The clean energy economy has been on an absolute rip-roaring tear.  

Critical to this explosive growth has been a series of strategic policies passed by Congress over the past several years: tactical investments, targeted incentives, and a deliberate commitment to establishing market certainty.  

These are the policies that coiled the clean energy spring; that assembled new workforces; that unlocked the economy-transforming, leveling-up types of investments that don’t just prefer but require a long-term view.  

These are the policies that unleashed a quadrupling of investment in clean energy-related manufacturing over the past two years compared to the two before; growth in clean energy jobs occurring at more than double the rate of the US labor market as a whole; more than $270 billion in project investments last year alone; and the positioning of hundreds of billions of dollars more.  

These are the policies that all corners of the United States are actively, massively benefitting from—and these are the same policies that are now incomprehensibly, nonsensically under attack.  

The first line of attack has been at the hands of the Trump administration, which since day one has propagated numerous illegal actions in an attempt to undermine these policies and kneecap the surging clean energy economy and all the public benefits it brings. But as brazen as these attacks have been, they can only go so far because the Trump administration’s actions will ultimately run up against the fact that these policies are based on laws, and those laws still stand.  

Congress, on the other hand, can change the law. 

And therein lies the second line of attack. Right now, Republicans in Congress are considering using a process called budget reconciliation to implement sweeping changes to the nation’s laws, including threatening to roll back the very clean energy policies that have proven so transformational to unlocking the next generation of the United States’ economy. 

Why?  

Two reasons. First, to scrounge up a minor fraction of the funds needed to offset the staggeringly high $5-6 trillion cost of their foremost policy agenda, issuing tax cuts for corporations and the nation’s wealthiest individuals. And second, to rack up points in an ideological messaging war–even if those “wins” would sacrifice thousands of new jobs and billions of dollars of investments in states and communities all across the country, including in lawmakers’ own districts. 

Suffice it to say, despite early bluster, Republicans are increasingly on the record as having second thoughts. 

It is critical for people and companies to stand up and speak out now in defense of commonsense clean energy policies that drive the nation’s economy forward by capitalizing on the United States’ world-leading innovations and job-creating opportunities.  

As my colleague David Watkins explains, budget reconciliation is a process that enables passage of legislation via simple majorities in both the House and Senate, provided those policies are foremost related to budgetary changes—as in, spending, revenues, or raising the debt limit. Because of the fast-track policy path it allows, in recent years as a means of advancing partisan legislation during periods when one party controls the House, Senate, and presidency. 

The details of the process spiral quickly. However, there are really just three key pieces to track: 

• The budget resolution. This is what sets the overall amount by which the budget must be decreased (or increased). The budget resolution also includes… 

• Committee instructions. This is what directs various committees (e.g., the House Ways and Means Committee, the Senate Finance Committee) how much they must reduce—or how much they can increase—total spending under their jurisdiction. This is where the toplines turn into the fine print: where, for instance, a command for a committee to reduce spending by $100 billion overall turns into the specifics of how to actually achieve those reductions, such as by cutting specific spending programs, by specific amounts, over specific years.  

• Final passage. While the procedural specifics can be complex, in practice, the House and Senate can either closely coordinate from the start, iterate on proposals, or work separately and attempt to bridge gaps down the line. Eventually, it all must reach shared agreement in a final package, passed by both bodies, and signed by the president.  

On April 10, Republicans in Congress officially moved past the first phase. However, this process proceeded atypically, with Senate and House Republicans ultimately adopting a resolution of, effectively, irresolution. As in: they kicked the can—in fact, many cans—down the road. 

Certain of these issues, such as setting vastly different budget targets for the House versus the Senate, are so massive they threaten to fully undermine the ability of Republicans to actually pass a budget reconciliation package this year. Still, for now, the process presses on.  

There are numerous areas of federal policy that influence decisions around what gets built in the energy system—and, as importantly, what doesn’t—as well as who does the building, who reaps the rewards, who bears the costs, and how long the process takes.  

Some of the policies that have recently proven most important in catalyzing large-scale, large-dollar, long-timeline types of investments have been those that signal to innovators, investors, and labor alike that this is a country that values the clean energy industry and, as a result, stands committed to seeing it succeed. This includes by acknowledging the severe climate and health harms associated with fossil fuel use, as well as by directly addressing a number of challenges standing in the way of the clean energy sector’s success, such as innovation gaps, supply-chain hitches, market formation, and—critically—unambiguous commitment to market certainty. 

Given, then, that a foundational contribution of each such policy is its clear signaling of the nation’s commitment to facilitating the buildout of a robust clean energy economy, the very fact that repeal is even being discussed is deeply damaging, already driving billions of dollars in project cancellations since the start of the year.   

Still, actually repealing these policies would be catastrophically worse. First, for what gets lost in the immediate: the planned investments, the scoped projects, the promised jobs. Second, for the cascading losses that follow: the future investments that are never made, the future jobs that are never created, the future innovations and manufacturing ceded to other economies with more supportive research and development environments—plus because of these losses, the slower path to fighting, and higher costs of experiencing, climate change. And then there’s third: the undermining of any future US policy to achieve its intended aims, whatever they may be, given that repeal would signal the country’s apparent tolerance for reneging on grants, reversing loans, and repealing long-horizon, long-timeline incentives.  

For a sense of how this could play out in the time ahead, consider two very different types of energy policies and the range of outcomes Republicans in Congress have variously discussed.  

First, the clean electricity production and investment tax credits (45Y/48E). These tax credits help to incentivize the deployment of clean electricity generating resources. This mission is made all the more critical as electricity demand surges to meet data center needs and utilities across the country are scrambling to bring new sources of power online as fast as possible—and renewables plus energy storage are routinely the fastest resource additions .  

Right now, Republican lawmakers are considering outcomes for 45Y/48E ranging from outright repeal, to rapid credit phase down, to limiting access to only non-wind and solar resources.  

Here’s the thing. While only one of these is technically an outright “repeal,” all of them would result in catastrophically bad outcomes for clean energy deployment because all of them would undermine the mission-critical signal that the nation is committed to a clean economy, meaning all of them would undermine the large-scale investments required to meaningfully grow the sector. Moreover, these pivots would all slow down clean energy deployment exactly as the nation confronts an urgent need for new energy resources. This could lead to utility bill increases of approximately $6.1 billion annually in 2030 ($40-60 per household) and $12 billion in 2035 ($56-150 per household). 

Second, consider the fate of DOGE-targeted funds—including obligated but then illegally rescinded funds—authorized and appropriated by past Congresses to target specific gaps holding back clean energy deployment.  

Currently, Republicans are considering seizing those funds to help offset the costs of their planned tax cuts, despite the fact that private capital, and sometimes state and local funds, has already been allocated; initiatives have been spun up; researchers have been deployed; and in many instances, work is already underway. Yanking those funds now would be a staggeringly bad way to run an economy and a staggeringly fast way to send the nation’s leading innovators afield. 

When it comes to what happens to clean energy policies in the time ahead, it’s not just a question of how they could be attacked—it’s also, and ultimately even more so, a question of whether. As in, will they really do it? 

To answer that question, it requires going back to the various Republican motivations driving these debates as each has different implications for possible outcomes. 

Delivering reductions in spending. Reductions in spending are also sometimes referred to as budgetary offsets, or “pay-fors,” as in paying for the cost of other policy priorities elsewhere in the budget. The foremost Republican policy priority for this budget reconciliation package—advancing tax cuts for corporations and the nation’s wealthiest individuals—is incredibly, mind-bendingly costly, meaning every single other policy is now forced to go under the microscope. 

• Implications for clean energy: Mixed. On the one hand, the budgetary cost of key clean energy policies is relatively small—especially compared to the overall economic benefits those policies create in building out the foundations of a robust, forward-looking economy. Repealing them on economic grounds makes no sense. On the other hand, these policies primarily focus on building out future economic opportunities, meaning the counterfactual is less visceral than cutting something people rely on today, such as Medicaid. 

Scoring ideological points. President Trump has repeatedly worked to politicize anything related to clean energy, regardless of the significant and surging dividends the clean energy economy is paying to people, communities, and businesses all across the country. 

• Implications for clean energy: Mixed. While it’s clear certain Republicans would like to score points by dunking on perceived “green” priorities, when actual (instead of hypothetical) clean energy policies are put on the table—and referred to by the jobs they create, the investments that they drive, and the forward-looking opportunities they generate—the enthusiasm for actual real-world policy changes rapidly wanes, as the specter of a pyrrhic victory looms large.  

Preserving economic opportunities: Approximately 75 percent of the funds flowing from recently passed clean energy policies have gone to Republican-held districts—investments in local economies, with good-paying jobs, spurring even more opportunities to follow. Numerous Republicans are on record as supporting, at minimum, clean energy investments in their districts; attending ribbon-cuttings, investigating funding freezes, raising flags about policy changes that would result in real economic—and subsequently constituent and donor—blowback.  

• Implications for clean energy: Positive. Clean energy is a proven economic engine, locally and for the nation as a whole. These policies are capitalizing on US innovation and expertise to drive the economy forward, which is critical as economic competitiveness on the global scale increasingly pivots to clean. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle know that faltering on these policies now risks ceding leadership for decades to come. 

Considering the interplay between these dueling dynamics, there is clearly a high pay-off for antagonistic rhetoric, but possibly real reservations around making actual, substantive cuts.  

Still, there’s no question that this moment presents real peril for the clean energy industry—not for any way in which the industry itself has faltered, but instead because of short-sighted reconciliation policy priorities aimed at benefitting a narrow few. 

It is already evident how incredibly effective recently passed clean energy policies have been in driving the beginnings of an economy-shifting revolution. These policies are already yielding massive dividends across industries, across geographies, across parties. 

Ultimately, smart clean energy policy is good economic policy, full stop. Reversing course now would be harmful to the nation’s economy in the immediate and over the long-term. And that goes for recent investments in clean transportation, climate-smart agriculture, and climate resilience as well. 

People and businesses would do well to remind policymakers in Congress of the critical importance of these policies and demand that as budget reconciliation moves forward, one of the most promising economic engines for the future of our country should not, cannot, must not be sacrificed at the altar of yet more tax cuts for favored corporations and the wealthiest few.