The renewable energy sector has taken an absolute beating during Donald Trump’s second term as president. The White House has slashed over $600 billion in tax credits and incentives for EVs, solar and wind projects, while handing billions of dollars of additional tax breaks to the oil and gas industry.
Just this week, news emerged that the United States would be paying almost $1 billion to a French energy company to kill plans for a wind farm off the east coast.
The timing was particularly bizarre considering the oil crisis Trump’s war on Iran has caused, as Iranian retaliatory strikes continue to damage or destroy much of the Gulf’s energy infrastructure and tankers get caught up in a geopolitical stalemate while trying to traverse the crucial Strait of Hormuz.
Meanwhile, as the New York Times reports, proponents of clean energy have launched a campaign of vengeance, targeting political candidates opposing wind and solar. For instance, crypto platform Ripple cofounder Chris Larsen, alongside other investors, have taken aim at representative Chip Roy (R-TX), who is campaigning to become attorney general in Texas.
They’ve already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on TV ads criticizing Roy and are willing to pour another half a million dollars into the runoff election against his biggest rival, Mayes Middleton.
“You’ve got to have some fear that if you vote against the clean energy industry, you may pay a political price,” Michael Brune, chief executive of the Clean Break Fund, which invests in green energy and is backed by Larsen, told the NYT.
Roy has since shot back, telling the newspaper that “I’m taking two of your guys” if they were to ever “come after me.”
Beyond the Clean Break Fund, solar companies are forming coalitions to advocate for the renewable energy source, commissioning a survey that concluded a whopping 75 percent of Trump voters were behind efforts to expand the country’s investments in solar energy.
The country’s continued reliance on fossil fuels remains the name of the game, a majorly influential powerhouse that will take a lot to topple. But its opponents are increasingly looking to copy its playbook as a weapon against it.
“Look at what the oil and gas industry does, brilliantly by the way,” Larsen told the NYT. “I mean, give credit to how effective they are on lobbying and policy and supporting their allies and punishing their opponents.”
Meanwhile, China continues to race ahead, pumping out a full terawatt worth of solar panels per year and cementing its status as a wind energy superpower by testing giant airborne turbines.
More on clean energy: The Amount of New Solar Power Production Capacity China Is Manufacturing Is Legitimately Mind-Blowing