Trump return will slow, not stop, US clean energy boom
Donald Trump’s return to the White House will refocus the nation’s energy policy onto maximizing oil and gas production and away from fighting climate change, but the Republican win in Tuesday’s presidential elections is unlikely to dramatically slow the US renewable energy boom.
That is because a Biden-era law providing a decade of lucrative subsidies for new solar, wind and other clean energy projects would be near-impossible to repeal, thanks to support from Republican states, while other levers available to the next president would only have marginal impact, analysts say.
“I don’t think a Trump president can slow the transition,” said Ed Hirs, Energy Fellow at the University of Houston. “This is well underway.”
Renewable energy sources like solar and wind are the fastest growing segments on the power grid, according to the Department of Energy, driven by federal tax credits, state renewable energy mandates, and technology advancements that have lowered their costs.
President Joe Biden in 2022 signed into law the Inflation Reduction Act guaranteeing billions of dollars of solar and wind subsidies for another decade as part of his broader effort to decarbonize the power sector by 2035 to fight climate change.
Before the election, Trump slammed the IRA as being too expensive and promised to rescind all unspent funds allocated by the law – a threat that, if accomplished, could pour cold water over the US clean energy boom.
But doing so would require lawmakers, including those whose states have benefited from IRA-related investments like solar panel factories, wind farms and other projects, to vote to repeal it.
“The jobs and the economic benefits have been so heavy in red states, it’s hard to see an administration come in that says we don’t like this,” said Carl Fleming, a partner at law firm McDermott Will & Emery, who advised the Biden White House on renewable energy policy.
Many of Trump’s allies also benefit from the IRA through their investments in clean energy technologies, Reuters has previously reported.
Fleming said Trump could, however, slow things down around the margins by hindering federal agencies that deliver IRA grants and loans, or by reducing federal leasing for things like offshore wind.
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