Nevadans can expect to see energy bills rise, gasoline costs creep upward, an increase in health risks, job losses, a plunge in the state’s gross domestic product, and the potential for a resurgence in nuclear energy as a result of President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, industry experts are predicting. 

The OBBBA eliminates or phases out a number of clean energy tax credits enacted by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, and is expected to reduce investment in renewables.

“One of the bitter ironies of this bill is it’s been billed as something to lower costs for working Americans,” says Harrison Godfrey of Advanced Energy United, a trade group for clean energy interests. “It will absolutely raise costs on consumers, at the same time stripping away their ability to actually manage their own costs through distributed energy resources, energy efficiency and electric vehicles.”

As a result of Trump’s policy, Nevada’s annual gross domestic product (GDP) is projected to “shrink by $1 billion in 2030 and $1.5 billion in 2035. Between 2025 and 2034 – the Reconciliation budget window – cumulative GDP would shrink by $8 billion in Nevada,” according to a state-by-state analysis from Energy Innovation, a nonpartisan think tank. 

Nationally, Energy Innovation reports, the Act is expected to “cut GDP by $1.1 trillion, add $170 billion to household energy bills, and cut hundreds of thousands of jobs.” The OBBBA “claws back unobligated funding, expands new oil and gas leasing, changes or eliminates energy and manufacturing tax credits, and repeals some Clean Air Act programs.”

In Nevada, the OBBBA is expected to hike household energy spending by an average of more than $270 a year in 2030 and more than $500 a year in 2035, according to Energy Innovation’s report. “Statewide, households will foot nearly $4 billion in increased energy bills through 2035.” 

A separate analysis, Princeton’s REPEAT Project, estimates  energy costs for the average U.S. household will increase by about $165 dollars per household a year in 2030 and more than $280 dollars per household a year in 2035—an increase of about 7.5% in 2030 and more than 13% in 2035.

The cost of a kilowatt hour for Nevada’s residential and commercial electric customers is expected to increase by 6.1% by next year, and by 6.6% by 2029, according to an analysis by the National Economic Research Associates (NERA), commissioned by the Clean Energy Buyers of America. 

Nationally, electricity costs for commercial and residential users combined are projected to rise by 8.4%, with Wyoming residents and businesses expected to see the biggest increase of 29.2% by 2029, the NERA analysis estimates. 

Although the measure calls for ramped up domestic fuel production, increased energy demand “would raise prices more than increased domestic supply could lower them.” 

Under the OBBBA, recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program who receive energy assistance will be required to count the subsidy as income, unless the household includes an elderly or disabled person. 

Renewable projects and jobs

The bill Trump demanded that Congressional Republicans pass “drastically changes and terminates existing clean energy tax credits passed by Congress in 2022, which to date have generated $11.34 billion in new private-led investment across 45 domestic energy and manufacturing facilities in Nevada,” according to Energy Innovation. The measure threatens an additional $16.96 billion in private investment in 94 facilities planned throughout the state.

The OBBBA is expected to cut 6,200 jobs from Nevada’s workforce by 2030, and more than 8,300 jobs by 2035, “as new investment in domestic energy and manufacturing falters,” says Energy Innovation.

“This bill will kill projects and depress the addition of new energy supply at a time of rising demand, “ says Godfrey of Advanced Energy United.

Under the OBBBA, wind and solar projects placed in service after 2027 will not be eligible for the clean electricity investment tax credit (ITC) and clean electricity production tax credit (PTC), unless they begin construction within a year of the OBBBA’s enactment on July 4. 

Of 63 new and proposed solar array projects listed on the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada’s website, 22 are scheduled to go into service after Trump’s Dec. 31, 2027 deadline, while another 41 projects have no in-service date scheduled. 

Projects in the early stages with no scheduled date to begin service are at risk of losing financial backing, says Godfrey, because of uncertainty about whether they’ll meet Trump’s deadline.

“And if they can’t say that they will with absolute certainty, the financial backing for those projects goes ‘poof,” Godfrey says, adding financiers “aren’t going to wait around to find out whether you can make it. They’re going to take their money elsewhere. That’s why the ‘place in service’ (provision) in this law will kill projects.” 

Endeavors that have begun construction and made a tangible investment “should have a four year runway to be placed into service and still be eligible for the tax credit,” Godfrey says. But he cautions the landscape under Trump is still shifting. 

In a signal that Trump is dissatisfied with Senate provisions that softened the OBBBA’s blow to solar and wind projects, the president on Monday issued an executive order which calls for the U.S. to “build upon and strengthen the repeal of, and modifications to, wind, solar, and other ‘green’ energy tax credits in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act; and end taxpayer support for unaffordable and unreliable ‘green’ energy sources and supply chains built in, and controlled by, foreign adversaries.”

The provision could be at odds with Trump’s goal of keeping companies in the U.S., Godfrey says, as manufacturers encounter a shrinking market made more difficult to access under Trump’s policies, while a global market awaits. 

Trump, he says, “is undercutting his own policy on American global leadership and energy dominance and sparking debate among manufacturers. ‘Why stay here when I can go and serve the rest of the market abroad? I don’t know if the next factory I build will be in the U.S.’”

Other clean energy technologies, such as hydropower and geothermal, must begin construction by 2033 to qualify for the full tax credit, which begins to phase out in 2034.

“Making new clean electricity less economic will decrease new investment by utilities and independent power producers, threatening the ability to bring new capacity online in time to meet demand forecasts and significantly raising the costs to do so,” says Energy Innovation, which noted clean energy accounted for more than 90 percent of new capacity added to the U.S. grid in 2024. By contrast, gas turbine deliveries are backlogged until at least 2029. 

The OBBBA is projected to decrease cumulative new electricity capacity in Nevada by 0.7 gigawatts by 2030 and by 3.8 gigawatts by 2035. Nevada’s electric generating capacity was 16.72 gigawatts as of March, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Rooftop Solar: Not dead yet? 

Trump’s agenda “takes a sledgehammer to rooftop solar, and distributed energy broadly,” Godfrey says. The credit that has helped finance almost a third of the cost of rooftop solar systems expires at the end of the year under the OBBBA. 

According to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Nevadans claimed more than $137 million in credits for investments in residential electricity generation on their 2024 tax returns.

But rooftop solar isn’t dead, Godfrey says. Instead, it will find new ways to survive, such as leasing agreements “that can endure a little longer, despite some of the efforts of policymakers to gut those, too.” 

Electric vehicles and fuel prices 

The first apparent casualty of the OBBBA could be the electric vehicle market, as federal tax credits of $7,500 for buyers of new EVs and $4,000 for those who purchase used electric vehicles, expire on Sept. 30 of this year. Their termination could slow EV sales, especially among middle-income households, experts say. 

Trump’s bill also reduces the incentive for automakers to purchase electric vehicle credits from companies that produce a surplus of EVs, rendering the credits worthless, according to some.  

The OBBBA enacts a new tax credit that allows buyers to deduct up to $10,000 in loan interest from 2025 to 2028 on all vehicles assembled in the U.S., but the cost of powering combustion engines is expected to rise as the cost of gasoline is projected to increase by $.32 cents per gallon by 2035. 

“We find the average Nevada household will spend $170 more on annual vehicle fuel alone in 2030 and $350 annually in 2035,” says Energy Innovation’s analysis. 

While the Trump agenda bill preserves incentives for manufacturing EV batteries, “it destroys demand for them,” says Godfrey. 

In 2014, Nevada lawmakers approved a smorgasboard of incentives totalling some $1.3 billion for Tesla’s Gigafactory in Northern Nevada, which makes battery cells, and turns out semi-trucks. In 2023, the state forked over another $330 million in incentives for the plant’s expansion. 

Dirty air 

The bill’s provisions, combined with Trump’s executive actions, could lead to more than 7 billion tons of additional greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, an about-face from clean energy momentum spurred by Biden-era policies. 

Air pollution, particularly from power plants and vehicles, is expected to worsen in  

Nevada. Annual emissions are expected to increase by more than 200,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide – the equivalent of adding 430,000 cars to the road, according to Energy Innovation. That’s not including the impacts of other Trump policies, such as the repeal of Environmental Protection Agency rules regarding carbon emissions from power plants. 

Nuclear resurgence 

According to Stateline, in the last two years, around two dozen states have taken legislative action to promote nuclear power, including integrating it into long-term energy plans. 

“Certainly nuclear wound up with better treatment than wind and solar under this tax package. I would remain hopeful that we see continued innovation there, and ultimately deployment in the medium to long term,” said Godfrey of Advanced Energy United. 

Only two small modular reactors are in operation, one in China and another in Russia. Two companies hold federal permits to build a modular reactor in the U.S.

Colorado’s Democratic Gov. Jared Polis signed legislation in April redefining nuclear energy as a “clean energy resource.” Future nuclear plants will be eligible to receive state grants previously reserved for other carbon-free energy sources.

What’s next? 

As provisions of the OBBBA thwart investment and proliferation of clean energy products, state leaders “need to be committed to make sure these technologies are able to expand,” says Emilie Olson of Advanced Energy United. 

Toward that end, she says, leaders can embrace policies that enable residents to take advantage of virtual power plants and energy management systems that allow them to generate power from EV batteries, smart meters, and other technologies, and sell it back to the grid.  

“Those are things that state policymakers can stand up for and make happen, regardless of the whims of what’s happening on the Hill,” she said.

Republican Rep. Mark Amodei, the only member of the Nevada delegation to vote in favor of Trump’s bill, did not respond to requests for comment on the measure’s expected impacts in Nevada. 

Gov. Joe Lombardo, who has embraced clean energy projects, including many made possible during the Biden era, also did not respond.