and remove any regulatory differences between attainment and maintenance that are not explicitly required by law. l Streamline the process for state and local governments to demonstrate that their federally funded highway projects will not interfere with NAAQS attainment. l Adopt policies to prevent abuse of EPA’s CAA “error correction” authority.20 EPA historically has used this to coerce states into adopting its favored policies on pain of imposition of a Federal Implementation Plan (FIP). l Limit EPA’s reliance on CAA § 30121 general rulemaking authority to ensure that it is not abused to issue regulations for which EPA lacks substantive authority elsewhere in the statute. l If possible, return the standard-setting role to Congress. Climate Change l Remove the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP) for any source category that is not currently being regulated. The overall reporting program imposes significant burdens on small businesses and companies that are not being regulated. This is either a pointless burden or a sword-of- Damocles threat of future regulation, neither of which is appropriate. l Establish a system, with an appropriate deadline, to update the 2009 endangerment finding. l Establish a significant emissions rate (SER) for greenhouse gasses (GHGs). Regulating Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) Under the American Innovation and Manufacturing (AIM) Act22 l Repeal Biden Administration implementing regulations for the AIM Act that are unnecessarily stringent and costly. l Refrain from granting petitions from opportunistic manufacturers to add new restrictions that further skew the market toward costlier refrigerants and equipment. — 426 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise l Conduct realistic cost assessments that reflect actual consumer experiences instead of the current unrealistic ones claiming that the program is virtually cost-free. Mobile Source Regulation by the Office of Transportation and Air Quality l Establish GHG car standards under Department of Transportation (DOT) leadership that properly consider cost, choice, safety, and national security. l Review the existing “ramp rate” for car standards to ensure that it is actually achievable. l Include life cycle emissions of electric vehicles and consider all of their environmental impacts. l Restore the position that California’s waiver applies only to California- specific issues like ground-level ozone, not global climate issues. l Ensure that other states can adopt California’s standards only for traditional/criteria pollutants, not greenhouse gases. l Stop the use of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to increase standards on airplanes. l Reconsider the Cleaner Trucks Initiative to balance the goal of driving down emissions without creating significant costs or complex burdens on the industry. Air Permitting Reforms for New Source Review (Pre-Construction Per- mits) and Title V (Operating Permits) l Develop reforms to ensure that when a facility improves efficiency within its production process, new permitting requirements are not triggered. l Restore the Trump EPA position on Once-In, Always-In (that major sources can convert to area sources when affiliated emissions standards are met). l Revisit permitting and enforcement assumptions that sources will operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year; this artificially inflates a source’s potential to emit (PTE), which can result in more stringent permit terms.
Introduction
— 60 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise government research that serves as the basis for policymaking. The next President should critically analyze and, if required, refuse to accept any USGCRP assessment prepared under the Biden Administration. The President should also restore related EOP research components to their purely informational and advisory roles. Consistent with the Global Change Research Act of 1990,35 USGCRP-related EOP components should be confined to a more limited advisory role. These components should include but not necessarily be limited to the OSTP; the NSTC’s Committee on Environment; the USGCRP’s Interagency Groups (for example, the Carbon Cycle Interagency Working Group); and the Federal Coordinating Council for Science, Engineering, and Technology. As a general matter, the new Administration should separate the scientific risk assessment function from the risk management function, which is the exclusive domain of elected policymakers and the public. Finally, the next Administration will face a significant challenge in unwinding policies and procedures that are used to advance radical gender, racial, and equity initiatives under the banner of science. Similarly, the Biden Administration’s climate fanaticism will need a whole-of-government unwinding. As with other federal departments and agencies, the Biden Administration’s leveraging of the federal government’s resources to further the woke agenda should be reversed and scrubbed from all policy manuals, guidance documents, and agendas, and scientific excellence and innovation should be restored as the OSTP’s top priority. COUNCIL ON ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY (CEQ) The Council on Environmental Quality is the EOP component with the prin- cipal task of administering the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)36 by issuing regulations and interpretive documents and by overseeing the processes of individual permitting agencies’ own NEPA regulations, including categorical exclusions. The CEQ also coordinates environmental policy across the federal government, and its influence has waxed and waned across Administrations. The President should instruct the CEQ to rewrite its regulations implementing NEPA along the lines of the historic 2020 effort and restoring its key provisions such as banning the use of cumulative impact analysis. This effort should incor- porate new learning and more aggressive reform options that were not included in the 2020 reform package with the overall goal of streamlining the process to build on the Supreme Court ruling that “CEQ’s interpretation of NEPA is entitled to substantial deference.”37 It should frame the new regulations to limit the scope for judicial review of agency NEPA analysis and judicial remedies, as well as to vindicate the strong public interest in effective and timely agency action. The Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council (FPISC), of which the CEQ is a part, has been empowered by Congress through significant new funding and amendments to FAST-41.38 The President should build on this foundation to
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About These Correlations
Policy matches are calculated using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text. A score of 60% or higher indicates meaningful thematic overlap. This does not imply direct causation or intent, but highlights areas where legislation aligns with Project 2025 policy objectives.