In a new op-ed for The Hill, Evergreen Action Executive Director Lena Moffitt makes the case that ending the widely popular, job-creating clean energy investments that are lowering household bills isn’t just bad policy — it’s bad politics. Recent YouGov polling shows strong bipartisan support for clean energy investments. And, when given the choice between the two, voters overwhelmingly favor increasing clean energy usage over expanding fossil fuel production. Americans want these investments protected. If Congressional Republicans push forward with this deeply unpopular agenda in their spending plan, they’ll pay the price at the ballot box. 

The Hill: Republicans' Reckless Assault On Clean Energy Will Cost Them

By: Lena Moffitt
March 14, 2025

Key Points:

• House Republicans are beginning to fill in the details of their sweeping spending plan, which hinges on deep cuts to programs people depend on — from Medicare and Medicaid to food assistance and clean energy investments — all to fund a $4.5 trillion tax break for billionaires and big corporations. Their proposal is a slash-and-burn blueprint for enacting President Trump’s extreme agenda, and it will throw American industries and families into chaos. 
  

• This week, some Republicans warned that repealing clean energy investments would drive up consumer energy bills, kill manufacturing jobs and generally be a disaster for businesses in their districts. But House Speaker Mike Johnson has been blunt about Republicans’ priorities, admitting that paying for their multitrillion-dollar tax cut would require taking “somewhere between a scalpel and a sledgehammer” to climate investments. House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) went even further, calling clean energy investments “low-hanging fruit” to pay for their agenda. 

• Recent YouGov polling confirms what should be obvious: Investing in clean energy is overwhelmingly popular. In fact, 61 percent of voters want to keep the investments driving America’s growing clean energy sector, while only 18 percent support repealing them. 

• Americans want more clean energy, not less. When given the choice, 64 percent of voters favor increasing clean energy usage over expanding fossil fuel production. And when YouGov drilled down into specific programs and tax credits that Republicans are threatening to eliminate, voters overwhelmingly backed each by two-thirds or more — from incentives to bolster clean energy supply to consumer rebates that help lower energy bills to investments in solar manufacturing.   

• The reason is simple: clean energy saves money because it’s cheaper and more reliable. Voters overwhelmingly cited lower energy bills as the most convincing reason to support clean energy tax credits. And they’re right: recent economic modeling shows that repealing the Inflation Reduction Act’s tech-neutral tax credits alone would drive up electricity bills by 10 percent.  

• Even corporate leaders are sounding the alarm. Ford’s CEO has repeatedly warned that “many [...] jobs will be at risk if the IRA is repealed.” And Republican members of Congress from states like Michigan, Texas and Pennsylvania have urged their colleagues to leave these investments intact because they’re fueling a once-in-a-generation manufacturing renaissance. 

• Clean energy investments aren’t “low-hanging fruit” to be sacrificed to Big Oil. They’re driving real economic growth, lowering costs and creating jobs — and Americans want them protected.