Canary Media reports on concerns that a second Trump administration could undo many of the Biden administration's clean energy achievements, including the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Advanced Energy United's Harrison Godfrey expresses hope that the new administration will take a balanced approach that would preserve the gains made in clean energy and minimize disruptions to job creation and economic growth.
The Biden administration has enacted the most consequential federal clean energy and climate policy in U.S. history, giving the nation a fighting chance at reducing greenhouse gas emissions fast enough to deal with the climate crisis. Former President Donald Trump, who has won the 2024 presidential election, has pledged to undo that work.
Though Trump’s executive powers will allow him to slow the energy transition in a number of ways, the extent to which he rolls back Biden’s clean energy accomplishments will be dictated in part by whether Republicans retain control of the House of Representatives. The GOP flipped the U.S. Senate, but votes are still being counted in key House races as of Wednesday morning.
Here’s what clean energy and climate experts say is most likely to be lost under a second Trump administration — and what might survive.
Trump won’t have the power to enact all of his promises on his own. Some of the decisions must be made by Congress, including any effort to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act or to claw back unspent funds from that law or the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law.
In an August letter to current Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana), 18 House Republicans warned against repealing the clean energy and manufacturing tax credits created by the Inflation Reduction Act, which have “spurred innovation, incentivized investment, and created good jobs in many parts of the country — including many districts represented by members of our conference.”
“Prematurely repealing energy tax credits, particularly those which were used to justify investments that already broke ground, would undermine private investments and stop development that is already ongoing,” the 18 House Republicans wrote. “A full repeal would create a worst-case scenario where we would have spent billions of taxpayer dollars and received next to nothing in return.”
Republicans would need a roughly 20-seat majority to overcome opposition from these party members opposed to a full repeal, said Harry Godfrey, head of the federal investment and manufacturing working group of trade group Advanced Energy United.
“I don’t envision Republicans holding the House with 20-plus seats,” he said.
Godfrey also doubted that a Trump administration would be eager to undermine the domestic manufacturing boom that the law’s tax credits have spurred. He noted that at the October 1 vice-presidential debate, J.D. Vance, the Republican Ohio senator and Trump’s running mate, emphasized the need for the U.S. to “consolidate American dominance” in key energy sectors and industries now dominated by China.
While Vance went on to falsely accuse the Biden administration of failing to bolster U.S. industries against China, the goal of emphasizing domestic competitiveness could lead Republicans to avoid undermining progress in that direction, he suggested.
While Congress would need to take action to fully repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, a Trump administration can make moves on its own to halt or at least complicate the provision of the IRA’s tax credits, Godfrey said, such as instructing the Treasury Department to amend, suspend, or delay implementation of the rules that determine how tax credits are calculated and disbursed.
“There is space for an administration that wants to throw sand in the gears to come in and say, ‘We’re suspending the rule, or we’re suspending the notice of proposed rulemaking,’” Godfrey said. “People should be concerned about a Trump administration without complete control of Congress to use administrative powers to readjust those rules in a way that will be detrimental to their implementation.”
A full-scale implementation of the Project 2025 agenda would harm not just U.S. clean energy and climate-related investments and economic growth, but also broader job growth and energy costs, according to an August report from think tank Energy Innovation. The analysis found that the policies called for in the blueprint would result in $320 billion in annual GDP losses, 1.7 million clean energy jobs lost, $32 billion in higher household energy costs, and an increase in greenhouse gas emissions of roughly 1 billion metric tons by 2030 compared to a scenario in which current policies were kept in place.
Godfrey expressed hope that a Trump administration would forgo the more drastic parts of Project 2025, such as eliminating “whole arms of DOE” that support industries such as critical-minerals mining, processing, and recycling, which are seen as crucial to U.S. competitiveness against China.
Yet he also warned that companies that have won promises of loans and grants from agencies under the Biden administration but haven’t yet received them could face the threat of clawback. “If you have an executed agreement in place, you should be OK. Anything short of that, I think there’s some risk there,” he said.
Read the full article here.