U.S. Federal "Buy Clean" Initiative: Executive Order Rescission and the Latest State-Law Developments Across Nine Major States

The Federal Buy Clean Initiative, established by the Biden administration under Executive Order 14057 in 2021, prioritized the procurement of low-carbon construction materials—steel, concrete, asphalt, and flat glass—for federal public infrastructure and facility construction procurement, and required submission of Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs). The U.S. federal government is the world's largest purchasing entity, with over $630 billion in annual procurement power. To support this effort, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) allocated $4 billion for low-carbon materials procurement to the General Services Administration (GSA) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). In 2023, a "Federal-State Buy Clean Partnership" involving 12 states was also launched, and the program continued to expand.

However, President Trump rescinded Executive Order 14057 on his first day in office (January 20, 2025), and the unified federal Buy Clean procurement preference framework and EPD submission requirement were effectively terminated. Meanwhile, in nine major states with their own statutes—including California (Buy Clean California Act), New York, Colorado, and Washington—independent Buy Clean programs remain in effect for state-procured projects, and a growing divergence between federal and state procurement standards has taken hold.