Executive Order 14057: What It Required and Why It Was Revoked

Executive Order 14057, “Catalyzing Clean Energy Industries and Jobs Through Federal Sustainability,” was signed by President Biden on December 8, 2021, and directed the federal government to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 through clean electricity, zero-emission vehicles, efficient buildings, and low-carbon procurement.¹ It was revoked on January 20, 2025, by President Trump’s Executive Order 14148 and named again among the revoked orders in Executive Order 14154, “Unleashing American Energy.”² The order no longer binds federal agencies, but the targets it set shaped billions of dollars in federal spending during the roughly three years it was in effect.

What the Order Required

EO 14057 framed the federal government as the country’s largest energy consumer, landowner, and employer, and used that scale to try to pull clean energy markets forward.³ Its targets were organized around five pillars:

100 percent carbon pollution-free electricity by 2030, with at least half matched to local clean generation on a 24/7 hourly basis.
100 percent zero-emission vehicle acquisitions by 2035, with light-duty vehicles reaching that benchmark by 2027.
A net-zero emissions building portfolio by 2045, with a 50 percent reduction by 2032.
Net-zero emissions from federal procurement by 2050, including a Buy Clean policy favoring low-carbon construction materials.
Climate-resilient infrastructure and operations across all agencies.

The order applied to executive branch agencies inside the United States. The Government Accountability Office and independent regulatory agencies were excluded, and agency heads had discretion to extend the order to overseas operations.³

Electricity: Net Annual and 24/7 Matching

Agencies had to power their facilities with 100 percent carbon pollution-free electricity on a net annual basis by 2030. Total clean electricity purchased or generated over the year had to equal total consumption.¹

The harder piece was hourly matching. At least half of an agency’s clean electricity had to line up hour-by-hour with local generation on the same regional grid.⁴ Annual matching lets an agency buy wind credits in March to cover coal use in August. Hourly matching requires clean power to be flowing at the moment the agency is drawing from the grid, which pushes procurement toward local solar, storage, and other on-demand clean sources instead of paper offsets.

Vehicles: Federal Fleet Transition

Every new federal vehicle acquisition had to be zero-emission by 2035, and light-duty acquisitions by 2027.¹ The mandate covered acquisitions, not retirements. Existing gas vehicles did not have to be scrapped, but replacements and new purchases had to be electric or hydrogen once each deadline arrived.

The transition depended on charging infrastructure at federal facilities, and CEQ guidance under the Biden administration covered Level 1, Level 2, and DC fast charging for federal workplaces.⁵ In April 2025, the General Services Administration reversed course, directing agencies to deactivate charging infrastructure not deemed mission critical and halting new installations absent a specific justification.⁶

Buildings: Efficiency and Electrification

The federal real estate portfolio was targeted for net-zero emissions by 2045, with a 50 percent reduction by 2032 measured against a baseline that included energy consumption, refrigerants, and onsite fossil fuel use.¹

Two strategies did the work: deep efficiency retrofits of existing buildings, and full electrification of heating and cooling to eliminate onsite combustion. A related Department of Energy Clean Energy Rule required new federal construction and major renovations starting in fiscal year 2025 to cut onsite fossil fuel consumption by 90 percent compared with a similar building in fiscal year 2003.⁷

Procurement: Buy Clean and Contractor Disclosure

Federal procurement runs to hundreds of billions of dollars a year, and EO 14057 aimed to push that spending toward lower-carbon manufacturing. The Buy Clean policy targeted embodied emissions, the greenhouse gases released during production. The initial priority materials were steel, cement and concrete, asphalt, and flat glass.⁸ The broader procurement goal was net-zero emissions by 2050.¹

The order also envisioned a tiered contractor disclosure regime. Under the proposed Federal Supplier Climate Risks and Resilience Rule, contractors receiving more than $50 million in annual federal contracts would have had to publicly disclose Scope 1, Scope 2, and relevant Scope 3 emissions, report climate-related financial risks, and set science-based reduction targets. Contractors between $7.5 million and $50 million would have reported Scope 1 and Scope 2. Contractors below $7.5 million were exempt.⁹ The rule was never finalized and was withdrawn shortly before the January 2025 inauguration.

National Security and Military Exemptions

The order did not reach everywhere in the executive branch. Agency heads could exempt specific activities, personnel, resources, and facilities when national security was at stake, when compliance would compromise intelligence sources, or when it would jeopardize undercover law enforcement, subject only to written notice to the Chair of CEQ within 30 days.³

Military equipment had an explicit carve-out. Agency heads could exempt vehicles, vessels, aircraft, and non-road equipment used in combat support, tactical operations, relief operations, training for those operations, or spaceflight, along with associated ground-support equipment. Broader exemptions outside those categories required a request to the President through CEQ.³

Revocation in January 2025

President Trump revoked EO 14057 on January 20, 2025, the first day of his second term. It was among the orders rescinded by Executive Order 14148, “Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions.”¹⁰ It was named again in Section 4(a)(ix) of Executive Order 14154, “Unleashing American Energy,” which revoked a dozen Biden-era climate and environmental orders and abolished the offices they had established.²

The zero-emission vehicle acquisition targets, the carbon pollution-free electricity mandate, the Buy Clean procurement requirements, and the proposed contractor disclosure framework all lost their executive authority. GSA’s early-2025 direction to deactivate federal EV chargers and halt new installations followed directly.⁶ Contracts and projects already underway before January 2025 may continue on their existing terms, but the targets that produced them no longer bind agencies.

What Survived Independently

Some rules adjacent to EO 14057 rest on separate legal authority and remain in place. Federal building energy efficiency standards trace to statutes such as the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, not solely to the order. And FAR clause 52.223-22, dating from 2016, still appears in the federal acquisition regulations. It requires contractors who received $7.5 million or more in federal awards in the prior fiscal year to indicate whether they publicly disclose greenhouse gas emissions and reduction goals. It is a representation, essentially a checkbox, not a requirement to actually disclose.¹¹ The coordinated push toward net-zero federal operations that EO 14057 attempted to run across every agency is no longer federal policy.

1
Federal Register. Catalyzing Clean Energy Industries and Jobs Through Federal Sustainability
2
Federal Register. Unleashing American Energy
3
The American Presidency Project. Executive Order 14057 – Catalyzing Clean Energy Industries and Jobs Through Federal Sustainability
4
Office of the Federal Chief Sustainability Officer. 100% Carbon Pollution-Free Electricity on a Net Annual Basis by 2030, Including 50% on a 24/7 Basis
5
Council on Environmental Quality. Guidance for Federal Agency Implementation of Workplace Charging – Level 1 Charging Receptacles
6
General Services Administration. GSA Partners With Agencies to Eliminate Wasteful Vehicle Charging Stations at Federal Facilities
7
Department of Energy. Federal Building Energy Efficiency Rules and Requirements
8
Office of the Federal Chief Sustainability Officer. Federal Buy Clean Initiative
9
Office of the Federal Chief Sustainability Officer. Federal Supplier Climate Risks and Resilience Proposed Rule
10
The White House. Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions
11
eCFR. 48 CFR 52.223-22 – Public Disclosure of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Reduction Goals-Representation