Congress quietly adopted a much-touted carbon trade bill last week, tucking the measure into a spending package to fund energy and environment agencies.
The “Providing Reliable, Objective, Verifiable Emissions Intensity and Transparency (PROVE IT) Act” — from Sens. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), Chris Coons (D-Del.) and John Curtis (R-Utah) — would have the administration study the carbon intensity of American manufacturing to show it compares favorably with other countries.
The legislation, introduced last congressional term, represented a rare bipartisan compromise when it comes to examining climate emissions — but it fizzled amid skepticism from some conservatives. They said it could lead to a domestic carbon tax.
In a comeback for the bill, however, similar language was embedded in the report accompanying a three-bill “minibus” with the fiscal 2026 Energy-Water, Interior-Environment and Commerce-Justice-Science bills. Bill reports are technically not law, but agencies tend to follow them.
The “PROVE IT” language in the legislation would have the Department of Energy commission a study comparing the carbon intensity of certain domestically-made goods to the goods produced in other countries.
“We’ve known for a long time that manufacturers here in the United States make some of the cleanest products in the world. We can actually prove it, and we should. We should use that excellence as an advantage to ensure that our producers aren’t discriminated against by our trade partners or worse, undercut by polluting countries like China,” Cramer said in a statement.
“It’s really an America First approach, and I look forward to working with Secretary Wright and the administration to get this report done, to make it a tradition, and make it a part of our trade policy going forward,” Cramer added, referring to Energy Secretary Chris Wright.
The reports accompanying both the House and Senate versions of the Energy-Water bill referenced the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), which levies tariffs against carbon-intensive imports. Europe began implementing their CBAM this month.
Cramer and other “PROVE IT” supporters have argued that the federal government should take their own emissions measurements of domestic goods, rather than relying on Europe to do it. Congressional appropriators appeared to agree.
“The European Union and other countries have begun to implement trade policies that would assess fees on U.S. products. The Committee is concerned that the methodology of said countries could negatively impact U.S. competitiveness, creating the need for high-quality comparative data created by the United States,” the Senate Appropriations Committee’s bill report said.
The House language, too, stipulated that DOE’s study should include all goods that will be impacted by the European Union’s CBAM. That House bill report text is what Congress adopted, according to a final explanatory statement.
The study will be spearheaded by DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory and should include consultations with “relevant agencies, institutions, academia, and think tank partners,” according to the report text. It is due next January.
Congress has passed six of 12 fiscal 2026 spending bills. The rest are pending in the Senate this week. Disagreement over the Homeland Security title may lead to a shutdown of some federal agencies, if not settled before Friday’s spending deadline.
In a Republican-led Congress with little appetite to legislate on climate, the passage of the “PROVE IT Act” language may be viewed as a watershed moment by environmental advocates.
Coons’ office did not respond to request for comment Monday. Last year, Coons told POLITICO’s E&E News that he thought a study of carbon emissions could be embraced by the Trump administration as part of their aggressive tariff agenda.
“The point of the bill was just to gather data and make it available to the world about how relatively clean American steel, aluminum, fertilizer, glass is compared to products from China, India, Russia, other places. And I don’t think that’s necessarily in tension with President Trump’s agenda to try and strengthen American manufacturing,” Coons said.
But Republican energy lobbyist Mike McKenna blasted the “PROVE It Act’s” inclusion. Even though the legislation wouldn’t implement a carbon tax, critics say it could lead to an American carbon import fee and then a domestic carbon tax.
“No Republican should ever be in favor of carbon dioxide or energy taxes. President Trump isn’t, and whoever snuck this provision into the minibus is, unfortunately, not aligned with Republicans on this,” McKenna said. “This is a terrible idea that should never have been passed.”
Andres Picon and Kelsey Brugger contributed to this report.
This story also appears in Climatewire.
