USA

After several years of significant retrenchment in terms of climate action by the U.S. federal government during the Trump Administration, government commitments and legislative actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions have increased significantly during the past several months, driven by initiatives at the state and local level and renewed climate leadership demonstrated by the Biden administration. Re-establishing climate change as a focus and making U.S. infrastructure more climate resilient have become a priority as the Biden Administration re-joined the Paris Agreement and submitted a revised and more ambitious Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) that called for reducing GHG emissions by 50-52% below 2005 levels by 2030 compared to the previous commitment submitted by the Obama administration that called for a 26-28% reduction in GHG emissions during the same time period. On a longer term horizon, the Biden administration has signalled that the U.S. intends to be carbon neutral by 2050, significantly increasing this commitment from the 80% reduction by mid-century that was included in the initial NDC commitments submitted by the Obama administration. The announcement of the U.S. revised climate commitments came at the recently held Leaders Climate Summit which was intended to signal the U.S. intention to assume a global leadership position in the fight against climate change. However, the reduction targets currently lack a detailed implementation plan as the U.S. continues to lack comprehensive climate change legislation. The Administration has proposed a $2.7 trillion American Jobs Plan, which includes significant spending on climate action priorities, but it is unclear whether this legislation with pass Congress and in what form. Pending the introduction of more sweeping legislative action, the Biden Administration signalled a focus on climate change by immediately signing several Executive Orders intended to undo a series of initiatives under the former administration that significantly weakened the U.S. ability to combat climate change. These include Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad (EO 13990) and the Executive Order on Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis (EO 14008). Among other things, these orders freeze new oil and gas leases on public lands and seek to double offshore wind energy by 2030.In addition, they establish a White House office of domestic climate policy and halt construction of the controversial Keystone XL gas pipeline. Although there has also been renewed activity in the legislative chambers in relation to climate change, including the he introduction of a Green New Deal resolution in the House of Representatives and the Senate, it is unlikely that significant Green New Deal or carbon pricing legislation will be enacted by the US Congress in the near future.

The United States has several important pieces of legislation governing public participation in national policy making, legislative and regulatory processes. For example, the Administrative Procedure Act, a landmark law passed in 1946 governs procedures that administrative agencies must comply with when proposing and establish regulations. The law requires each agency [to] give an interested person the right to petition for the issuance, amendment, or repeal of a rule. Other milestone legislation such as the Freedom of Information Act (1967) also include provisions governing access to information and public participation. However, these laws are several decades old and fail to specifically include inclusive language and provisions for the inclusion in these consultative processes of underrepresented groups. In terms of environmental protection, several important pieces of legislation also mandate to a certain extent public consultation and participation. In this regards, the National Environmental Policy Act requires the Presidents Council on Environmental Quality to consult with the Citizens' Advisory Committee on Environmental Quality. Similarly, the Clean Water Act calls for cooperation and consultation with, private agencies, institutions, and organizations, and individuals, including the general public. While public consultation and participation is strongly codified in important pieces of national legislation, there are no legal mandates concerning employee participation in corporate governance structures.

The United States federal government has not embraced the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals as a framework for planning its domestic and foreign policy priorities or as a reporting tool. There is a public website and database that identifies and tracks progress in achieving the SDGs in the in the U.S. (https://sdg.data.gov/), but is still under development as only 40% of the identified 244 indicators are being reported on. In a similar fashion, the U.S. federal government has shown little interest in fostering or encouraging the use of the SDGs as a planning and sustainability reporting framework for U.S. based businesses. There is, for instance, no national strategy for the adaptation of a SDG based strategy among the business sector nor is there specific incentives for the adoption by U.S. business of the SDGs as a strategic planning and reporting tool. National initiatives of this sort, such as the U.S. national chapter of the US Global Compact or the national chapter of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network are driven primarily by the private sector.

The government has not yet committed to developing a comprehensive national wealth accounting system that takes into account natural as well as social and human capital and that serves as a complement to traditional economic indicators for tracking the overall health of the economy. Government agencies such as the US Geological Survey have sponsored the development and testing of methodologies for some wealth accounting sub-components, particularly natural capital and ecosystem services on a regional basis, but have not advanced towards a fully comprehensive accounting regime.

The United States remains a laggard compared to its peer countries in terms of government action to incorporate climate change and sustainability concerns in the financial sector. For instance, U.S. financial regulators still do not mandate climate related financial disclosures in the financial sector, although more focused recommendations are in development. However, with the recent presidential transition as well as the Democratic control of both legislative chambers, there has been a surge of interest and activities from legislators as well as financial regulators to more fully integrate climate change and sustainability concerns in the management, operation and supervision of the U.S. financial sector. Recently appointed Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen recently proposed to create a team to examine the risks of climate change and integrate them into financial policymaking. In addition, federal financial regulators, most notably the Federal Reserve, have begun to take initial steps to acknowledge the systemic nature of climate risks and have proposed recommendations to mandate a clear climate risk focus in financial entities fiduciary responsibilities. For example, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission recently published the first report by a financial regulator in the U.S. with recommendations for financial regulators in terms of climate change. Legislative actions have also intensified in this area in recent months. Recent legislation introduced, although not yet passed, in both legislative chambers focus on the need to integrate climate change and sustainability concerns in the finance sector. These include the Addressing Climate as a Financial Risk Act in the Senate and the Restructuring Environmentally. At the state level, there has been preliminary movement by some state financial regulators to more fully incorporate climate opportunities and risks in the management and transparency requirements of financial entities. In this regards the New York State Department of Financial Services the first U.S. financial regulator, at any level, to create a comprehensive climate program.

During the 2008-9, the US federal government was one of the few countries to embark on substantial green stimulus. For example, of the $522 billion spent globally on green spending during this period, the US allocated $118 billion to green stimulus. However, the green stimulus packages enacted during the Great Recession followed the general recommendation for all fiscal stimulus packages that they be timely, targeted and temporary. Half of the US green stimulus was energy efficiency spending, and for shovel-ready clean energy and other green infrastructure projects. The green stimulus did impact job creation and expansion of renewables for several years but provided little long-term support for de-carbonizing economies that undertook green stimulus during the 2008-9 Great Recession. However, any "green" effects of the stimulus largely ended by the mid-2010s. The US green stimulus following the Great Recession was meant to be combined with a carbon cap-and-trade program, which would have substantially increased renewable energy investment even after the short-term stimulus had expired. During its second term of office (2012-2015), the Obama Administration did not enact any major green stimulus or similar fiscal spending and expenses, and the Trump Administration (2016-2020) was politically opposed to any such measures. In fact, it provided annual fossil fuel subsidies of around $8 billion and included around $100 billion of support to fossil fuels as part of the 2020 pandemic stimulus legislation. The Biden Administration's "The American Jobs Plan" proposes significant fiscal spending on modernizing the electricity grid for renewables, charging stations for electric vehicles, mass transit systems, R&D support for clean energy and other green infrastructure investments. The Administration also proposes to eliminate US fossil fuel subsidies.

In the United States, banks with assets greater than $50 billion are obligated to undergo stress tests conducted by the Federal Reserve. Those with assets over $250 billion undergo the stringent Dodd-Frank Act Stress test (established in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008). Climate-related, environmental or social indicators have not been adopted in these stress tests and the US remains a notable laggard among its peers in addressing these risks.

However, there are signs of movement under the Biden Administration with climate change a top priority and climate risks under increasing consideration among regulators. Promising actions by the Federal Reserve include joining the Network of Central Banks and Supervisors for Greening the Financial System, establishing a Supervision Climate Committee to examine risks posed by climate change to individual banks, and proposing the creation of a Financial Stability Committee to assess climate-related risk across the entire financial system. Researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York also recently published details of a climate stress testing procedure the first to be released by a US financial supervisor.

The US Congress has attempted unsuccessfully in a number of occasions to implement a national emissions trading system. For instance, the Climate Stewardship Act of 2003 called for the creation of a cap-and-trade program to reduce emissions from electricity, manufacturing, commercial, and transportation sectors of the economy (representing 85 percent of U.S. emissions). Similarly, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 and the American Power Act of 2010 also called for the establishment emissions trading schemes. There is currently proposed legislation in Congress for a carbon tax, but it is not expected to be passed for political reasons. Absent federal carbon pricing, several regional initiatives have been created to move forward with regional, state, local and more sectoral market based mechanisms for reducing carbon emissions. For instance, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) is a cooperative effort among the states of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Virginia to cap and reduce power sector CO2 emissions. Similarly, the state of California established the Cap-and-Trade Program as a key element of its strategy to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The Cap-and-Trade Regulation establishes a declining limit on major sources of GHG emissions covering approximately 80 percent of the Californias total GHG emissions.

While the U.S. government lacks a comprehensive sectoral based green economy plan, the Biden administration recently introduced an infrastructure plan (the American Jobs Plan) which features climate related action in several of the most important sectors in terms of GHG emissions. Although the plan must still pass through Congress, it includes actions in the building, transportation, energy and manufacturing sectors that seek to reduce emissions, address climate resilience deficiencies in US infrastructure, while at the same time creating new jobs. In transportation, for instance, the plan includes a proposed a $174 billion investment to construct 500,000 new electric vehicle charging stations by 2030 and extend the electric vehicle tax credit which was removed from a comprehensive spending legislation passed during the previous administration. In addition, Biden signed an executive order directing federal officials to electrify the federal governments 650,000 vehicle fleet, and signalled the administrations intention to strengthen the national vehicle emission and fuel economy standards, significantly weakened during the Trump administration. Notably, however, there has not been a commitment thus far to pursue a phase-out of fossil fuel vehicle sales as has occurred in other countries as well as the state of California. In the energy sector, the plan calls for expanding tax credit for clean energy generation and storage and proposes the purchase of 100% renewable energy in federal buildings. In the building sector, the plan calls for spending $213 billion to build or retrofit more than two million affordable and sustainable housing units. The final sectoral composition of the American Jobs Plan is yet to be determined, as it is currently being negotiated with the US Congress.

Support for businesses with a social or environmental purpose was a clear priority for the Obama administration, but was less important during the Trump administration. For instance, the Obama administration created the Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation that, among other things, promoted and supported initiatives to bring social innovations, often through market mechanisms, to scale. For instance, the Office administered a Social Innovation Fund, to leverage and funnel financing to social enterprises. The Office was shuttered during the Trump Administration and the position taken by the recently elected Biden administration remains to be seen. In terms of the advancement of legal recognition and protections for social and environmentally focused enterprises, there has been a recent surge in passage of laws to recognize and protect these businesses. In the U.S. context there are several forms that these businesses can take, including benefit corporations, social purpose corporations (SPC), low-profit limited liability companies (L3C), benefit limited liability company (BLLC), and statutory public benefit limited partnership (SPBLP). For example, a benefit corporation is a legally recognized type of for-profit corporate entity that includes as a statutory requirement a positive impact on society, workers, the community and the environment. Benefit corporate statutes have been passed in 37 states and the District of Columbia.

Although the US federal government has not implemented to date any legally mandated or binding carbon budgets, the Biden Administration has renewed the government's commitment to the Paris Agreement and net zero goals that are consistent with 1.5 degree warming. The Biden Administration re-joined the Paris Agreement and submitted a revised and more ambitious Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) that called for reducing GHG emissions by 50% below 2005 levels by 2030. The Biden Administration has also announced that the U.S. intends to be carbon neutral by 2050, significantly increasing this commitment from the 80% reduction by mid-century that was included in the initial NDC commitments submitted by the Obama Administration. At the Climate Leadership Summit the Biden Administration reaffirmed its commitment to try to work with the global community to achieve the 1.5 degree limit.

As the United States lacks specific and comprehensive climate change legislation, initiatives to promote a reduction in the countrys carbon footprint are often treated in a piecemeal fashion and folded into other policy areas such as energy policy. In terms of overall energy policy, the United States government relies heavily on a regulatory approach to address climate change rather than a primarily legislative route, given the difficulty in garnering sufficient votes to pass policies that impact the market position of entrenched fossil fuel interests. These initiatives tend to be centred on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Energy (DOE). There has, however, been important legislation in terms of energy policy, with varying and often contradictory effects on attempts to reduce GHG emissions related to energy production. Several US administrations attempted, with varying degrees of scope and intensity, to promote the use of renewable energy such as solar and wind. However, it was not until the passage of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that significant penetration of renewable energy sources in the U.S. energy mix was achieved. The law included financial incentives and tax breaks for the development of clean energy technology, but also exempted fluids used racking from protections under the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act as well as continued to subsidise fossil fuel and nuclear energy producers. During the 2008-9 Great Recession, the Obama Administration included in its green stimulus support for renewable energy technologies, energy efficiency, low-carbon vehicles, smart grids, and mass transit. However, of the $118 billion in green stimulus, 50% was spent on energy efficiency alone. The Trump presidency saw a widespread and generalized rolling back of environmental legislation including several policies that are significant to U.S. energy policy. For instance, by weakening the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) Standards for vehicle fleets and replaced the Clean Power Plan which called for reducing emissions from the power sector the power sector by 32% below 2005 levels by 2030 with a weaker plan called the Affordable Clean Energy. The Biden Administration has taken a much more aggressive stance on addressing climate change and transitioning to a carbon neutral power grid. For example, the Interior Secretary revoked a series of Trump administration orders that promoted fossil fuel development on public lands and waters. For instance, the Secretarial Order No. 3399 creates a Climate Task Force within the Interior Department that is charged with incorporating climate change concerns in policy making and budgeting and expediting environmental reviews of renewable energy projects. In addition, the recently introduced infrastructure plan (the American Jobs Plan) includes a proposed a $174 billion investment to construct 500,000 new electric vehicle charging stations by 2030 and extend the electric vehicle tax credit which was removed from a comprehensive spending legislation passed during the previous administration and calls for expanding tax credit for clean energy generation and storage and proposes the purchase of 100% renewable energy in federal buildings. In terms of energy policy, significant actions occur at the sub-national level. Absent a nationwide renewable portfolio standard (RPS) setting the penetration of renewables in the energy grid, twenty-nine states have approved mandatory RPS, while an additional nine have voluntary renewable energy targets. In addition, thirteen states have enacted 100% clean electricity goals into legislation.

Due to the difficulty in passing comprehensive climate change legislation, including green jobs initiatives, due to the increased polarization in the U.S. legislative landscape, recent presidential administrations have incorporated green jobs proposals into recovery and stimulus packages passed in response to economic crises. For instance, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the stimulus package passed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis included over $350 billion of direct government spending, and an additional $260 billion in tax reductions, of which approximately 17% was green spending, according to a recent analysis by researchers from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). This includes, spending by the Department of Energy (DOE) in block grants to states to support energy efficiency audits and building retrofitting, investments in public transport and clean vehicles, as well as spending by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to clean up and remediate environmentally compromised brownfield sites. According to a recent NBER analysis, each $1 million in ARRA green spending created 15 jobs in the long-term. In addition, an assessment by the office of the President, estimated that $90 million invested in clean energy under the stimulus package supported 900,000 job-years from 2009 to 2015. Additionally, the stimulus established a comprehensive ``green jobs'' training program for workers in the renewable energy and energy efficiency industries, authorising $125 million per year for this program. Similarly, the American Jobs Plan, recently proposed by the Biden administration as a recovery response to the economic dislocation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic includes several components intended to promote the growth of green jobs. Of the $2 trillion of spending and investments contemplated under the Plan, approximately one-half would be directed to sectors that fall under the concept of climate change, energy transition and environmental justice, according to the World Resources Institute. For instance, the plan includes $213 billion in new spending to build and retrofit more than two million affordable housing units for socially excluded communities. The plan also proposes investing $174 billion to electrify the nations transportation system with the consequent job creation opportunities as well as a ramp up of the charging infrastructure needed to accompany the growth of electric vehicles. In terms of environmental justice, the Plan includes various initiates to reduce inequality and assist disadvantaged communities, such as significant investment in brownfield rehabilitation, often located near disadvantages communities. The Plan also creates the Civilian Climate Corps financed through a $10 billion investment to directly create jobs in public lands and waters conservation activities.

As a candidate for the presidency of the United States, Joe Biden signalled an important interest in addressing the cross cutting issues of poverty and environmental justice. The Biden-Harris ticket released a Plan to secure environmental justice and equitable economic opportunity in an attempt to recognise and address past environmental and economic injustices that have disproportionately impacted communities of colour. Once in office, President Biden has initiated several proposals and policy actions to put these plans into action. For instance, on January 27th, he signed an executive order which tasked his administration with formulate recommendations in a timeframe of 120 days to meet a "goal that 40% of overall benefits flow to disadvantaged communities" from "certain federal investments". After the publication of the recommendations, agency directors would be required to start to incorporate that guidance into their programs after within 60 days. The order is ambitious, but somewhat ambiguous, as it directs a percentage of benefits rather spending to be directed to communities burdened disproportionately by environmental and climate harms, suggesting that meaningful metrics must be established in order to implement in a substantive way the measure. The provision is modelled after a comprehensive climate bill passed in New York State in 2019. It also builds on other state level initiatives that also seek to address historic environmental injustices. For instance, California's carbon cap-and-trade law directs 35% of revenue from the scheme to underserved communities. In addition, the recently released COVID-19 recovery package, the American Jobs Plan, includes initiatives and funding streams to address longstanding environmental justice concerns that have disproportionately impacted the poor and communities of colour in the United States. The plan, for instance, includes $16 billion in investments to plug oil and gas wells and restore abandoned mines, as well as a $5 billion in rehabilitation brownfield sites. These sites are often cited in poorer communities as well as those with a significant proportion of people of colour.

The United States government has a long trajectory of incorporating public consultation, participatory processes and impact assessments into the policymaking process. The landmark Administrative Procedure Act (1946) established a legal right for citizens to participate in rule-making activities of the federal government. The law includes stipulations regarding the collection of comments on proposed regulations as well as the celebration of public hearings at which interested parties and groups can comment. In addition, the law and Executive Order 12866 requires federal government agencies to conduct cost-benefit analyses as part of the review process and under certain thresholds requires impact assessments which must be submitted to the Office of Management and Budget. Impact assessments must be undertaken when a regulation may adversely affect in a material way, among other things, the economy, employment, the environment, public health or state, local, or tribal governments. In terms of climate change, the Secretarial Order 3226, Evaluating Climate Change Impacts in Management Planning (amended in 2009) established the responsibility of the Department of the Interior agencies to consider and analyse potential climate change impacts via impact assessments. The order was replaced in 2010 by Secretarial Order 3289 which established a department of Interior wide approach for applying scientific tools to increase understanding of climate change and to coordinate effective response to its impact. Other important legislation in this area includes the Freedom of Information Act (1967) which stipulates provisions governing access to information and public participation.

Social spending in the United States lags behind its peer developed countries, and is, in fact below the average registered in OECD countries. According to data published by the OECD, cumulative spending on social programs in the United States was 18.7% of GDP in 2019, less than the OECD average of 20%, and well below leading countries such as France, which spends 31% of its GDP on social spending. In this sense, the lack of universal access to health care, pre-kindergarten education, mandated paid sick and maternal leave, as well as less generous unemployment insurance schemes puts the U.S in stark contrast to the social safety net offered by its northern and western European peer countries. In terms of innovations in this area, the Obama administration showed a keen interest in exploring different and non-conventional interventions to address poverty and other social problems by launching the Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation that, among other things, promoted and supported initiatives to bring social innovations, often through market mechanisms, to scale. A key part of the initiative was the Social Innovation Fund, that sought to fund innovative ways to address social and environmental problems. The Office was shuttered during the Trump Administration and the recently inaugurated Biden administration has yet to position itself in this area, although preliminary indications are positive especially in terms of the nexus of poverty and environmental justice. For instance, the recently introduced American Jobs Plan, intended to serve as a long-term jobs and infrastructure investment program in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, includes various initiatives to reduce inequality and assist disadvantaged communities, such as significant investment in brownfield rehabilitation.

There are weak linkages between the US legislative and policy framework governing ocean and land conservation and the Sustainable Development Goas 14 and 15 - covered by a dispersed patchwork of regulations and executive orders. For example, the US lacks a comprehensive legislative framework for ocean governance. The Oceans Act establishes the United States Commission on Ocean Policy, and the National Marine Sanctuaries authorises the Secretary of Commerce to designate and protect areas of the marine environment with special national significance. In recent years, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Office of National Marine Sanctuaries has advanced a number of rulemakings to expand the size of existing national marine sanctuaries. In terms of land management, the landmark Federal Land Policy and Management Act governs the way in which the public lands are managed.

In January 2021 President Biden signed an executive order on climate change charging the Secretary of the Interior to recommend how the United States can achieve the goal of conserving at least 30% of land and waters by 2030 - the first-ever national conservation goal established by a President. Consultation resulted in the launch of the 'America the Beautiful' initiative and preliminary report outlining principles for a locally led, decade-long effort to restore and conserve land and waters across the nation. While the report does not set specific targets, it proposes establishment of an inter-agency working group of experts to build an 'American Conservation and Stewardship Atlas' to track baseline information on the progress of conservation and restoration efforts across the US. In a series of further announcements released on Earth Day 2022, the adminstration also outlined plans to conduct the first-ever comprehensive US National Nature Assessment (a 13-agency research program due to be completed by 2026), commission a report identifying new opportunities for implementing nature-based solutions, establish reforestation targets for 2030 (including planting an additional 1.2 billion trees) and expand protections for old-growth forests on federal land.

The US currently lacks both a comprehensive natural capital accounting system and a standardised methodology for conducting such an assessment, having only commenced experimental work to develop SEEA-aligned natural capital accounts (NCA) since 2016. There have been several attempts to establish pilot accounts through various collaborations between federal agencies, statistical bodies and academic institutions, but efforts remain fragmentary and have not led to further work to form a consolidated nationwide system of natural capital accounts.

However, in April 2022 the Biden-Harris Administration announced the launch of a Natural Capital Accounting Initiative - including plans to establish an inter-agency group to gather existing accounts data across federal agencies, the preparation of a 10-year NCA strategy and the anticipated launch of the first, nationwide pilot accounts during 2023. Within the National Strategy to Develop Statistics for Environmental-Economic Decisions the government laid out a 15-year roadmap to develop national accounting for natural assets. Accounts development is split into three phases, with the first phase anticipating launch of water, land, marine, air emissions and environmental activities accounts by 2029 after an extensive period of pilots and prototypes. More comprehensive accounts follow in 2031 and 2035, with the headline measures of changes in natural capital wealth and net domestic product inclusive of natural assets proposed for 2036.

The United States lacks a comprehensive nationwide methodology and system to account for the value of its natural resources. While there have been several initiatives to develop and test local and regional natural capital accounts (NCA), led by the academic sector and supported by several government agencies, testing has not progressed beyond the pilot stage - and has not coincided with the establishment of an independent natural capital committee. Currently the government relies on expert advice from a variety of bodies and agencies to guide policy direction on natural capital, including the US National Academy of Sciences and the EPA's Scientific Board.

In April 2022 the Biden-Harris Administration announced the launch of a Natural Capital Accounting Initiative - including plans to prepare a national strategy for NCA and produce nationwide accounts by 2023. While an inter-agency group will be established to gather existing fragmentary accounts data across federal and statistical agencies, it appears to have only a temporary and specific remit aligned to the production of the strategy rather than any advisory capacity.

The US federal government has for years employed various programs and regulations to pursue environmental objectives, but for the most part these have been sectoral specific, such as the US Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program by the US Department of Agriculture - though its currently being updated to incorporate higher payment rates, new incentives and better targeting on mitigation.

In January 2021 the President set a national conservation goal to protect 30% of US lands and ocean territories by 2030. However, the details of implementation are yet to be worked out and political obstacles remain significant. In an executive order signed on Earth Day 2022 the Administration pledged substantial funding for climate-smart forest stewardship, including over USD$20 billion for old-growth forest protection and wildfire risk reduction, USD$2.3 billion for nature-based solutions and USD$162 million for community-led forestry programmes - with some finance leveraged from the existing Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Despite these ring-fenced funds for nature, there appear to be no plans to reform existing environmentally-damaging policies, subsidies or incentives, although an executive order on climate change issued a loose directive to heads of agencies to review all federal regulation enacted during the Trump Administration which could adversely impact national climate objectives and "consider suspending, revising, or rescinding the action".

At COP26 President Biden signed the Leader's Declaration on Forests and Land Use at COP26, announced a US-led 'Plan to Conserve Global Forests', and instructed the Department of State to review whole-of-government approaches to reducing or eliminating US purchases of agricultural commodities grown on illegally or deforested lands - as well as the broader reforms to foreign assistance, trade tools and international finance to incentivise sustainable sourcing worldwide. There are also plans to develop natural capital accounts but these will not be available before 2023. In the meantime, to improve federal regulation, the Office of Management and Budget has said it will issue valuation guidance to help federal agencies better account for natural assets.