This commentary is by Jonathan Dowds, of Burlington. Dowds is the deputy director at Renewable Energy Vermont, the trade association representing Vermont’s renewable sector.
The Trump administration is forcing Americans to increase our dependence on the fossil fuel industry at the direct expense of our economy and our environment.
President Donald Trump and the Republican majority in Congress have done everything in their power to kneecap the deployment of wind and solar, even though renewables are our country’s cleanest and cheapest sources of power and are the ones that we can build most quickly to meet rising electricity demand.
Fortunately, the Trump agenda is not the last word. When he pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Accords during his first term, the Vermont Legislature voted to enact these important greenhouse gas reduction goals. Once again, Vermont and our New England neighbors need to craft our own response to resist Trump’s efforts to tie us ever more tightly to dirty and expensive fossil fuels.
The evidence that Trump’s energy policies amount to economic malpractice purely to benefit the fossil fuel industry is widespread. The U.S. Department of Energy has unilaterally mandated that a coal power plant in Michigan and an oil plant in Pennsylvania remain in operation beyond their planned retirements, despite the determination by state regulators, electric utilities and regional grid operators that closing the plants would not increase the risk of power shortages.
Forcing these plants to remain operational has already cost tens of millions of dollars. Analysts at the company Grid Strategies estimate that expanding this practice to other uneconomical plants on the cusp of retirement could cost ratepayers between $3 and $6 billion per year.
These poorly justified interventions in the normal operation of our grid amount to a forced subsidy for an industry that no longer makes economic sense.
In New England, state governments and environmentalists agree that offshore wind is a foundation of our clean energy future. The Trump administration recently forced one project that was nearly completed, Revolution Wind, to stop work with minimal justification. ISO New England, the entity that runs our grid, declared unpredictable and unjustified stop-work orders for fully permitted projects, like Revolution Wind, would increase costs for consumers and threaten the reliability of the grid.
Of course, bad news for wind is good news for fossil fuels, as halting Revolution Wind will lead directly to heavier utilization of existing oil and gas plants. New England ratepayers will pay a monetary cost for this, and the people who live near New England’s fossil fuel plants — disproportionately minority and low-income households — will suffer the risks of increased exposure to harmful pollutants. Slowing down offshore wind to increase gas generation is not a trade that is in our best interests.
Trump’s recently passed budget bill is loaded with more of the same handouts to the fossil fuel industry.
It reduced the royalty rates paid on oil and gas leases, increased the tax credit for carbon sequestration for “enhanced oil recovery,” and created a new tax credit for metallurgical coal, all while abruptly gutting tax credits for the development and manufacturing of wind, solar, batteries and electric vehicles.
The nonpartisan think tank Energy Innovation has estimated that the Trump budget bill’s attacks on renewables will lead to a 9% to 18% jump in electricity rates by 2035. These are not policies designed to alleviate an energy shortfall. They are policies that ensure our continued reliance on fossil fuels.
By eliminating the Solar for All program and tax credits for home solar, the budget bill also represents a major step back for Vermonters looking to control their energy bills. Solar for All had committed to deliver more than $60 million in federal grants to Vermont, designated to help low-income families and the affordable housing community access the benefits of solar.
The tax credit for home solar, which had been scheduled to run into the 2030s, has helped thousands of Vermont families go solar. Its loss will be a blow, and the state will need to act to ensure that building rooftop solar remains a viable option for Vermonters.
For all of the damage that Trump’s opposition to affordable renewable energy is doing, there is a path forward. Vermont took one of the most important steps last year, when the state updated its Renewable Energy Standard to mandate that all Vermont utilities get to 100% renewable power by 2035.
These state standards act as a backstop against Trump’s interference, ensuring that our power comes increasingly from renewables rather than more natural gas plants, regardless of what is happening at the federal level. Simultaneously, we have to work harder than ever to identify and implement common sense reforms that make it faster and more cost-effective to build renewables here in Vermont and across New England.
Trump is working to drag the country back into the past. Together, we can push for a renewable future.
