Many members of Congress intend both to roll back the renewable-energy incentives of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and give fossil-fuel companies virtual carte blanche to produce more climate-destroying oil, gas, and coal.

This double-edged threat to Ohio’s remarkable economic and employment gains since the IRA’s passage calls on all Ohioans concerned about our workforce and the climate crisis to push back firmly, respectfully, and repeatedly.

But first, what, more exactly, is at stake?

The IRA has created 4,854 new jobs for Ohioans, according to the nonpartisan Clean Economy Works. Six congressional districts in Ohio collectively received $6.19 billion to make electric vehicles (EVs), batteries, and associated components.

According to the U.S. Treasury Department, in 2023, more than 109,000 Ohio homeowners received $150 million in IRA tax credits for energy-efficiency upgrades.

These figures do not include monthly savings in utility bills. Or, how IRA incentives promote more innovation, as with First Solar’s new research-and-development facilities and solar panel factories near Toledo and elsewhere.

Former U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm rightly calls these developments America’s “manufacturing renaissance.” That includes Intel’s future computer-chip fabrication facility outside Columbus, which, once the project starts, is projected to create 7,000 construction jobs, 3,000 full-time ones, and tens of thousands of indirect jobs.

In Ohio and across the country, jobs and factories incentivized by the IRA and related green-energy legislation are projected to generate $50 billion in new tax dollars for local, state, and federal governments, according to a report commissioned by the American Clean Power Association. Over the next decade, they could add almost $2 trillion to the U.S. economy. In Granholm’s words, that represents building “American products on American soil with American workers.”

Indeed, in 2024, the United States installed 47% more renewable energy capacity than in the previous year, an astonishing upswing mostly due to the IRA, writes Michael Thomas in a recent report from the research firm Cleanview.

Thomas and other experts agree that if Congress halts incentives for renewables, the impacts on the energy sector and the economy could be devastating. Utility customers, for example, could see an average increase of 10% in energy bills, according to one analysis, since electric grids now depend in part on wind and solar, not just fossil fuels, to meet ever-increasing demand.

Jim Farley, CEO of Ford Motor Co., maker of the all-electric F-150, one of America’s best-selling pickups, warned in February that rollbacks in the IRA, coupled with 25% tariffs on cars and auto parts from Canada and Mexico, could force the company to lay off workers. Ford operates new or refurbished EV plants in Ohio and three other Midwestern states.

Unleashed fossil-fuel exploration and drilling willnot create a jobs boom. America already produces the most oil and oil exports of any nation. That, plus lackluster oil prices and softened market demand, have discouraged major investments. Oil major Chevron said in February it was looking at layoffs of as many as 9,000, about 20% of its workforce.

What can we do?

Make the case to Ohio’s members of Congress that IRA incentives for EVs, batteries, solar panels, wind turbines, and the Ohio factories and workers that make them and their components, reap enormous economic and employment benefits for the state. Jump-started by the IRA, the transition to the all-electric future unfolding here in Ohio and across the country cannot be stopped, but it can be slowed, crippled, or paused for years. That could precipitate greater political polarization, stagnant economic growth, job losses painful in number and impact, and far greater climate peril. Don’t wait. Write, call, or text U.S. Sens. Jon Husted and Bernie Moreno of Ohio, and your U.S. House member.

Edward W. Wolner of Oberlin often writes about the climate crisis.

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