Let’s step back for just a moment to put these results in context. Readers might remember huge laws affecting climate and energy that were passed in just the last four years. The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act included massive support for clean energy, including tax credits and government grants and loans. Then the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act essentially slashed much of the support and financial incentives in the IRA from two years before.
What those two laws had in common was a period when the government was entirely united, with the Senate, House of Representatives, and presidency all controlled by the same party—the Democrats in the first case and the Republicans in the second.
Now Democrats have captured a majority in both the Senate and the House. But Donald Trump is still in the White House. And crucially, neither chamber is anywhere close to a two-thirds Democratic majority. That’s the ratio that would be needed to override a presidential veto.
So even if Congress puts together new legislation to boost climate measures and clean energy, Trump will need to sign it—and that dramatically narrows the scope of what might happen legislatively between now and the next election.
There could be some bipartisan compromises. One interesting bit of legislation to watch immediately after the election is what happens with permitting reform. In late September, a bipartisan group of senators put forward a bill that would overhaul how new energy projects are reviewed and approved in the US. The law aims to cut red tape and speed up the permitting process.
The Senate is set to vote on that package, called the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act, on November 9, before the new Congress takes control in January. The White House has supported the bill, and it could pass the Senate if just a handful of Democrats join the Republican majority. But now, we might see Democrats wait until next year to try to renegotiate a deal, though anything would still need to pass muster with Trump.
