Clean tech and energy industries seek path forward after Trump victory

November 6, 2024

Clean-energy companies that enjoyed a boom under Democratic climate policies are now hoping that the bipartisan appeal of clean tech job growth will help them through a more hostile political environment under President Donald Trump.

Trump has called climate change “a hoax,” and is likely to pull the U.S. out of the international Paris Agreement on climate change, as he did during his first presidency. Trump has also pledged to roll back President Joe Biden‘s climate regulations and undo loan programs and tax incentives for clean-energy development, clean tech manufacturing and electric vehicle purchases.

The Inflation Reduction Act, Biden’s key climate achievement and the most expansive climate action in U.S. history, is the main point of concern for clean-energy groups and likely one of the main targets for Trump.

The IRA’s loan guarantees and tax incentives triggered more than $265 billion in clean-energy project announcements and created more than 300,000 jobs, according to the White House. Although the IRA passed Congress without any Republican support, most of the projects and jobs it brought about are in politically red states and congressional districts.

Trump Election Florida
President-elect Donald Trump departs an election night event at the Palm Beach Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Florida. Trump’s return to the White House will challenge clean energy and clean tech companies that benefited…
President-elect Donald Trump departs an election night event at the Palm Beach Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Florida. Trump’s return to the White House will challenge clean energy and clean tech companies that benefited from Biden-era climate policy.

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A recent analysis by The Washington Post found that districts that supported Trump in 2020 reaped about two-thirds of the IRA’s benefits. Nine of the top 10 districts receiving the greatest share of clean-energy investments are represented by Republicans.

“There certainly are jobs, economic development, at stake in those places, which would be upended if those laws were repealed or changed in any significant way,” Clean Air Task Force Senior Director, U.S., Conrad Schneider told Newsweek following the election results.

The CATF is an environmental organization that works with companies to advance clean technologies and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Schneider said the IRA’s bipartisan impact could insulate it.

“We’re going to have to see whether the political economy of that is going to be sufficient to make them durable as we move into a new administration and new Congress,” he said. There is already some evidence that the law is winning bipartisan support.

Even as House Republicans attempted to repeal parts of the IRA this year, 18 Republicans signed a letter to party leaders arguing that the law’s tax incentives should stay in place.

“A full repeal would create a worst-case scenario where we would have spent billions of taxpayer dollars and received next to nothing in return,” the Republican lawmakers wrote.

Mindy Lubber, CEO and president of the sustainability nonprofit Ceres, works with hundreds of clean tech businesses and investors to promote private sector climate action. Lubber compared Trump’s threats to repeal the IRA to earlier pledges to do away with the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.

“Nobody got rid of it because it was working,” Lubber told Newsweek. “I do think things like the IRA are working, they’re working in places that are red and blue, bringing jobs to states that are desperately looking for jobs.”

Other clean-energy business groups echoed the bipartisan appeal of clean tech development in statements about the election or argued that the clean-energy transition is gaining its own momentum regardless of politics.

“The energy transition is now hardwired into the U.S. economy,” Lisa Jacobson, president of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy, said in a statement. The council represents business leaders from more than 60 companies and organizations in the energy efficiency, renewable energy and natural gas sectors. “Clean energy businesses are bringing economic growth to the communities that need it most while onshoring manufacturing and creating new jobs,” Jacobson said.

Tigo Energy, a solar tech manufacturer based in California, said in its statement that the clean-energy transition will continue regardless of who is in the White House. “The march toward renewable clean energy is both inevitable and the right thing to do,” Tigo Energy Chief Marketing Officer J.D. Dillon said.

Mike Carr, executive director of the Solar Energy Manufacturers for America Coalition, noted that Trump’s affinity for tariffs on imported products could help the U.S. solar industry.

“Smart trade and tax policy can shield thousands of American manufacturing workers from the relentless onslaught of state-backed Chinese firms’ anticompetitive business practices,” Carr said in a statement.

Biden also imposed steep tariffs on solar panels, components, batteries and other clean-energy products manufactured in China.

The CATF’s Schneider said regulatory rollbacks are another concern for clean tech companies as Trump is likely to target Biden administration rules on tailpipe auto emissions, carbon pollution from power plants and methane emissions from oil and gas production.

“That cannot be done with a single stroke of a pen,” Schneider said. He added that as his group and others use the court system to fight against rollbacks, he expects to get support from some in the private sector who benefit from a stable and predictable set of regulations.

“There are winners and losers across the political economy from those regulations that will want to have a say in what happens to them going forward,” he said.

Lubber of Ceres said that state and local action on climate change will become more important if Trump pulls the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement again.

She expects to see a similar response to the one in 2017 when dozens of city and state officials and more than 100 large corporations committed to remain engaged in the Paris Agreement even after the U.S. withdrew. Additionally, she said, companies that operate internationally will need to meet new climate-related rules for doing business in the European Union and U.K.

“I wouldn’t discount the presence of the private sector and its commitment to climate action,” Lubber said. Companies have invested significant resources in their plans for emissions reductions and, in many cases, find their action improves business operations and helps to address risks from climate impacts.

“I find it hard to believe that all of that is somehow going to disappear,” Lubber said. “I just think that momentum is unstoppable.”