President Trump's reelection sent shockwaves through the renewable energy community. With campaign pledges to dismantle Biden-era climate programs funded by the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and possible cuts to the federal workforce, Trump appears poised to withdraw from global climate leadership.
We've been down this road before. When Trump was first elected in 2016, he pulled the United States out of the Paris Climate Agreement and reversed, repealed, or otherwise rolled back nearly 100 environmental regulations. States quickly emerged to establish a bulwark for the environment, and history is set to repeat itself.
We both worked for New York State during Trump's first term—Basil as the Commissioner of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and Sarah as an attorney with the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. Working with the Governor, legislature, and many others, we helped to put New York at the forefront of action on climate, environment and clean energy.
New York started by working beyond its borders. The same day that Trump announced the United States' withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, the Governors of New York, California and Washington launched the United States Climate Alliance (Climate Alliance). We designed the Climate Alliance to help fill the national leadership void, and it quickly grew to 24 member states. Climate Alliance states committed to and continue to uphold the goals of the Paris Agreement by reducing economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions and collectively achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. Today, Climate Alliance states represent 54 percent of the nation's population and 57 percent of the economy.
New York then demonstrated leadership through action. To meet the urgency of the moment and to continue developing the nascent but promising clean energy economy, New York enacted the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), which the New York Times hailed as one of the most ambitious climate laws in the world. In addition to setting interim renewable energy targets, the CLCPA mandates that New York achieve a net zero electricity sector by 2040 and economy-wide carbon neutrality by 2050, all while preserving protections for front-line communities most affected by climate change.
New York soon became the nation's leader in community solar and offshore wind and set an energy storage deployment goal of 6 gigawatts by 2030. When met, these targets are expected to result in hundreds of megawatts of new renewable generation, billions of dollars in clean energy investments, and thousands of jobs across the state.
Many states also stepped out boldly in pursuit of climate action. Twenty-four states plus the District of Columbia adopted specific greenhouse gas emissions targets. The eleven member states of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) continued to adopt carbon pricing policies as part of that regional initiative. On the West Coast, California and Oregon adopted low-carbon fuel standards aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions by requiring a transition to lower-carbon transportation fuels. Washington State proposed a cap and invest program that it would link with programs under operation in California and Quebec.
It wasn't just the "blue" states. Renewable energy also expanded within Republican-led states that didn't join the Climate Alliance. For instance, renewables now provide a third of the power in Oklahoma, Nebraska, Nevada, and North Dakota, more than half in Kansas and South Dakota, and two-thirds in Iowa.
While permitting reform remains a priority for the next Congress, several states, such as New York, Massachusetts, and California, are also finding ways to accelerate permitting, as we previewed in our prior blogs on permitting reform and state-level permitting actions.
This momentum has fostered unprecedented alignment of renewable energy innovation, investment, and development. Renewable energy now accounts for over 20 percent of U.S. electricity generation. Electric vehicles are continuing to penetrate the transportation sector while record funding is flowing into deploying charging infrastructure.
Re-enter President Trump with a pledge to dismantle this momentum. States are already stepping up to hold the line.
First, States are already gearing up. New Mexico Governor Lujan Grisham and New York Governor Hochul – co-chairs of the Climate Alliance – stated that Climate Alliance governors will continue to lead the transition to a zero carbon future "no matter who is in the White House." California Governor Newsom recently announced an extraordinary session of the California Legislature to consider legislation to preserve California's laws from challenge. The RGGI states are in the midst of the Third Program Review, which includes consideration of modeling scenarios to achieve a zero-emissions cap by 2035 or 2040 – sooner than current targets, and with mechanisms to increase participation by additional states. Washington State's nascent carbon pricing program survived a 2024 ballot initiative. New York is set to take action on a similar "Cap & Invest" program, which, in the future, can be linked with other states. And more and more states are showing interest in developing or building out nuclear energy, including Wyoming, Michigan, New York and Virginia.
Second, fully dismantling federal climate efforts may prove to be difficult. To be sure, it becomes harder at the state level to hit greenhouse gas reduction targets without federal support and coordination. Still, efforts to entirely dismantle the IRA will require Congress to amend the tax code. This will be hotly debated as part of overall tax reform in 2025.
Dismantling the IRA may also be unpopular in "red" states where most clean energy investments are being realized. According to a study by E2, Republican districts represent 85 percent of the IRA investments and 68 percent of its jobs. The top IRA projects are expected to create nearly 110,000 new jobs nationwide and generate $126 billion of direct private investment in 40 states. The largest IRA investments in clean energy technologies relative to state GDP have been made in Nevada, Wyoming, Arizona, Tennessee and Montana. Nevada's clean tech investments comprised about 2.2 percent of state GDP, with Wyoming, Arizona, Tennessee, and Montana seeing clean tech investments comprise between 1.5 percent and 2.2 percent of state GDP. And in the last month, the Department of Energy has pledged over $14 billion in loans to build three battery plants in Indiana and Georgia.
Finally, there are the State Attorneys General, including from California and Maryland, who have already announced plans to take legal action against the incoming Trump administration's attempts to rollback laws and regulations.
All this portends a bumpy road ahead for the booming renewable energy industry. With looming uncertainty at the federal level and affordability and reliability on the minds of governors, states on both sides of the political aisle nonetheless have the chance to re-emerge as bulwarks on climate action. This time around, governors will find powerful allies among workers, investors, developers and advocates who are collectively generating billions in economic activity and thousands of good-paying jobs.
Foley Hoag continues to track climate action across the nation. Watch this space for more.
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