The Senate Just Put Clean Energy for AI in the Crosshairs

The Senate’s newly passed budget megabill slashes tax credits for wind and solar projects placed in service after 2027, sunsets EV incentives and even carves out a new coal credit—jeopardizing hundreds of clean-energy developments and choking off billions in pipeline investments. An earlier draft went even further, proposing an excise tax on solar and wind components sourced from China, though last-minute edits spared that measure for projects breaking ground within a year.

Experts from Carnegie Mellon’s Costa Samaras to Elon Musk are sounding the alarm, warning this “punishment” of renewables will drive up costs, cost jobs and undermine U.S. energy needs—despite evidence from Texas’s booming solar-plus-storage build-out that clean power actually bolsters grid stability during heat waves. An E2 analysis estimates the industry has already lost some $15.5 billion in new investments this year, including $9 billion in Republican districts, as the Trump administration aggressively pushes to roll back the Inflation Reduction Act’s green incentives.