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The federal government is continuing to implement President Donald Trump’s Unleashing American Energy mandate to promote domestic energy and infrastructure projects.

On June 16, 2025, the Senate Finance Committee released its draft tax title for inclusion in the Senate’s version of the budget reconciliation bill, known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (the “OBBBA”).

In the afternoon of June 16, 2025, the Senate Finance Committee (“SFC”) released its proposed legislative text of the tax title for the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” H.R. Con. Res. 14, 119th Cong. (2025) (the “Reconciliation Bill”).

On June 17, 2025, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) published its proposed “Set 2” rule under the Renewable Fuel Standard (“RFS”) program (the “Set 2 Rule”).

On June 17, 2025, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) published a proposed rule that, if finalized, would repeal all greenhouse gas (“GHG”) standards for the power sector.

On June 17, 2025 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) published a proposed rule to repeal the amendments to the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (“MATS”) adopted by the Biden administration in 2024.

On May 23, 2025, General License 25 (“GL 25” or the “General License”) was issued by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”), suspending a wide array of sanctions against Syria.

This week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) took the penultimate step to granting Texas the authority to directly issue Class VI permits under the Safe Drinking Water Act’s Underground Injection Control (UIC) program for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) projects when it proposed to approve the State’s primacy application.

On May 19, 2025, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche issued a memorandum announcing the creation of the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Civil Rights Fraud Initiative (the Initiative), which directs DOJ attorneys to utilize the False Claims Act (FCA), 31 U.S.C. § 3729 et seq., to combat knowing violations of civil rights law and the false certification of compliance with such laws by recipients of federal funds such as educational institutions and federal contractors.

V&E lawyers discussed FCPA and anticorruption enforcement and how DOJ’s new memos demonstrate the Administration’s shifting white collar enforcement priorities.

On May 22, 2025, the House passed budget reconciliation legislation referred to as “The One, Big, Beautiful Bill” (the “Bill”).

After an intense 21-hour House Rules Committee markup, early in the morning of May 22, 2025, the House passed H.R. Con. Res. 14, 119^th Cong. (2025) (the “Reconciliation Bill”), which makes significant revisions to the Inflation Reduction Act (the “IRA”) provisions.