How the GOP Megabill Would Reshape the U.S. Energy Economy

Republicans are preparing to tear up America’s clean energy tax credits as part of their budget reconciliation megabill. Hollowing out those policies will have sweeping implications for the country’s energy system — it could set back solar, nuclear, and geothermal development; bring less electricity supply onto the grid; and devastate the country’s fledgling electric vehicle supply chain.

A new report — written by our own Jesse Jenkins — is all about the real-life consequences of killing the tax credits. On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Jesse shares the forthcoming analysis of the bill from Princeton University’s REPEAT Project. Rob and Jesse discuss what best-in-class modeling tells us the bill will mean for carbon emissions, the energy economy, the power grid, and consumer energy costs. Shift Key is hosted by Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University, and Robinson Meyer, Heatmap’s executive editor.

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Here is an excerpt from our conversation:

Robinson Meyer: We may not know exactly what Republicans in Congress are going to do, but when you look at the set of possibilities encapsulated by the Republican bill, what does this mean for the energy system and for the climate? Is it good?

Jesse Jenkins: Uh, no, it is not good. And I wish I had some silver linings to pull out here, but they are non-existent — or few and far between, if there are any we can find. Dismantling the current policy trajectory would result in a substantial increase in greenhouse gas emissions, on the order of half a gigaton, 500 million tons, by 2030, rising to over a billion metric tons, or a gigaton by 2035.

And at the same time it would, of course, slow the energy transition. So less deployment of clean electricity technologies, a slower uptake of electric vehicles, and other impacts across the economy. And all that also translates to higher energy costs for Americans, for households, for businesses as we do two things. One is we remove tax credits and subsidies that are currently lowering the cost of investing in all of this new infrastructure, whether it’s new power generation or storage or new vehicles for fleets or households.

So those subsidies shift some costs out of household and business budgets right onto the federal tax code. And by slowing down measures like energy efficiency, electrification, EVs, measures that reduce fossil energy consumption, we’re also likely to see fossil fuel prices go up as demand rises. So relative to a world where we’re reducing demand for these fuels, if we slow down that process and we consume more fossil fuels overall, that’s also going to translate through the law of supply and demand into higher costs for Americans.

So that’s, I think, the top line: Higher emissions, slow down — although not halt — the energy transition, and higher energy costs for most Americans and for our businesses around the country. It’s not quite our frozen policy scenario from the beginning of January, 2021. But not surprisingly, a scenario where we dismantle the entirety of the Biden-era policy apparatus does revert us pretty close to where we would be if those laws had not passed. Not entirely. There’s some momentum that will continue. But a full repeal scenario, which is maybe where the House is trending, would mean that we’re going to see half-a-gigaton-scale increase in emissions from our current trajectory in 2030, and about a gigaton or more in 2035.

Meyer: I realize that there’s a tendency for numbers, especially gigatons, these numbers attached to giant units, to slide by and kind of be like, Oh, that’s a number. But that is staggering. U.S. energy emissions are about five gigatons. I think global energy emissions are 38 gigatons …

Jenkins: Yeah, close to 40. Exactly.

Meyer: This is a sizable increase compared to baseline in carbon emissions.

You can read the complete transcript here.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.