Latest news with #EnergyInnovation
The Guardian
4 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
‘Going to increase prices on everybody': US energy department workers sound alarm over cuts
Workers at the US Department of Energy say cuts and deregulations are undermining the ability for the department to function and will result in significant energy cost hikes for consumers. Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' will raise energy costs for American households by as much as 7% in 2035 due to the repeal of energy tax credits and could put significant investment and energy innovation at risk, according to a report by the Rhodium Group. The non-partisan think tank Energy Innovation calculated the average US household will see its utility bills rise by over $230 by 2035 as a result of cuts to renewable energy investments. The rises are being driven in part by cuts to the agency. Trump has proposed cutting the department's budget by $19.3bn. More than 3,500 employees at the Department of Energy have reportedly taken delayed resignation buyout offers, though the Department of Energy declined to provide final numbers or an estimate on the departures. Some 43% of its workforce of nearly 16,000 employees was deemed 'non-essential', not including 555 probationary employees that were fired earlier this year. The US Department of Energy announced on 12 May plans to eliminate 47 regulations, comprising mostly of energy efficiency standards for appliances, claiming the cuts would save nearly $11bn, but did not provide any analysis or data for how it came to that savings estimate. The Department of Energy estimated in December 2024 that stronger energy efficiency appliance standards would save consumers about $1trn over the next three decades. An analysis by the Appliance Standards Awareness Project found the energy efficiency cuts would add $54bn in utility energy costs. 'The impact of a lot of what I was working on in the energy efficiency and electrification space is aimed at saving folks money. The business case around energy efficiency has been made for the past 30 years. Reducing the cost of energy, any of those fixed costs for folks, can really be life changing, freeing up their budget for other necessities,' said a US Department of Energy employee who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation as they have accepted a resignation buyout offer. 'Changing that has so many effects down the line,' they added. 'We already know things are getting more expensive. Budgets are getting tighter for many households in the state, and also territories and tribes. The work that I did was not only with states, but also with us, territories and tribes as well, and a lot of these communities, every dollar matters, and that's not unique to red or blue areas or anything like that.' Another employee at the US Department of Energy said morale at the department sank after attacks on civil servants by the so-called 'department of government efficiency' (Doge) and the chaos and uncertainty of the firings of probationary employees, contractors, and employees resigning, leaving a drain on resources, talent and knowledge throughout the agency. 'Appointees came in with a clear agenda to dismantle programs and shrink staff,' they said. 'It is very clear they don't care about the work or the workforce. Many were looking to score points with Doge and made quick cuts without concerns for long-term damage, such as the chaos and lost knowledge caused by the delayed resignation program.' A former senior Department of Energy official who requested to remain anonymous explained the totality of the cuts to personnel, grants, regulations, and budget for the department are 'going to increase prices on everybody'. 'As much as the election was on affordability, there's a reason that Trump is doing incredibly poorly on affordability and inflation. I think what's happening at the Department of Energy is just such a great example of a whole variety of efforts that near-term, medium-term and longer-term are going to raise prices on consumers, on companies, and make us less competitive internationally,' they said. 'The efficiency regulations end up saving consumers an awful lot of money, certainly as a percentage of their budget. I don't think there is any truth whatsoever, if you talk to anyone who's ever done analysis and rigor on this, that somehow not doing these regulations is actually saving money. It's the exact opposite if you think of the whole system.' They also criticized the fact that many of these actions will result in lawsuits and legal changes, and the negative impacts of research and development cuts to renewable energy. They cited the demand for energy to power emerging AI and data centers and energy consumption is expected to rise significantly and wind, solar, and battery energy storage are relatively quick and cheap to construct. About 96% of added US energy capacity to the grid in 2024 was from carbon-free sources. 'If you stop any research for next generation solar or battery technology, or wind or geothermal or other pieces, what you're effectively doing is compromising a huge range of technology that has the potential to reduce costs, and of course, has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But even if you don't care about that, these are the technologies that could reduce costs for consumers,' they added. 'The chaos with the tariffs, with the regulations, with the not fully thought through and analyzed nature of this is just causing a lot of confusion, a lot of incoherence, a lot of inconsistency and uncertainty. And that's just not good for businesses, let alone consumers.' A spokesperson for the US Department of Energy refuted claims of costs due to eliminating regulations. 'President Trump and Secretary Wright pledged to restore commonsense to our regulatory policies and lower costs for American consumers – that is exactly what these deregulatory actions do. To argue consumers benefit from being forced to purchase more-expensive, time-intensive products that are often less energy efficient because they don't do the job right the first time is total nonsense,' they said in an email. 'DOE's approach recognizes that consumer choice and market-driven innovation, not bureaucratic mandates, lead to better-performing and more affordable consumer products. DOE's deregulatory actions empower consumers to choose products that meet their needs and budgets, while also supporting American manufacturers.'
E&E News
5 days ago
- Business
- E&E News
Electric trucks to hit cost parity with diesel rigs by 2030 — report
By the end of the decade, the cost of buying and operating electric trucks could equal — or even beat — the price of comparable diesel vehicles, new research shows. But to help make that happen state and federal officials need to keep in place policies that are designed to foster the electric transition, says Energy Innovation and the International Council on Clean Transportation, the two groups that wrote the report. At the moment, the U.S. electric truck market is an anomaly compared with the rest of the world. Advertisement Companies are investing more in battery manufacturing in the United States than in China or Europe — and battery costs are declining. Yet the cost of electric trucks remains higher in the U.S. than abroad, in part because few companies make those vehicles.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump's tax bill to cost 830,000 jobs and drive up bills and pollution emissions, experts warn
A Republican push to dismantle clean energy incentives threatens to reverberate across the US by costing more than 830,000 jobs, raising energy bills for US households and threatening to unleash millions more tonnes of the planet-heating pollution that is causing the climate crisis, experts have warned. A major tax bill passed by the Republican-held House of Representatives on Thursday morning will, as currently written, demolish key components of climate legislation signed by Joe Biden that has spurred a record torrent of renewable energy and electric vehicle investment in the US. Under the reconciliation bill, tax credits for cleaner cars will end this year, with incentives for wind, solar and even nuclear energy projects scaled down and then eliminated by 2032. Clean energy manufacturing tax credits will be axed by 2031, while Americans seeking to upgrade their homes to cleaner or more energy efficient appliances will get no further subsidy after the end of this year. 'This bill is worse than what people envisioned – it pulls the rug out from facilities banking on these incentives, it raises everyday household costs by hundreds of dollars and undercuts any sort of action on climate change,' said Robbie Orvis, senior director at Energy Innovation, a non-partisan climate policy thinktank. 'You can't overstate how significant this will be in weakening the US's position. With inflation, tariffs and rising electricity use, it really couldn't come at a worse time. It's a really damaging bill.' Since the passage of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, more than $320bn has flowed mostly to Republican-held districts in the form of new clean energy development and electric car construction. A further $522bn in investment is in the pipeline but is now menaced by the Republican bill's removal of tax incentives. 'You're talking about half a trillion dollars of investment at risk from these changes,' said Orvis. 'Over 10 years, we found that these changes would reduce US GDP by over $1tn.' The legislation also follows months of attacks on green spending from the Trump administration, including the end of energy efficiency programs and climate-focused grantmaking and loans. 'If you take all of that together, all of these pieces have the same effect: it's going to increase prices on everybody,' one former senior Department of Energy official said. Related: Godfather of climate science decries Trump plan to shut Nasa lab above Seinfeld diner: 'It's crazy' Republicans wrangled over how far to slash the IRA's tax bill as it stands will cause Americans' energy bills to spike by stymying new renewable energy – often the cheapest form of new electricity generation – the non-partisan thinktank Energy Innovation calculated. The average household will see their bills rise by more than $230 by 2035. This comes on top of the cost of tariffs imposed by Donald Trump, who has attempted to aggressively push the US to 'drill, baby, drill' for more oil and gas at the expense of solar and wind, which he has called 'ugly' and 'disgusting' and barred from federal lands and waters. 'This will all come at the expense of the environment,' said Orvis. The new bill will also cause the US to emit 260m tonnes more pollution than it would've otherwise in 2035, which is more than the entire annual emissions of Spain. While emissions would still decline overall, the US is cutting pollution far too slowly to avert the worst impacts from the heatwaves, floods, drought and other disasters fueled by global heating. And the legislation will cost the US 830,000 jobs by 2030 compared with the status quo, Energy Innovation found. That includes the direct loss of jobs in fields such as solar panel manufacturing and electric vehicle production, indirect job loss from the decreased investments and lower clean energy demand, and induced cuts resulting from consumer spending cuts attributable to layoffs, higher fuel costs, and other third-order effects. 'The Inflation Reduction Act was carefully crafted to create good-paying jobs in deindustrialized communities, underserved communities, and coal communities. We have seen that it is doing just that, creating good jobs you don't need a college degree to get and opening up pathways to the middle class across the nation,' said Ted Fertik, vice-president of manufacturing and industrial policy at climate and labor advocacy group Blue Green Alliance. 'Killing the tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act is a direct attack on working Americans.' Other experts have also warned about the devastating consequences of the legislation. By 2028, the reconciliation bill would kill approximately 300,000 jobs in the solar and energy storage sectors, found an analysis from the industry group Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) released on Monday. Organized labor is increasingly speaking out against the megabill. This week, the president of the North America's Building Trades Unions said: 'Job cuts for blue-collar Americans should not foot the bill for billionaire tax cuts.' And last week, the president of an electrical worker union in Washington state wrote an op-ed defending the IRA. Related: 'A ruthless agenda': charting 100 days of Trump's onslaught on the environment Warring blocs in the GOP fought for months over the fate of the IRA's green incentives. While some moderate, IRA-defending Republicans floated reconciliation language aimed at preserving its green credits, a handful of hardliners demanded an even quicker phaseout of clean energy programs. The latter faction has critiqued the IRA on the grounds that it is anti-populist, with Oklahoma congressperson Josh Brecheen deeming it 'nothing more than a massive, taxpayer-funded gift to green energy lobbyists and their leftist billionaire employers' and Texas congressperson Chip Roy critiquing calling it the 'green new scam'. But the rich are expected to benefit most from the reconciliation bill's tax cuts, while the rollback of IRA credits is expected to raise household costs and slash employment – particularly in red districts, which have enjoyed the vast majority of investment spurred by the IRA. The Republican legislation, which will act as an effective repeal of the climate bill, is compounded by the actions of the Trump administration, which has set about eviscerating rules limiting pollution from cars, trucks and power plants and sought to halt other efforts to tackle the climate crisis. The combined impact of all these actions is set to exact a greater toll than the bill itself, resulting in as much as 730m tonnes of extra pollution over the next decade, a separate study by Rhodium, another energy research group, has found. 'This is just about as bad as it gets,' said Ben King, associate director at Rhodium. 'If you're a solar or wind developer, there's no reason you'd choose the US rather than China after this. The proposals are cutting off the nose to spite the face, it's unclear what the policy objectives are other than they don't like the policies. Michael Saintao contributed reporting
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
House Republicans Vote to Kill Job-Creating Clean Energy and Manufacturing Investments and Tax Credits
WASHINGTON, D.C., May 22, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- In a nearly party-line vote, House Republicans passed a budget reconciliation bill that would effectively kill clean energy and manufacturing tax credits. Every single Democratic member of the House voted against the bill. This legislation introduces provisions that would effectively kill the job-creating investments in the Inflation Reduction Act by rendering the law's tax credits for clean energy and advanced manufacturing unusable and sunsetting them early. Recently released modeling from Energy Innovation found that the Republican bill would cost Americans more than 830,000 jobs for just the year of 2030, and 720,000 jobs for just the year 2035. These numbers do not account for the likely cancellations of planned clean energy manufacturing facilities. 'These clean energy tax credits have been a game changer for communities across the nation, including in the districts of the Republican representatives,' said BlueGreen Alliance Executive Director Jason Walsh. 'The GOP caved to the MAGA extremists in their party so they could screw over America's workers to stuff the pockets of billionaires.' Additional research suggests killing the credits will increase costs for American families. Other harmful provisions include: Repealing the Clean Vehicle Tax Credits; Repealing the Clean Hydrogen Tax Credit; Clawing back unspent funds for air quality monitoring in schools, clean manufacturing, state and community energy programs, and electric grid upgrades; Defunding and delaying the Methane Emissions Reduction Program (MERP), which reduces pollution and protects the health of workers and communities; Clawing back all unspent Inflation Reduction Act funds, including many provisions that would have lowered energy bills, created jobs, and reduced pollution; and Attacks on additional Inflation Reduction Act programs and initiatives. 'Every single Republican that said they were going to stand up for jobs in their districts either voted for this atrocity or didn't vote,' said Walsh. 'These folks just voted to kill good-paying jobs and huge private investment in their hometowns.' In March, a group of Republican Representatives, led by Rep. Andrew Garbarino (NY-2), penned a letter calling for the protection of the tax credits. Those Representatives are: Reps. Juan Ciscomani (AZ-6), David Valadao (CA-22), Young Kim (CA-40), Earl 'Buddy' Carter (GA-1), Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-1), Erin Houchin (IN-9), Don Bacon (NE-2), Thomas Kean, Jr. (NJ-7), Mark Amodei (NV-2), Nick LaLota (NY-1), Michael Lawler (NY-17), David Joyce (OH-14), Jennifer Kiggans (VA-2), Vince Fong (CA-20), Jeff Hurd (CO-3), Gabe Evans (CO-8), John James (MI-10), Ryan Mackenzie (PA-7), Rob Bresnahan (PA-8), Dan Newhouse (WA-4). While Garbarino himself did not show up for last night's vote, all the other signers voted for the bill. 'Now the fight moves to the Senate. We urge all Americans to call their Senators and remind them who they work for. We will not stand by as they kill family-sustaining, union jobs, increase energy prices, and surrender our manufacturing future to China while trashing our clean air and water,' Walsh said. CONTACT: Abby Harvey BlueGreen Alliance 9208381661 aharvey@ in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Business Mayor
22-05-2025
- Business
- Business Mayor
Trump's tax bill to cost 830,000 jobs and drive up bills and pollution emissions, experts warn
A Republican push to dismantle clean energy incentives threatens to reverberate across the US by costing more than 830,000 jobs, raising energy bills for US households and threatening to unleash millions more tonnes of the planet-heating pollution that is causing the climate crisis, experts have warned. A major tax bill passed by the Republican-held House of Representatives on Thursday morning will, as currently written, demolish key components of climate legislation signed by Joe Biden that has spurred a record torrent of renewable energy and electric vehicle investment in the US. Under the reconciliation bill, tax credits for cleaner cars will end this year, with incentives for wind, solar and even nuclear energy projects scaled down and then eliminated by 2032. Clean energy manufacturing tax credits will be axed by 2031, while Americans seeking to upgrade their homes to cleaner or more energy efficient appliances will get no further subsidy after the end of this year. 'This bill is worse than what people envisioned – it pulls the rug out from facilities banking on these incentives, it raises everyday household costs by hundreds of dollars and undercuts any sort of action on climate change,' said Robbie Orvis, senior director at Energy Innovation, a non-partisan climate policy thinktank. The American Refining Group oil refinery in Bradford, Pennsylvania. Photograph: Jim West/Universal'You can't overstate how significant this will be in weakening the US's position. With inflation, tariffs and rising electricity use, it really couldn't come at a worse time. It's a really damaging bill.' Since the passage of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, more than $320bn has flowed mostly to Republican-held districts in the form of new clean energy development and electric car construction. A further $522bn in investment is in the pipeline but is now menaced by the Republican bill's removal of tax incentives. 'You're talking about half a trillion dollars of investment at risk from these changes,' said Orvis. 'Over 10 years, we found that these changes would reduce US GDP by over $1tn.' The legislation also follows months of attacks on green spending from the Trump administration, including the end of energy efficiency programs and climate-focused grantmaking and loans. A stacked bar chart showing how the proposed reconciliation bill is expected to increase energy bills 'If you take all of that together, all of these pieces have the same effect: it's going to increase prices on everybody,' one former senior Department of Energy official said. Republicans wrangled over how far to slash the IRA's tax bill as it stands will cause Americans' energy bills to spike by stymying new renewable energy – often the cheapest form of new electricity generation – the non-partisan thinktank Energy Innovation calculated. The average household will see their bills rise by more than $230 by 2035. This comes on top of the cost of tariffs imposed by Donald Trump, who has attempted to aggressively push the US to 'drill, baby, drill' for more oil and gas at the expense of solar and wind, which he has called 'ugly' and 'disgusting' and barred from federal lands and waters. 'This will all come at the expense of the environment,' said Orvis. The new bill will also cause the US to emit 260m tonnes more pollution than it would've otherwise in 2035, which is more than the entire annual emissions of Spain. While emissions would still decline overall, the US is cutting pollution far too slowly to avert the worst impacts from the heatwaves, floods, drought and other disasters fueled by global heating. Read More G20 panel to suggest ways to enhance MDB lending: NK Singh A line chart showing how the reconciliation bill could undermine efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) And the legislation will cost the US 830,000 jobs by 2030 compared with the status quo, Energy Innovation found. That includes the direct loss of jobs in fields such as solar panel manufacturing and electric vehicle production, indirect job loss from the decreased investments and lower clean energy demand, and induced cuts resulting from consumer spending cuts attributable to layoffs, higher fuel costs, and other third-order effects. 'The Inflation Reduction Act was carefully crafted to create good-paying jobs in deindustrialized communities, underserved communities, and coal communities. We have seen that it is doing just that, creating good jobs you don't need a college degree to get and opening up pathways to the middle class across the nation,' said Ted Fertik, vice-president of manufacturing and industrial policy at climate and labor advocacy group Blue Green Alliance. 'Killing the tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act is a direct attack on working Americans.' Other experts have also warned about the devastating consequences of the legislation. By 2028, the reconciliation bill would kill approximately 300,000 jobs in the solar and energy storage sectors, found an analysis from the industry group Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) released on Monday. Line chart showing how the proposed reconciliation bill would slash hundreds of thousands of domestic jobs Organized labor is increasingly speaking out against the megabill. This week, the president of the North America's Building Trades Unions said: 'Job cuts for blue-collar Americans should not foot the bill for billionaire tax cuts.' And last week, the president of an electrical worker union in Washington state wrote an op-ed defending the IRA. Warring blocs in the GOP fought for months over the fate of the IRA's green incentives. While some moderate, IRA-defending Republicans floated reconciliation language aimed at preserving its green credits, a handful of hardliners demanded an even quicker phaseout of clean energy programs. The latter faction has critiqued the IRA on the grounds that it is anti-populist, with Oklahoma congressperson Josh Brecheen deeming it 'nothing more than a massive, taxpayer-funded gift to green energy lobbyists and their leftist billionaire employers' and Texas congressperson Chip Roy critiquing calling it the 'green new scam'. But the rich are expected to benefit most from the reconciliation bill's tax cuts, while the rollback of IRA credits is expected to raise household costs and slash employment – particularly in red districts, which have enjoyed the vast majority of investment spurred by the IRA. Employees work on the R1S model electric vehicles on the pilot production line at Rivian's headquarters in Irvine, California, on 5 July 2023. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images The Republican legislation, which will act as an effective repeal of the climate bill, is compounded by the actions of the Trump administration, which has set about eviscerating rules limiting pollution from cars, trucks and power plants and sought to halt other efforts to tackle the climate crisis. The combined impact of all these actions is set to exact a greater toll than the bill itself, resulting in as much as 730m tonnes of extra pollution over the next decade, a separate study by Rhodium, another energy research group, has found. 'This is just about as bad as it gets,' said Ben King, associate director at Rhodium. 'If you're a solar or wind developer, there's no reason you'd choose the US rather than China after this. The proposals are cutting off the nose to spite the face, it's unclear what the policy objectives are other than they don't like the policies.
