2025 Scorecard Report: Overview

Background on the National Environmental Scorecard

The nonprofit League of Conservation Voters (LCV) has published a National Environmental Scorecard every Congress since 1970, the year it was founded by leaders of the environmental movement following the first Earth Day. LCV believes everyone has a right to clean air, clean water, public lands, and a safe climate protected by a just and equitable democracy.

This edition of the National Environmental Scorecard provides objective, factual information about the most important environmental legislation considered and the corresponding voting records of all members of the second session of the 118th Congress. This Scorecard represents the consensus of two dozen experts on environmental, environmental justice, democracy, and conservation issues from across the movement who selected the key votes on which members of Congress should be scored.

LCV scores votes on the most important issues of the year that have environmental impacts, including energy, climate change, public health, environmental and racial justice, worker protection, democracy, public lands and wildlife conservation, and spending for environmental programs. The votes included in this Scorecard presented members of Congress with a real choice and help distinguish which legislators are working for environmental protection. Except in rare circumstances, the Scorecard excludes consensus action on the environment and issues on which no recorded votes occurred.

Dedicated environmentalists and national leaders volunteer their time to identify and research crucial votes. We extend special thanks to our Board of Directors, Accountability & Endorsements Committee, and Scorecard Advisory Committee for their valuable input.

Overview of the 2025 National Environmental Scorecard

In 2025, the moment Trump and his allies in Congress took power, they unleashed a torrent of extreme anti-environment policies like never before. And their attacks never relented. While the administration took a wrecking ball to our federal government, congressional Republicans followed suit. They passed laws, most critically their reconciliation budget bill (H.R. 1), which attacked clean energy, rewarded billionaires and the fossil fuel industry, and made electricity and other bills more expensive. Even as the biggest climate change-fueled disasters in 2025 like the Los Angeles wildfires and extreme storms and tornadoes across the Midwest topped $115 billion in costs – the third most costly after 2023 and 2024 – the Trump administration and congressional Republicans poured more fossil fuels on the fire. The record number of total votes of the 2025 National Environmental Scorecard – 34 in the Senate and 32 in the House – reveal a year like no other with a Republican-led Congress that chose loyalty to the Trump administration and polluters while ignoring people, especially their pleas to make life affordable in our country again.

Pulling the plug on clean energy and climate progress

As communities around the country faced the worsening impacts of climate change and rising energy costs, Trump and his congressional allies led a full-scale attack on clean energy—the fastest and most affordable energy to bring online. In this onslaught, they slashed funding for the Department of Energy’s energy efficiency and renewable energy programs. They prioritized fossil-fueled power plants over new clean energy projects. They eliminated previously bipartisan money-saving standards for energy efficiency. Most egregiously, they gutted the historic climate and clean energy provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act.

These attacks are driving up energy costs for families by eliminating clean energy and efficiency incentives, as well as appliance efficiency standards. Families’ electricity bills rose 13% across the year. Communities lost major investments and over 165,000 clean energy jobs as manufacturing and clean energy projects ground to a halt.

Because the Big Ugly Bill wreaked such community harm and environmental destruction, we double scored its passage in both chambers in the 2025 Scorecard.

Handing power to President Trump and shutting down the government

As the year wore on, families struggled with skyrocketing healthcare, energy, food, and other costs. However, Republican leadership chose to shut down the government rather than work with Democrats on solutions to the affordability crisis. Instead of using and protecting Congress’ power of the purse to help struggling families, congressional Republicans again chose loyalty to Trump. They reopened the government with a continuing resolution that empowered the Trump administration to continue to block congressionally-approved programs and rescind funding. Congressional Republicans also rubber-stamped rescissions—granting more power to the Trump administration to ignore previous Congress’ bipartisan direction. Some year-end efforts to pass bipartisan appropriations bills in the Senate were hopeful, but bore little fruit in 2025.

Selling off our public lands to polluters

Not only did congressional Republicans prioritize loyalty to the Trump administration over peoples’ wellbeing, they also prioritized big polluters. Again and again, the House and Senate tried to sell off our public lands to fossil fuel companies and other polluting corporations. Originally, the Republicans’ reconciliation bill, H.R. 1, attempted to transfer half a million acres to big polluters. Widespread public outcry convinced a handful of Republicans to reject the plan. Nevertheless, other sell-off provisions remained in the Big Ugly Bill. It cut rates for polluters to lease public lands, and opened tens of millions more acres of our public lands and waters to logging, drilling, and mining.

Over the year, the House made more attempts to sell our public lands to polluters, including provisions that would allow large-scale logging operations without public input or judicial review, advantage fossil fuel projects over clean energy projects, disregard and cut out public input and judicial review for dirty energy projects, and allow mining companies to stake claims anywhere—even in places without minerals to mine—and to dump mining waste anywhere, too.

Approving extreme, industry-aligned nominees loyal to President Trump

The Senate also approved large numbers of Trump administration and judicial appointees who showed loyalty to Trump, rather than qualifications for the job and integrity for public service. In a similar vein, the Senate approved nominees who said they would use their positions to persecute political opponents. Further, the nominees put in charge of our public lands and energy had direct fossil fuel industry ties.

Senate Republicans also changed the rules to cede the president more power on nominations. To stack agencies with Trump loyalists faster, and make it more challenging for senators to object to or hold up individual nominees, the change allowed votes on most nominees in large groupings.

In addition, as we have done in previous Scorecards, we scored nominees with anti-democratic positions.

Undermining our democracy, voting rights, and public input

The executive branch, Congress, and Supreme Court advanced significant attacks on democracy and voting rights. The House passed the SAVE Act, which would make it harder for tens of millions of people to vote. The bill especially threatens voting access for married people who have changed their last names, and 100 million eligible voters without passports. As with nominations and appropriations, the Republican-led Congress and Supreme Court neglected their duty to check and balance a lawless executive branch. They let the administration politicize the justice system, destroy the Department of Justice (DOJ) divisions responsible for environmental and voting rights enforcement, assert power over previously independent agencies like the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Federal Trade Commission, Federal Election Commission, and Election Assistance Commission, and usurp congressional prerogatives, creating a dangerous and unconstitutional concentration of power. And in bill after bill, the Republican-led Congress chipped away at democratic processes by sidelining the public’s input on public lands management, review of federal projects, building damaging pipelines, and logging in our national forests.

Senate Democrats force votes on affordable clean energy, public lands, adequate staffing

Democrats in the Senate pushed back, in an effort to prioritize people over polluters. They forced votes protecting clean energy, maintaining critical staff and programs that protect communities and public lands, and safeguarding clean air, among others. Some of the amendments and resolutions received bipartisan support, but not enough to pass. Senate Democrats also forced votes to end the Trump administration’s sham declaration of an energy emergency, which provides the administration more cover to give handouts to his fossil fuel cronies while actually causing energy shortages by trying to ban affordable clean energy.

A Historic Year of Threats to Environment & Democracy

Throughout the year, Republican congressional leadership prioritized polluters and loyalty to the Trump administration over families’ budgets, public health, and clean air and water. Their actions included:

2025 included a historic number of threats to our environment, our communities, and our democracy, as reflected in the record 66 votes we scored (34 in the Senate and 32 in the House). As we have for over 50 years, we continue to document critical votes and where members of Congress stood so the public understands what is at stake and who is responsible.