Republican budget bill would slaughter America's cleanest, cheapest energy

Los Angeles Times

a day ago

Masked federal agents are snatching up immigrants. It's been less than two weeks since the U.S. bombed Iranian nuclear facilities. President Trump's long-threatened tariffs could finally kick in next week.
Given all that, most people probably aren't focused on climate change.
But they should be. Because Trump's 'One Big Beautiful Bill,' which passed the Senate this week and was poised to clear the House early Thursday, would do more than gut Medicaid, cut student loan relief and increase funding for deportations. It would kill federal support for solar and wind power, undoing President Biden's historic climate law and punishing Americans with deadlier air, more lethal heat waves and higher electric bills.
I'm usually a climate optimist. But it's hard to find reasons for hope right now.
The Senate bill would eliminate tax credits for solar and wind farms that don't come online by the end of 2027 — a brutal deadline for projects that take years to permit, finance and construct. That would slam the brakes on new development and also jeopardize hundreds of projects already in the works — not only solar and wind farms, but also factories to build solar panels, wind turbines, lithium-ion batteries and other clean energy technologies.
Solar and wind farms that start construction by June 2026 would get tax credits no matter when they come online, a last-minute concession to the handful of Republican senators with a modicum of sense.
As if needing to counterbalance that concession, Republican leaders added lucrative tax credits for metallurgical coal, an incredibly dirty fossil fuel that's mostly shipped to China and other countries to make steel.
The bill would also end tax credits for rooftop solar, electric vehicles and energy-efficient home upgrades — while reducing royalty rates for coal mined on public lands, and requiring more oil and gas leasing on those lands.
'The fossil fuel industry helped pay for this government, and now they're getting their reward,' Bill McKibben, the preeminent climate author and activist, wrote in his newsletter.
That's part of the explanation. Another part, I think, is that most voters aren't paying close attention.
Polls consistently show that an overwhelming majority of Americans want cleaner energy, and climate action writ large. But polls also show that climate ranks low as a priority for most Americans.
So when it comes time for Trump and his allies to pay for their deficit-ballooning tax cuts — which mostly benefit the rich — clean energy is an easy target. They can tell outrageous lies about solar and wind being unreliable and expensive, and many people will either believe them or not care enough to seek out the truth.
Indeed, Trump wrote on social media last month that renewable energy tax credits are a 'giant SCAM.' He claimed that wind turbines 'and the rest of this 'JUNK'' are '10 times more costly than any other energy.'
That's not even remotely true. Authoritative sources, including the investment bank Lazard, report that solar and wind are America's cheapest sources of new electricity, even without tax credits. Those low costs help explain why solar, wind and batteries made up 94% of new power capacity in the U.S. last year. Even in Texas, they're booming.
For now, at least. John Ketchum, president of Florida-based NextEra Energy, warned the Trump administration in March that shelving renewables and battery storage would 'force electricity prices to the moon.'
Lo and behold, research firm Energy Innovation estimates the Senate bill would cause average household energy costs to increase $130 annually by 2030. The firm also predicts 760,000 lost jobs by 2030.
'Families will face higher electric bills, factories will shut down, Americans will lose their jobs, and our electric grid will grow weaker,' said Abigail Ross Hopper, president of the Solar Energy Industries Assn.
The point about the grid growing weaker is key. North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, one of three Republicans to vote against the bill, mentioned a global turbine shortage that's slowing the construction of gas-fired power plants. He stated plainly what energy executives know: that renewables and batteries are needed for a reliable grid.
'What you have done is create a blip in power service,' Tillis told his colleagues.
Here's a question: If clean energy is so cheap, and in such high demand, why does it need subsidies?
For one thing, solar and wind projects require big upfront investments, after which the fuel, be it sun or wind, is free. Gas plants are often less expensive to build, but they can subject consumers to huge utility bill swings when fuel costs soar — during geopolitical turmoil, for instance, or during climate-fueled weather disasters.
Also relevant: Fossil fuel subsidies are so deeply entrenched in the U.S. tax code that they rarely make news. Coal, oil and gas benefit from tens of billions of dollars in subsidies every year, by some estimates.
And that's without accounting for the bigger wildfires, harsher droughts, stronger storms, hotter heat waves and other harms of fossil fuel combustion, including air pollution that kills millions of people worldwide each year. Oil, gas and coal companies don't pay those costs. Taxpayers do.
So, yes, solar and wind still need a leg up. But even under Biden's climate law, the U.S. hasn't been reducing heat-trapping emissions enough to help keep global warming to less-than-catastrophic levels.
And now, under Trump's 'One Big Beautiful Bill,' the U.S. will be moving backward instead of forward.
So if you care about the climate crisis, what can you do?
I wish I could say California was doubling down on climate leadership, like it did during Trump's first term. Sadly, Gov. Gavin Newsom hasn't prioritized clean energy as he readies a possible presidential run. Again and again, he and his appointees have yielded to the fossil fuel industry and its allies — on plastics recycling, oil refinery profits, emissions disclosures and more.
Other Golden State leaders are doing no better. This week, lawmakers passed an awful law pushed by Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) that will pause new energy efficiency rules for homes until 2031. Meanwhile, a potentially transformative 'climate superfund' bill — which would charge fossil fuel companies for their pollution and use the money to help Californians cope with climate disasters — is languishing in Sacramento.
The landscape is bleak. But we're not doomed.
The planet will almost certainly warm beyond an internationally agreed upon target of 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. But 2 degrees is a lot better than 2.5 degrees, and way better than 3 degrees. Climate change isn't a game we win or lose. Every bit of avoided warming means safer, healthier lives for more people.
Yes, the U.S. is a climate train wreck right now. But global warming is just like immigration or healthcare: Nothing will change if most of us do nothing. So don't tune out. Don't surrender to despair. Bring up climate when you talk to your friends and call your representatives. Make protest signs about it. Let it guide your vote.
As McKibben wrote: 'Our job from here on out ... is to make ourselves heard.'
'It may not work tomorrow. It may not work until we've gotten more decent people into office. But it's our job, and not to be shirked,' he wrote. 'And in some sad way it's an honor: We're the people who get to make the desperate stand for a country and a planet that works.'
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