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June 2, 2026
Key Takeaways:
Conventional wisdom holds that environmental, energy, and climate issues are polarizing topics on Capitol Hill. But that is not always the case. In fact, policymakers are reaching across the aisle to find common ground and advance climate solutions, with bipartisan bill introductions happening weekly. The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) tracks bills across these topics as they are introduced and advanced through Congress.
Based on its tracking, EESI analyzed all environmental and energy-related bills from January to March 2026—around 400 bills in all—to determine key trends in bipartisanship and legislative priorities. We found that 45% of all such bills introduced, reported, or passed during this period were bipartisan, meaning at least one Republican and Democrat sponsored or cosponsored the bill. This suggests that, even amid intense polarization, members of Congress are cooperating on shared environmental and energy concerns.
While bipartisan support is not inherently indicative of a bill’s potential to achieve a particular policy outcome, studies show that bipartisanship has value for Congressional effectiveness. Research from Northwestern University found that U.S. representatives who attracted a larger proportion of bipartisan cosponsors on their bills saw an 8–14% greater likelihood of those bills being acted upon by a committee, approved by the full chamber, and enacted.committee action, floor passage, and enactment. Senators realized a 10% increase in the same scenario.
EESI found a similar trend in our tracking, with 15% of non-bipartisan bills and 22% of bipartisan bills advancing at least one step through the legislative process. Bipartisan compromise on both consensus and non-consensus issues also increases public approval of Congress as a whole, as well as that of individual legislators. Overall, bills anchored in shared interests and common ground create more durable policies that are less susceptible to reversals by partisan changes in future election cycles.
Republican and Democratic districts alike face similar challenges. Issues ranging from extreme weather vulnerability to rising energy bills cut across party lines and create ample opportunities to work together. EESI’s tracking reveals where Republicans and Democrats are already coming together and where there is greater need for collaboration.
EESI gathered all relevant environment- and energy-related bills from Congress.gov from January to March 2026 to identify key bipartisan trends. We organized each of the 393 bills into the following categories:
Of the 393 bills identified in this first quarter, some issues were more conducive to bipartisanship including disaster management, permitting, and wildfires. Other topics like agriculture, transportation & infrastructure, and water also enjoyed significant bipartisan support. The pending reauthorizations for the Farm Bill, Highway Bill, and water infrastructure encourage members to develop bipartisan, bicameral proposals that stand the best chance of surviving a multiyear gauntlet.
Word cloud of the most frequently used words in bipartisan bill titles.
Oceans & Biodiversity: Topics related to oceans and biodiversity saw the most common ground of all the issue areas, with roughly 67% of related bills receiving bipartisan support. One-third of those bipartisan bills advanced at least one step through the legislative process, suggesting a robust consensus that extends beyond mere cosponsorship. Policy proposals in this category ranged from providing grants for sea turtle rescues (S.843) and improving research to combat invasive species (S.3810) to supporting young fishers’ training (S.2357) and boosting coastal data collection (H.R.7896).
The Senate, in particular, demonstrated a shared desire to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing practices through the Fighting Foreign Illegal Seafood Harvests Act of 2025 (S.688), the SHARKED Act (S.2314), and the Protecting Global Fisheries Act of 2026 (S.1369). Coastal states, regardless of party affiliation, have major fishing constituencies with a vested interest in protecting their industry from foreign competition and illegal fishing. Coastal residents also overwhelmingly back Congressional action on these issues. This reflects a wider trend for successful bipartisan environmental bills: tending to have a concrete economic focus catering to a wider geographic population, but without invoking the terminology of climate change.
Disaster Management and Wildfires: As communities nationwide experience longer and more destructive wildfire seasons, many members of Congress are working across party lines to bolster wildfire resilience. Just this quarter, the Save Our Sequoias Act (H.R.2709/S.4103), the Wildfire Aerial Response Safety Act (H.R.6618), the Post-Disaster Reforestation and Restoration Act of 2025 (H.R.528), and the Advanced Capabilities for Emergency Response Operations Act (H.R.390) all passed the House with bipartisan support.
We isolated wildfires as a separate topic outside of the disaster management umbrella because the 119th Congress is considering a particularly large number of wildfire-specific bills. But disaster management overall also boasted notable bipartisan action. The National Landslide Preparedness Act Reauthorization Act of 2025 (S.1626), the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program Reauthorization Act of 2025 (S.320), the ASCEND Act to support satellite data-gathering capabilities (H.R.2600), the Digital Coast Act to improve coastal data acquisition (S.2245), and the Emergency Conservation Program Improvement Act of 2025 (S.629) all passed their respective chambers this quarter.
Wildfires and other natural disasters cut across partisan lines, making them a concern for members of both parties. In fact, Republican counties have a higher percentage of properties at “severe or extreme” risk of fire, flooding, and heat over the next 30 years. Funding for disaster prevention has been found to be less partisan than other types of climate policy. The bipartisan nature of these issues could also be attributed to how the messaging around risk-reduction programs can be easily disconnected from climate change. This finding is consistent with the other bipartisan bills EESI tracked, which do not explicitly mention climate change.
Energy and Permitting: The first quarter of 2026 saw the introduction of 56 energy bills, a large majority of which were not bipartisan. While lawmakers across the board are increasingly concerned about energy affordability, their approaches to policy responses differ. Some of the Republican-only bills cite affordability to argue for deregulation and against anti-efficiency mandates (H.R.3699, H.R.4626, H.R.4758). In contrast, Democrats have organized themselves around proposals to reinstate clean energy tax credits (S.3722) repealed last summer.
More Democrats are introducing energy legislation than Republicans. But a greater percentage of Republican-only energy bills have been acted upon, which is not surprising given House and Senate leadership. Certain clean energy technologies enjoy strong bipartisan support: geothermal (H.R.7568, S.4116), hydropower (H.R.7487, S.3684), nuclear (S.3814), and waste-to-energy (H.R.7080). National security can also foster cooperation between Republicans and Democrats on energy bills like the Energy Threat Analysis Center Act of 2026 (H.R.7305), the SECURE Grid Act (S.4166), and the Energy Emergency Leadership Act (H.R.7258).
Permitting reform has consistently been a top priority for legislators in the 119th Congress and for companies across the clean energy sector. Proposals like the SPEED Act (H.R.4776) and the ePermit Act (H.R.4503) have gained significant traction. Both of these Republican-led bills have passed the House after negotiations with Democratic consponsors. EESI’s tracking found that a majority of permitting bills is bipartisan, and that Democrats have generally opted to sign onto Republican-led bills rather than introduce their own. Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.), the original cosponsor of the ePermit Act, has introduced his own bipartisan bill, the SPEED and Reliability Act of 2025 (H.R.5600), alongside Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.), though this bill has not moved out of committee, unlike those cited with Republican leads.
What conclusions can be drawn from a better understanding of trends of bipartisanship in bill introductions and legislative activity? One key finding is that specificity tends to bode well for support from across the aisle. In EESI’s tracking, bills that are relatively narrow in scope (such as those that reauthorize a specific program, extend a particular grant, or protect a specific species) earn more bipartisan support. This focus on discrete and concrete actions may help to explain why legislation related to wildfires and biodiversity are more bipartisan than those related to other issues, because those bills often focus on specific solutions to address a specific problem. Some additional examples of bipartisan bills include:
Another finding is a valuable insight: even in a polarized environment, members of Congress are still finding common ground on a range of environmental and energy issues. Recognizing what these areas of agreement are—and why they work—is necessary in order to better navigate the political landscape of environmental and energy policies. For EESI, this analysis will help inform our coverage of topics. On the one hand, Congress is telling us–in words and actions–where they can cooperate. That means that EESI must continue to meet information needs on both sides of the aisle by providing educational resources about disaster management, permitting, wildfires, and other topics.
On the other hand, there are many critical issues that are not especially bipartisan that cannot be ignored. Considering that the timescale of Congressional action is usually measured in years, EESI will need to update the timely, relevant, accessible, and practical briefings, articles, and fact sheets of today to be relied on again in the future. This will lead EESI to continue our coverage of these solutions as well to help raise awareness of potential benefits and hopefully encourage bipartisan cooperation.
Author: Laura Gries
Advancing science-based solutions for a sustainable, resilient, and equitable world
Top-Rated Climate Nonprofit – 4-Star Charity