Why Trump and GOP attacks on IRA can’t score a clean sweep in red states
Volkswagen U.S. assembly of all-electric ID.4 flagship in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 2022.
Volkswagen
The new Republican-majority Congress has wasted no time in making its energy priorities clear. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said from the House floor minutes after his reelection, “We have to stop the attacks on liquefied natural gas, pass legislation to eliminate the Green New Deal. … We’re going to expedite new drilling permits, we’re going to save the jobs of our auto manufacturers, and we’re going to do that by ending the ridiculous E.V. mandates.”
Data from the auto industry shows a more complicated story. There are more investments in EVs and related battery technologies in states under the control of Republican governors than in states run by Democrats. The top 10 states for total investments in EV technology, according to the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, are either solidly red or swing states such as Michigan, Arizona, North Carolina and Nevada. Far from help the fortunes of automakers, Trump confidante Elon Musk is on record as saying that repealing EV incentives would be a pill he could swallow, even as CEO of Tesla, because it would hurt other automakers even more.
Amending or possibly repealing the Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden’s sweeping 2022 law that allocates approximately $369 billion over the next decade to clean-energy and climate-related projects, has been a talking point for President-elect Trump and many members of the GOP. Not a single Republican voted in favor of the bill — saying its subsidies, tax credits, grants and loans are wasteful government overreach — and the party and Trump have since railed against it.
On this year’s campaign trail, Trump said he will “rescind all unspent funds under the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act.”
He and fellow Republicans have also talked about eliminating the IRA’s $7,500 federal personal tax credit for buying a new electric vehicle, as well as various incentives for private companies investing in manufacturing solar panels, wind turbines, EV batteries, heat pumps and other clean-energy products.
But in an interview with CNBC last fall, Speaker Johnson hinted at the potential problem for the GOP now that investments have been made, and job growth continues to climb, across Republican states. He said it would be impossible to “blow up” the IRA, and it would be unwise, since some aspects of the “terrible” legislation had helped the economy. “You’ve got to use a scalpel and not a sledgehammer, because there’s a few provisions in there that have helped overall,” Johnson said.
The economic boost that hundreds of IRA-funded projects have given the country, beyond just the EV industry, are predominantly in red states — and the hundreds of thousands of clean-energy jobs linked to the IRA as well as the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the CHIPS and Science Act. A vast portion of that workforce voted for Republicans in November, and jeopardizing their livelihoods could fuel a balloting backlash.
“The IRA is the quintessential policy that can create jobs, drive economic growth and improve our economy,” said Bob Keefe, executive director of E2, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group comprising about 10,000 business leaders and investors, “while at the same time giving us the tools to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
While the clean energy jobs market remains small relative to a total U.S. employment market of roughly 160 million Americans, it has become more than just a blip in the jobs picture. Data for the full year 2024 is not yet available, but according to E2’s Clean Jobs America 2024 report released in September, more than 149,000 clean-energy jobs were created in 2023, accounting for 6.4% of new jobs economy-wide and nearly 60% of total employment across the entire energy sector. Over the past three years, E2 reported, clean-energy jobs increased by 14%, reaching nearly 3.5 million workers nationwide. “Our members and businesses across a lot of sectors are very concerned about the potential of repealing” the IRA, Keefe said.
In the two years since the IRA passed, E2 has tracked private-sector clean-energy projects, including solar, wind, grid electrification, clean vehicles and EV and storage batteries. To date, it has identified 358 major projects in 42 states and investments of nearly $132 billion. More than 60% of the announced projects — representing nearly 80% of the investment and 70% of the jobs — are located in Republican congressional districts.
In November, the Net Zero Policy Lab at Johns Hopkins University released a study focused on the domestic and global impacts of tinkering with Biden’s climate bills, in particular, the IRA. “Our scenario analysis shows that U.S. repeal of the IRA would, in the most likely scenario, harm U.S. manufacturing and trade and create up to $80 billion in investment opportunities for other countries, including major U.S. competitors like China,” the study said. “U.S. harm would come in the form of lost factories, lost jobs, lost tax revenue and up to $50 billion in lost exports.”
The fallout of gutting the IRA has not been lost on GOP lawmakers whose states and counties are benefiting from the law’s largesse. In August, 18 House Republicans sent a letter to Speaker Mike Johnson, urging him not to axe the tax credits that have “created good jobs in many parts of the country — including many districts represented by members of our conference.”
Coincidentally, one of the signees, Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer of Oregon, is Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Labor. Another, Rep. Buddy Carter of Georgia, has touted the eight clean-energy projects, totaling $7.8 billion in investments and creating 7,222 jobs, the IRA has brought to his district. And the tiny town of Dalton, Georgia, home of the largest solar panel manufacturing plant in the western hemisphere and source of about 2,000 jobs, is in the district represented by Marjorie Taylor Greene, a vociferous climate-change skeptic who has nonetheless cheered the factory.
The QCells solar panel manufacturing plant in Dalton, Georgia, U.S., on Monday, May 3, 2021.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
In a survey of nearly 930 business stakeholders conducted in August by E2 and BW Research, more than half (53%) said they would lose business or revenue as a direct result of an IRA repeal and 21% would have to lay off workers.
If Republicans fully repeal the IRA, which would require congressional approval, they “would be shooting themselves in the foot and hurting their own constituents,” said Andrew Reagan, executive director of Clean Energy for America, a nonprofit that advocates for the clean-energy workforce. “You would see not only projects canceled, but job losses,” he said.
West Virginia Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, who will chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee this year, talked in a recent interview with Politico about a focus on rolling back elements of the IRA, including “frivolous” spending, while pushing to keep parts that have created clean-energy jobs. In her state, “some people have taken advantage of this tax relief and are now employing 800 and 1,000 people,” Capito said, “and that’s what this should be all about.”
Union organizing at EV and battery plants
In addition to spurring new job growth, the IRA, Infrastructure Act and CHIPS Act each have provisions ensuring that a significant portion of jobs created go to union members or provide prevailing wages and benefits, apprenticeships and job training to non-union workers. So it’s no surprise that unions are also on the front line in the battle to protect the bills.
Unionization rates in clean energy have surpassed traditional energy employment for the first time, reaching 12.4%, according to a recent Department of Energy report. “That’s a really big deal for us and we want to keep building on that,” said Samantha Smith, strategic advisor for clean energy jobs for the AFL-CIO, which represents more than 12.5 million U.S. workers in manufacturing, construction, mining and other sectors. “We’re going to work to make sure that every job and clean-energy project with this federal funding can be a good union job,” she said. “That is our focus when looking at this legislation and what Congress might do.”
The Laborers’ International Union of North America represents about 530,000 workers in the energy and construction industries. Executive director Brent Booker noted that LIUNA members voted for both Trump and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, but that “none voted to take their jobs away.” And while “cautiously optimistic that the IRA is going to stay in place,” the union “will hold to account this administration to make sure” it does.
A recent report from the Center for Automotive Research outlines the critical workforce needs to meet the demand for EV batteries, which is expected to grow six-fold in the U.S. by 2030. There are a significant skills gaps in the battery industry, the report stated, which will require increased recruitment and training of workers — especially engineers, technicians and assemblers — for years to come.
This paves the way for unions to organize workers at battery plant factories, many of which are joint ventures located in the so-called “battery belt” that stretches from Michigan down to Georgia. In February of last year, the United Auto Workers committed $40 million through 2026 in funds to support non-union autoworkers and battery workers who are organizing across the country, and particularly in the South.
“In the next few years, the electric vehicle battery industry is slated to add tens of thousands of jobs across the country,” the UAW said in announcing the investment. “These jobs will supplement, and in some cases largely replace, existing powertrain jobs in the auto industry. Through a massive new organizing effort, workers will fight to maintain and raise the standard in the emerging battery industry.”
Indeed, just this week, workers at Ford’s $6-billion BlueOval SK EV battery plant in Glendale, Kentucky, a joint venture with South Korea’s SK On, filed with the National Labor Relations Board to hold a union election.
Clean Energy for America’s Reagan said he assumes that Trump will be true to his America First platform: to strengthen U.S. manufacturing and supply chains, cut consumers’ energy bills in half by increasing domestic energy production and reduce reliance on foreign trade, especially with China. “He can’t do any of those things if he repeals the tax credits or tries to stifle American companies that are creating jobs,” Reagan said. “If he’s going to be successful, he can’t take an adversarial approach to a huge part of our economy.”
Tesla has launched a new accessory enabling you to “Macgyver” a couple of power outlets from the Cybertruck’s charge port.
It appears to be designed for the new cheaper Cybertruck, which doesn’t have power outlets in its bed.
Earlier this week, Tesla launched the Cybertruck Long Range RWD: a new, cheaper, and badly nerfed version of the electric pickup truck.
The new version is extremely disappointing as it is $9,000 more expensive than the Cybertruck RWD was supposed to be, and while it has more range than originally planned, Tesla has removed a ton of features, including some important ones.
Here’s what you lose with the Cybertruck RWD:
- You get a single motor RWD instead of Dual Motor AWD
- You lose the adaptive air suspension
- No motorized tonneau, but you have an optional $750 soft tonneau
- Textile seats instead of vegan leather
- Fewer speakers
- No rear screen for the backseat
- No power outlets in the bed
The last one has been pretty disappointing, as it can’t be that expensive to include, and Tesla is basically removing $20,000 worth of features for only a $10,000 difference with the Dual Motor Cybertruck.
But the automaker appears to have come up with a partial solution.
Tesla has launched a $80 ‘Powershare Outlet Adapter’ on its online store:
When combined with Tesla’s Gen 3 Mobile Connector plugged into the Cybertruck’s charge port, it gives you two 120V 20A power outlets.
Tesla describes the product:
Powershare Outlet Adapter allows you to power electronic devices using Mobile Connector and your Powershare-equipped vehicle’s battery. To use this adapter, plug Mobile Connector’s handle into your Powershare-equipped vehicle’s charge port and connect the adapter to the other end of your Mobile Connector. You can then use this adapter to plug in any compatible electronic device you want to power.
For now, Tesla says that this only works for the Cybertruck and you have to buy the $300 mobile charging connector, which doesn’t come with the truck.
Electrek’s Take
I guess it’s better than nothing, but I’m still super disappointed in the new trim. It makes no sense right now.
Not only you lose the 2x 120V, 1x 240V outlets in the bed, but you also lose the 2x 120V outlets in the cabin. Now, you can can pay $380 to have a “Macgyver” solution for 2 120V outlets in the back.
I’m convinced that Tesla designed this trim simply to make the $80,000 Cybertruck AWD look better value-wise.
It looks like Tesla took out about $20,000 worth of features while giving buyers only a $10,000 discount.
It’s just the latest example of Tesla losing its edge.
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The International Maritime Organization, a UN agency which regulates maritime transport, has voted to implement a global cap on carbon emissions from ocean shipping and a penalty on entities that exceed that limit.
After a weeklong meeting of the Marine Environment Protection Committee of the IMO and decades of talks, countries have voted to implement binding carbon reduction targets including a gradually-reducing cap on emissions and associated penalties for exceeding that cap.
Previously, the IMO made another significant environmental move when it transitioned the entire shipping industry to lower-sulfur fuels in 2020, moving towards improving a longstanding issue with large ships outputting extremely high levels of sulfur dioxide emissions, which harm human health and cause acid rain.
Today’s agreement makes the shipping industry the first sector to agree on an internationally mandated target to reduce emissions along with a global carbon price.
The agreement includes standards for greenhouse gas intensity from maritime shipping fuels, with those standards starting in 2028 and reducing through 2035. The end goal is to reach net-zero emissions in shipping by 2050.
Companies that exceed the carbon limits set by the standard will have to pay either $100 or $380 per excess ton of emissions, depending on how much they exceed limits by. These numbers are roughly in line with the commonly-accepted social cost of carbon, which is an attempt to set the equivalent cost borne by society by every ton of carbon pollution.
Money from these penalties will be put into a fund that will reward lower-emissions ships, research into cleaner fuels, and support nations that are vulnerable to climate change.
That means that this agreement represents a global “carbon price” – an attempt to make polluters pay the costs that they shift onto everyone else by polluting.
Why carbon prices matter
The necessity of a carbon price has long been acknowledged by virtually every economist. In economic terms, pollution is called a “negative externality,” where a certain action imposes costs on a party that isn’t responsible for the action itself. That action can be thought of as a subsidy – it’s a cost imposed by the polluter that isn’t being paid by the polluter, but rather by everyone else.
Externalities distort a market because they allow certain companies to get away with cheaper costs than they should otherwise have. And a carbon price is an attempt to properly price that externality, to internalize it to the polluter in question, so that they are no longer being subsidized by everyone else’s lungs. This also incentivizes carbon reductions, because if you can make something more cleanly, you can make it more cheaply.
Many people have suggested implementing a carbon price, including former republican leadership (before the party forgot literally everything about how economics works), but political leadership has been hesitant to do what’s needed because it fears the inevitable political backlash driven by well-funded propaganda entities in the oil industry.
For that reason, most carbon pricing schemes have focused on industrial processes, rather than consumer goods. This is currently happening in Canada, which recently (unwisely) retreated from its consumer carbon price but still maintains a price on the largest polluters in the oil industry.
But until today’s agreement by the IMO, there had been no global agreement of the same in any industry. There are single-country carbon prices, and international agreements between certain countries or subnational entities, often in the form of “cap-and-trade” agreements which implement penalties, and where companies that reduce emissions earn credits that they can then sell to companies that exceed limits (California has a similar program in partnership with with Quebec), but no previous global carbon price in any industry.
Carbon prices opposed by enemies of life on Earth
Unsurprisingly, entities that favor destruction of life on Earth, such as the oil industry and those representing it (Saudi Arabia, Russia, and the bought-and-paid oil stooge who is illegally squatting in the US Oval Office), opposed these measures, claiming they would be “unworkable.”
Meanwhile, island nations whose entire existence is threatened by climate change (along with the ~2 billion people who will have to relocate by the end of the century due to rising seas) correctly said that the move isn’t strong enough, and that even stronger action is needed to avoid the worse effects of climate change.
The island nations’ position is backed by science, the oil companies’ position is not.
While these new standards are historic and need to be lauded as the first agreement of their kind, there is still more work to be done and incentives that need to be offered to ensure that greener technologies are available to help fulfill the targets. Jesse Fahnestock, Director of Decarbonisation at the Global Maritime Forum, said:
While the targets are a step forward, they will need to be improved if they are to drive the rapid fuel shift that will enable the maritime sector to reach net zero by 2050. While we applaud the progress made, meeting the targets will require immediate and decisive investments in green fuel technology and infrastructure. The IMO will have opportunities to make these regulations more impactful over time, and national and regional policies also need to prioritise scalable e-fuels and the infrastructure needed for long-term decarbonisation.
One potential solution could be IMO’s “green corridors,” attempts to establish net-zero-emission shipping routes well in advance of the IMO’s 2050 net-zero target.
And, of course, this is only one industry, and one with a relatively low contribution to global emissions. While the vast majority of global goods are shipped over the ocean, it’s still responsible for only around 3% of global emissions. To see the large emissions reductions we need to avoid the worst effects of climate change, other more-polluting sectors – like automotive, agriculture (specifically animal agriculture), construction and heating – all could use their own carbon price to help add a forcing factor to drive down their emissions.
Lets hope that the IMO’s move sets that example, and we see more of these industries doing the right thing going forward (and ignoring those enemies of life on Earth listed above).
The agreement still has to go through a final step of approval on October, but this looks likely to happen.
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