Nov. 5, 2026

The affordability and climate crises are interconnected, and spending on the Pentagon makes both worse. Tell Congress: not another dollar for war; fund a livable future instead.  

Trump has requested an unprecedented $1.5 trillion war budget for FY 2027. The first step in achieving this record-shattering budget includes a $250 billion increase to last year’s base war budget of $900 billion, to $1.15 trillion (the rest would come from separate legislation). While the Trump administration perpetuates war and seeks oil riches in Venezuela and beyond, communities around the country are reeling from severe storms, flooding, wildfires and other climate disasters. 

Congress should oppose any increase in Pentagon spending, which is fueling the immoral, illegal, and unpopular war on Iran and ongoing genocide in Gaza. On top of the devastating human costs, excessive war spending worsens both the affordability and climate crises, fuels data center expansion, and empowers billionaires and oil executives who profit from endless war and climate collapse. More money will not fix a bad foreign policy strategy; it only throws more gasoline on our already burning world. Here are ten better investments than adding $250 billion to the endless war chest:

10 Investments Totaling $250 Billion that Would Address the Affordability and Climate Crises Instead of Fuel Endless War

Program	Cost
Transition jobs from the war economy to a green economy	$100,000,000,000
Install solar panels on 3.5 million homes, boosting total residential solar installation by more than 50%	$82,600,000,000
Expand green affordable housing	$30,000,000,000
Ensure public transit systems remain safe by closing the maintenance budget gap	$15,200,000,000
Fully fund the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)	$12,000,000,000
Restore the electric vehicle (EV) tax credit for 500,000 people	$3,750,000,000
Fully fund the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP)	$3,368,140,000
Restore funding for renewable energy and climate resilience projects on Tribal lands	$1,500,000,000
Fully fund land conservation assistance for farmers and rural communities	$1,050,000,000
Restore $1 billion for International Climate Finance	$1,000,000,000
Total	$250 billion

A $250 billion investment in solutions for working families instead of war profiteers would transform millions of lives. This isn’t just a moral imperative; investing in climate solutions results in greater economic benefits and job creation than dollar-for-dollar investment in the Pentagon. It’s also about the integrity of our democracy. Voters want Congress to invest in making life better for our families, our environment, and our futures on this planet - not bombing families abroad. 

How does unaccountable military spending worsen the affordability and climate crises?

• Military-related operations - from combat, to daily training, to manufacturing - are environmentally devastating. The military’s degradation and pollution of water, land, and air is a leading cause of public health crises near military sites at home and globally.
• The Pentagon is the world’s largest institutional oil consumer and fossil fuel emitter. The U.S. is already a global outlier, responsible for the vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions that are warming our world - and doing the least about it. Instead of investing resources as the world’s wealthiest nation into  transitioning away from oil, the Trump Administration is now using ‘national security’ as a justification to drill and burn even more climate-destroying carbon. Military-related carbon pollution will likely worsen as carbon-intensive data centers become more integrated into the U.S. national security apparatus. 
• The Pentagon budget eats away at investments that would make our communities less susceptible and more resilient to climate crises. In 2025, the average U.S. taxpayer paid $4,049 for weapons and war vs. just $394 for the Environmental Protection Agency, our National Parks, and Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy programs combined. That’s 10 times more taxpayer dollars going towards endless war than to protecting our environment and ensuring a livable future for our children and the planet. 

 

Sources and Methodology

Transition jobs from the war economy to a green economy: Heidi Peltier's policy brief, De-Militarizing the Federal Budget and Recalibrating the Labor Market, lays out a $100 billion plan for a just transition for military workers and communities that invests in jobs, green energy, and public infrastructure.

Install solar panels on 3.5 million homes, boosting residential solar installation by more than 50%: We use cost benchmark data from the Department of Energy (table 2) to calculate that the average cost of installing residential solar photovoltaic (PV) systems is $23,600 per household. Given that in 2026, approximately 6 million homes have residential PV, installing 3.5 million more systems would boost overall installation by more than 50%. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the residential housing sector accounts for about 20% of total U.S. carbon dioxide emissions.

Expand green affordable housing: Homelessness in the United States is at a record-high. A Climate and Community Institute (CCI) report, Green Social Housing at Scale, proposes the creation of a Green Social Housing Development Authority (Green SHDA) that would tackle housing insecurity and the climate crisis by delivering 1,390,000 affordable, climate-resilient, fossil fuel–free housing units (and creating more than 300,000 jobs). The proposal requires $30 billion in annual appropriations.

Ensure public transit remains safe by fulling-funding its maintenance budget: Functioning public transit is critical to millions of people's lives and their ability to access workplaces and education. Investing in public transit is also essential to decarbonizing our economy. The maintenance budget for the nation's public transit system is facing a $152 billion budget gap over the next 10 years that could lead to greater delays and unsafe conditions. An additional $15.2 billion per year would close that gap, ensuring public transit remains functional.

Fully fund the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): Instead of slashing the EPA budget by 52%, Congress should fully fund $12 billion that advocates say the agency needs to protect our air, land, and water.

Restore electric vehicle (EV) tax credit to 500,000 people: The clean vehicle credit (CVC) was an essential mechanism to transition away from fossil-fuel based vehicles and towards cleaner, more affordable transit options. It provided a credit of up to $7,500 for individuals purchasing new electric vehicles (EVs), subject to restrictions. In 2023, 488,000 households claimed the clean vehicle credit. However, Congress allowed the program to expire in 2025, leaving individuals who would like to purchase an affordable, fossil-fuel free vehicle without assistance as gas prices continue to hit record highs. For $3.75 billion, Congress could provide the full CVC tax credit to another 500,000 people.

Fully-fund the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP): LIHEAP is an essential program that provides federally funded assistance to lower-income individuals and families to reduce the costs of home energy bills and weatherization efforts to improve energy efficiency. The program is more important than ever, as gas prices rise due to the US war on Iran, extreme weather events become more common due to climate change, and more and more people across the country fall into poverty due to increasing wealth inequality and affordability challenges. The National Energy Assistance Directors Association has testified that adequate spending on LIHEAP would be $7 billion in FY 2027. However, the Trump Administration has proposed cutting LIHEAP funding to $3.6 billion - about half of what's needed. We proposed doubling this budget to bring spending up to where it belongs.

Restore funding for renewable energy and climate resilience projects on Tribal lands: Last year, the Trump Administration cut approximately $1.5 billion in federal funding earmarked for tribal renewable energy and climate resilience projects. We propose restoring that funding.

Fully fund land conservation assistance for farmers and rural communities: USDA conservation programs are utilized by farmers and small-landowners across the United States to adopt conservation practices that enhance water quality, increase resilience, and reduce harmful emissions. These programs are highly impactful and in high demand, with more than half of eligible recipients turned away due to lack of adequate funding. Hundreds of farm coalitions and conservation groups have advocated for fulling funding conservation assistance, which they say requires at least $1.05 billion. Despite this, the Trump Administration has zeroed-out the budget for Conservation Technical Assistance for the second year in a row. We suggest restoring it to at least the requested amount of $1.05 billion.

Restore $1 billion for International Climate Finance: International climate finance is a morally, financially, and politically imperative investment. As the world's wealthiest country and largest historical emitter, the United States is most responsible for ensuring less economically-advanced nations can prepare for and respond to climate disasters as they become more frequent and extreme. Unfortunately, the United States has failed to pay its fair share in climate finance, while spending more on the military than the next 6-9 countries combined. Over the past decade, Congress has approved roughly 40 times more taxpayer dollars on financing to subsidize weapons companies than finance that supports the Green Climate Fund. Trump cut the entire U.S. contribution for international climate finance. We suggest restoring the U.S. allocation to Biden levels - at least $1 billion annually.