The Trump administration’s failure to deliver a promised investigation of state climate programs has let U.S. carbon markets recover fully from initial setbacks after President Donald Trump ordered the probe in April, a new report says.
Trump’s April 8 order for Attorney General Pam Bondi to look for ways to “stop the enforcement” of state climate laws weakened the nation’s three carbon markets, which establish limits on greenhouse gas emissions.
But since Bondi missed Trump’s June 7 deadline to issue a report on potential actions, the carbon markets have bounced back, signaling waning fears of new restrictions, according to a report from KraneShares, a financial services firm that monitors carbon market prices.
“From an economics perspective, the market price goes down when there’s any threat to these programs’ existence,” said Nick Roy, research associate at Resources for the Future, a U.S. research nonprofit. But by June, “the lack of an AG report appears to have changed expectations of federal involvement.”
