Republicans' reckless assault on clean energy will cost them
House Republicans are beginning to fill in the details of their sweeping spending plan that hinges on deep cuts to programs people depend on — from Medicare and Medicaid to food assistance and clean energy investments — all to fund a $4.5 trillion tax break for billionaires and big corporations. Their proposal is a slash-and-burn blueprint for enacting President Trump’s extreme agenda, and it will throw American industries and families into chaos.
This week, some Republicans warned that repealing clean energy investments would drive up consumer energy bills, kill manufacturing jobs and generally be a disaster for businesses in their districts. But House Speaker Mike Johnson has been blunt about Republicans’ priorities, admitting that paying for their multitrillion-dollar tax cut would require taking “somewhere between a scalpel and a sledgehammer” to climate investments. House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) went even further, calling clean energy investments “low-hanging fruit” to pay for their agenda.
In other words, all the progress made in rebuilding American industry, creating jobs and lowering energy bills is on the chopping block.
Recent YouGov polling confirms what should be obvious: Investing in clean energy is overwhelmingly popular. In fact, 61 percent of voters want to keep the investments driving America’s growing clean energy sector, while only 18 percent support repealing them.
Yet despite broad bipartisan support, Johnson is charging ahead with this reckless crusade, ignoring warnings from within his own party, dismissing the will of constituents and gambling with the economic future of American communities. And the fallout would land hardest in House Republicans’ own communities, where nearly 80 percent of federal clean energy investments are fueling a manufacturing boom. These are investments like a solar module manufacturing plant in rural Georgia, a car manufacturer in Virginia, and a geothermal heating program in Idaho.
The Republican tax agenda is clear: derail a thriving clean energy economy, put thousands of jobs at risk, and drive up costs for families, all to pad the profits of fossil fuel CEOs and other billionaires.
But ending widely popular, job-creating investments isn’t just bad policy — it’s bad politics. Voters want lower energy bills, American manufacturing leadership and good-paying jobs, not giveaways to Big Oil. If House Republicans double down on this deeply unpopular agenda, they’ll pay the price at the ballot box.
Americans want more clean energy, not less. When given the choice, 64 percent of voters favor increasing clean energy usage over expanding fossil fuel production. And when YouGov drilled down down into specific programs and tax credits that Republicans are threatening to eliminate, voters overwhelmingly backed each by two-thirds or more — from incentives to bolster clean energy supply to consumer rebates that help lower energy bills to investments in solar manufacturing.
The reason is simple: clean energy saves money because it’s cheaper and more reliable. Voters overwhelmingly cited lower energy bills as the most convincing reason to support clean energy tax credits. And they’re right: recent economic modeling shows that repealing the Inflation Reduction Act’s tech-neutral tax credits alone would drive up electricity bills by 10 percent.
The Republican attacks are already underway. Trump’s illegal funding freeze stalled the groundbreaking Solar for All initiative to expand solar energy access, preventing families from tapping into the benefits of lower-cost, American-made clean power.
Even corporate leaders are sounding the alarm. Ford’s CEO has repeatedly warned that “many [...] jobs will be at risk" if the Inflation Reduction Act is repealed. And Republican members of Congress from states like Michigan, Texas and Pennsylvania have urged their colleagues to leave these investments intact because they’re fueling a once-in-a-generation manufacturing renaissance.
Clean energy investments aren’t “low-hanging fruit” to be sacrificed to Big Oil. They’re driving real economic growth, lowering costs and creating jobs — and Americans want them protected.
The question is, will Republicans listen?
Lena Moffitt is executive director of Evergreen Action.
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