GOP House Chairs Urge EU to Drop Sustainability Directive Affecting US Firms

Three Republican committee chairs are applying direct congressional pressure on a foreign regulatory body over rules that U.S. industry groups say would impose significant compliance costs on...

Three Republican House committee chairs sent a letter Thursday to the European Union's U.S. ambassador urging the EU to reverse its Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, known as the CSDDD, according to reporting by the New York Post. The letter was signed by Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Brett Guthrie (R-KY), Financial Services Committee Chair French Hill (R-AR), and Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH).

The CSDDD, adopted by the EU in 2024, requires large companies operating within the EU to identify and address human rights and environmental risks across their supply chains. U.S. companies with significant European operations would be subject to the directive's requirements under its extraterritorial provisions. The full text of the congressional letter has not been independently published in the congressional record as of June 25, 2026; the New York Post reported its contents based on a copy it said it obtained.

The chairs' letter characterizes the directive's compliance requirements as imposing costs on U.S. businesses operating in EU markets. Neither the letter nor the New York Post report specifies a precise aggregate dollar figure with a sourced methodology for the claimed costs. The phrase 'billions of dollars more annually' appears in the Post's reporting but is not attributed to a specific economic study, government estimate, or filing in the published excerpt.

The move represents a formal congressional intervention into a foreign regulatory process, a step that falls within the oversight and foreign commerce jurisdictions of the committees involved. The EU's response, if any, has not been publicly reported as of the publication of this article. No companion Senate letter or resolution has been identified in the congressional record as of this date.

What remains unknown: the full text of the letter, the specific economic analysis used to quantify the cost claims, and whether the EU's ambassador has formally responded. The complete letter, if submitted into the congressional record or released by the committees, would be the primary document to resolve those questions. LDA lobbying disclosures filed by U.S. industry groups on the CSDDD, available at lobbyingdisclosure.house.gov, would indicate which private interests have been coordinating with committee offices on this issue.