Op-ed: The GOP’s War on Clean Energy Makes Us Less Secure. Here’s How to Fight Back.

The current tax bill winding it’s way through Congress could go down as the worst disaster for affordable and clean energy, public health, and climate stability in US – and perhaps world — history. This Congress is advancing a massive tsunami of dirty energy dependence, clean energy delay and economic and climate carnage.

America cannot afford two more years of the 119th Congress. If there is no effective counter-attack – discussed below — here’s the deadly and costly toll for individuals and families across the US:

Gone: Protection of Americans from exposure to deadly toxic chemicals like mercury or “forever chemicals.”

Protected: Irresponsible operators of power plants, chemical factories, oil wells, and steel mills.

Destroyed: A secure market for clean, cheap to operate electric vehicles provided by California and a dozen other states.
Bailed out: Another generation of bloated, polluting internal combustion engines, courtesy of the Senate.
Eliminated: Fair tax treatment for purchasers of clean, electric cars and trucks; utilities choosing low cost solar and wind generation options; households and businesses providing their own power.

Locked in: Monopoly and tax privileges for uncompetitive power plants, toxic and overpriced infrastructure.

Abandoned: Fifty years of pledges from Congress, through the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts and more, that Americans would be assured the cleanest possible communities, air, water and food.

Comeback: The right to poison entire communities for any irresponsible company willing to ask for the freedom to pollute.

It’s staggering, and it’s easy to fall into despair. But it’s vital to understand instead how to fight back.

This assault on the public good is rooted in a denial of economic reality – that that reality can turn back the Trump/MAGA agenda starting today.

First, many of these assaults on the public welfare are not yet final deeds.

The elimination of state led-electric vehicle programs has been ruled illegal. Cutting off of fair tax treatment for clean energy has been rejected by the courts. Some Senators are working to revise House proposals to eliminate fair tax treatment of clean energy.

Congress should be reminded over and over again: poisoning the public is not, as President Trump has argued, an unavoidable “side effect of building the modern world.”

The clean energy policy massacre will slow the innovations that drive the energy transition – along with the good paying jobs and investments that go with it.

Here’s what’s at stake: Growth in wind and solar power will slow, eliminating jobs and making utility bills more expensive. Fewer homes and offices will be equipped with self-sufficient solar panels. Utilities will invest less in storage and smart grid technologies.

Fewer drivers will switch to zero emission cars and trucks; fewer homes and offices will be equipped with heat pumps. The cleanup of steel, chemicals, fertilizer, aluminum, and aviation industries will slow.
However, this slowdown of clean energy will not trigger a revival for coal, oil and gas. It’s too late to stop the energy transition and too late to bring back fossil fuels.. Look at the numbers.

Trump’s own energy analysts concede that 93% of the potential new power generation in the US will be sun, wind or battery storage, per the latest US Energy Information Agency data.

The Texas grid manager, ERCOT, can’t find commercially viable contracts for a gas turbine power plants during this decade.

America is no longer the biggest auto market in the world; China is. And more than 50% of Chinese auto consumers choose electric vehicles. The coldest state in the Union, Maine, has more heat pump homes than heating oil ones. Coal, oil and gas no longer compete.

America, however, could pay a huge economic price for the third week in May. If Congress and Trump slow the energy transition, and economics continue to prevent a revival of fossil fuels, the Trump/MAGA formula means a smaller, a weaker and a poorer America.

Trump has proclaimed that the projected 2% annual growth in America’s 2029 power demand should not be met clean energy, while the market has spoken, saying clearly that it cannot be oil, coal and gas. Analysts have told Texas that following the President’s “no more renewables” path means a 14% increase in Lone Star utility bills.

That would mean we will be power short; have a smaller GDP, higher power prices, shortages and greater risk of blackouts. It yields higher death rates from pollution. The eventual harvest of the attack on clean energy is American decline, the US as a backward facing prisoner of fossil fuels.

But there’s an alternative; if Washington won’t lead, the rest of us can.

Major consumers of energy, along with local governments, can identify their energy needs, and move immediately to commission available cheap, clean available power. There’s a huge queue of projects waiting for sponsors and support – almost all clean.

Market forces are already clear: Trump and MAGA don’t control the choices we make – and cheap clean power is one most Americans support.