ICYMI: New York Times: Clean Energy Is Booming in the U.S. The Election Could Change That.

Washington, D.C. — Today, the New York Times reported on the stakes of the 2024 election for clean energy manufacturing jobs. Donald Trump will end our clean energy manufacturing boom and put the hundreds of thousands of jobs it created at risk, while Kamala Harris will continue to invest in good-paying jobs that lower costs for all Americans.  

New York Times: Clean Energy Is Booming in the U.S. The Election Could Change That.

Over the last two years, a surge in clean energy manufacturing has helped push U.S. factory construction to the highest level in half a century. Solar power installations and electric car sales are breaking records. Even Republican-led states like Montana and Utah are writing climate plans to secure federal cash.

Yet the law driving this dizzying transformation of America’s energy landscape, the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, is facing a highly uncertain future as next week’s election looms.

If he returns to the White House, former President Donald J. Trump has suggested he would gut the law, which is expected to pour as much as $1.2 trillion over the next decade into technologies to fight climate change such as wind turbines, solar panels, nuclear reactors, carbon capture and E.V.s, as well as the factories to supply them.

“My plan will terminate the Green New Deal, which I call the Green New Scam,” Mr. Trump said in September, using his catchall phrase for climate policies. “We will rescind all unspent funds under the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act.”

By contrast, Vice President Kamala Harris, who cast the law’s tiebreaking vote in the Senate, hopes to accelerate the growth of clean energy to slash greenhouse gas emissions, though that would require speeding up federal permits while overcoming local opposition and electric grid constraints.

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One recent survey of 900 companies in the clean energy industry found that 53 percent said they would lose business if the Inflation Reduction Act were repealed, and 21 percent said they would have to shed workers.

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If elected, Mr. Trump, who has railed against subsidies for electric cars, could try to scrap the law’s $7,500 tax credit for consumers to purchase E.V.s built in the United States. He could try to repeal a provision that charges oil and gas companies up to $1,500 for every ton of methane that leaks from their systems. Or he could revise guidelines around certain energy tax credits, making them harder to obtain.