A new report from the think tank Energy Innovation showed if the Inflation Reduction Act is repealed, Californians would pay $60 more a year for household energy bills by 2030 and $180 more by 2035.
The Trump administration has already paused funding for IRA projects and called for a repeal of its climate provisions.
Robbie Orvis, senior director for modeling and analysis at Energy Innovation, said the clean energy tax breaks and grants have spurred $600 billion in new private investment and created more than 400,000 jobs nationally since 2022.
“The IRA creates an incentive for developers to build even more clean electricity,” Orvis contended. “And when those clean electricity plants come online, they help to lower the cost of electricity and bring down rates for the average American household.”
President Donald Trump said his goal is to lower fuel costs and create jobs by boosting oil and gas production, and has repeatedly called climate change a hoax. The study found if Congress repeals or weakens the IRA, California would be particularly vulnerable, and predicted by 2030, the state gross domestic product would take an almost $30 billion hit compared to maintaining current policies.
Ric O’Connell, executive director of the nonprofit Grid Lab, said a repeal would be a lose-lose proposition.
“It’s going to raise costs. It’s going to make it harder for states that have clean-energy goals to meet those clean-energy goals, and it’s going to reduce jobs,” O’Connell outlined. “We’re going to have dirtier air and we’re going to have worse effects of climate change.”
The analysis estimated reducing new clean-energy projects would increase air pollution in California by nearly 5 million metric tons by 2023, the equivalent of the annual emissions from a coal-fired power plant.
Written by Suzanne Potter.
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