The Department of Energy has banned its staff from using terms like 'climate change,' 'green,' and 'emissions' in a sweeping directive that extends far beyond what most would consider political language. The move signals the Trump administration's deeper push to reshape federal energy policy by controlling the very vocabulary used to discuss it.
The Department of Energy just handed down one of the most sweeping speech restrictions in recent federal history. A Trump appointee's email to energy efficiency staff last Friday didn't just target politically charged terms - it banned words that appear in Webster's dictionary without controversy.
Rachael Overbey, special advisor to the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, sent the directive with stark clarity: 'Please ensure that every member of your team is aware that this is the latest list of words to avoid,' according to Politico's reporting. The forbidden vocabulary reads like a renewable energy glossary turned upside down.
Staff can no longer say 'climate change,' 'green,' 'decarbonization,' 'energy transition,' 'sustainability,' 'subsidies,' 'tax breaks,' 'tax credits,' or 'carbon footprint.' But the ban gets stranger when it reaches seemingly technical terms. Even 'emissions' made the cut, apparently because it 'implies some level of negativity' despite its neutral dictionary definition.
The irony runs deep here. The Supreme Court ruled in 2007's Massachusetts v. EPA that greenhouse gas emissions aren't just neutral scientific measurements - they can be regulated as air pollutants. Now the federal government is telling its own scientists they can't use the word at all.
This hits the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy particularly hard. EERE emerged from the wreckage of the 1973 oil crisis, when Arab nations' embargo sent gas prices through the roof and Americans waiting in mile-long gas station lines. Congress created the office specifically to develop renewable energy and efficiency technologies that would shield the US economy from future commodity shocks.
Fast-forward five decades, and President Trump is making the opposite bet. His administration has doubled down on fossil fuels while dismissing renewable investments as a 'green energy scam.' At the United Nations last week, Trump went after countries investing in solar, wind, and batteries with a blunt warning: 'Your country is going to fail.'
The global energy markets aren't getting that memo. Renewable energy investment smashed records in the first half of 2025, reaching $386 billion - a 10% jump from the previous year, . Offshore wind and small-scale solar drove most of the growth.
