Red States–And AI–Are Big Losers From Trump’s Clean Energy Massacre

Forbes

The One Big Beautiful Bill will kill wind and solar power tax credits—and pit humans against AI in a battle for scarce electricity.  Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2025/07/02/red-statesand-aiare-big-losers-from-trumps-clean-energy-massacre/  Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript  Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com  Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

Transcript

00:00Today on Forbes, red states and AI are big losers from Trump's clean energy massacre.

00:08President Trump's one big beautiful bill act, assuming the version Senate Republicans passed on Tuesday becomes law,

00:14would cut the legs out from under the renewable energy industry.

00:18It's likely that Speaker Mike Johnson and House Republicans will try to make changes to the bill

00:22as they attempt to reconcile their own version and the Senate Republicans' version.

00:26In the Senate Republicans' version, the biggest hit on renewable energy is that the bill would quickly phase out federal tax credits

00:34that have for years enabled wind and solar developers to offset 30% or more of project costs.

00:41And it could have been even worse.

00:43At the last minute, the Senate's Republican leadership ditched a proposed excise tax on wind and solar projects using Chinese components,

00:50which could have added 20% to the cost of many projects.

00:53But it left in a fast phase-out of the tax credits.

00:57Moreover, there are lots of other anti-green, pro-fossil fuel bullets the industry didn't dodge.

01:03The bill would open more federal lands to oil and gas leasing at lower royalty rates,

01:08end tax credits and other subsidies for electric vehicles,

01:11and refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

01:14There's also a new tax break to incentivize mining metallurgical coal,

01:18now to be considered a strategic mineral.

01:20Uncertainty and the looming end of federally subsidized tax equity financing

01:25could plunge renewables investing into a deep freeze,

01:29says Sandhya Ghanapathy, CEO of Houston-based EDP Renewables North America,

01:34which operates wind and solar plants.

01:37She says, quote,

01:37Ironically, the impact will hit especially hard in Republican areas,

01:51a fact that Forbes and others thought last November might protect the industry from such savage cuts.

01:57A map on the Forbes.com website, created by Michael Thomas, founder of CleanView,

02:02shows that 78% of renewable energy projects underway are located in red districts.

02:08Why is Trump so determined to kibosh economic growth in Texas,

02:12where last Saturday afternoon, solar power met 31% of the grid's 77 gigawatts of power demand,

02:18and wind power provided 15%.

02:21Sure, gas-fired generation still led with 35%,

02:25but coal provides merely 13% of the state's electricity needs.

02:29The trend is clear.

02:31Growing, power-hungry states like Texas,

02:33and states where the sun shines or the wind blows,

02:36have been increasingly relying on solar and wind power.

02:39The How Green Is Your State? map from the Environment America Resource and Policy Center

02:45makes clear that geography matters more than ideology

02:48when it comes to the adoption of green energy.

02:51Windy, sparsely populated, and Republican South Dakota,

02:54Trump won 63% of the vote in 2024,

02:57gets an enormous portion of its retail electricity from renewable sources.

03:02Tiny, densely populated Delaware, Joe Biden's home state,

03:05gets almost none of its retail electricity from green sources.

03:10Complaints about the bill's assault on green energy have come from all quarters.

03:14Elon Musk calls the energy components of the bill,

03:17quote, insane and destructive,

03:19saying they will destroy millions of jobs.

03:22Sean McGarvey, president of North America's Building Trades Unions,

03:26compares the impact to, quote,

03:28terminating 1,000 Keystone XL pipelines.

03:31Biden, of course, terminated just the one.

03:34The U.S. Chamber of Commerce in a statement said, quote,

03:36taxing energy production is never a good policy.

03:41But that hasn't swayed Trump,

03:42who in an interview last weekend with Fox's Maria Bartiromo,

03:46made clear his determination to undo the Green New Deal aspects of Biden's Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

03:52His dislike for both Biden's legacy, and wind and solar energy in particular,

03:57seems almost visceral.

03:58So get ready to pay more for electricity,

04:01and to compete with big tech and artificial intelligence for the power supply.

04:06Recent growth in electricity demand from data centers has been stunning.

04:11Lawrence Berkeley National Lab data shows that in 2018,

04:14data centers used 76 terawatt hours, or 1.9% of domestic electricity.

04:20They project that will hit at least 325 terawatt hours, 6.7% of the total, by 2028.

04:28Consultancy Reistat Energy highs a 16% rise in overall U.S. power demand by 2035.

04:35But without affordable renewables, or rapid breakthroughs in nuclear fusion,

04:40the electricity to feed all those AI data centers may not arrive in time.

04:46For full coverage, check out Christopher Hellman's piece on Forbes.com.

04:52This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes.

04:54Thanks for tuning in.

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