The Trump administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) has cost the country nearly half a million jobs and hundreds of billions of dollars in clean energy investments and tax revenue since it was signed into law last year, according to an analysis published by the environmental business group E2.
The report, which was compiled by BW Research and published today, states $90 billion was lost from projects that ceased development or narrowed scope. This analysis is based on projects using clean energy technologies, like solar, wind, energy storage and electric vehicles. If these projects had started operations, those clean energy projects could have generated $55 billion annually. Cancelled projects alone represent $68 billion in lost investment, plus $48 in operational investments, according to the report.
That represents about 10 GW of lost solar capacity, 9 GW of energy storage and 3.75 GW of wind.
“The numbers tell the story. Making it harder to build clean energy projects means lost jobs, lost investments, lost electricity supplies and lost local tax revenues,” said E2 executive director Bob Keefe in a press release. “Add it all up and it’s clear that federal actions to stop clean energy are costing all of us — consumers, businesses and our national economy — big time.”
Expected tax revenue from the halted or altered projects is estimated to the sum almost $32 billion from local investments and operations. Energy storage saw the largest workforce losses at more than 42,000 jobs, while solar lost 33,000 and electric vehicles almost 28,000. After the OBBBA was passed, full-time jobs in solar reduced by 19,000 and reduced by 64,000 in energy storage, according to the report.
“These cancellations are hitting exactly the kinds of projects America needs most: domestic manufacturing, battery storage, solar, wind, and electric vehicles,” said Michael Timberlake, E2 director of research and ublications, in a press release. “The losses go far beyond the direct jobs announced by companies. Every cancelled factory or power project means fewer construction workers on site, fewer suppliers filling orders, fewer dollars flowing through local economies, and fewer tax revenues for schools, fire departments, roads and public services.”
Additional legislative intervention from the Trump administration has halted renewable energy development, in addition to the OBBBA. Wood Mackenzie published a report on June 29 that changes to project permitting and funding withdrawals have cancelled or halted 7 GW of renewable energy projects on federal land, and another 12 GW is threatened by these changes. According to the report, nearly one-third of solar’s project pipeline is at risk of additional review since these changes were implemented.
It will take us years to recover from this debacle of an administration. We need to make certain that we can vote this November and that our votes count.
As a right-leaning independent married to a left-leaning solar engineer, this article embodies the exact partisan stereotypes that hold the renewable energy sector back.If you want independent and conservative Americans to support and champion the growth of solar, you have to do better than lazy, evidence-free political finger-pointing. The author aggressively blames the Trump administration but provides zero hard data, zero specific policy mechanisms, and zero proof of what actually stalled contracts, cost jobs, or reduced local revenues. Open-minded readers demand verifiable facts and objective analysis, not empty rhetoric. Until this industry stops using partisan grievances as its only source of “fuel”, it will continue to alienate the very people it needs to win over. Do better or get better journalists because this is nothing more then a political hate piece and its embarrassing for my husband’s industry.