Today, environmental organizations sent letters to the House, urging them to reject reconciliation bills from the Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce Committees.

Read the full letters below.

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May 13, 2025

The Honorable Jason Smith
Chairman
House Committee on Ways and Means
United States House of Representatives
Washington, D.C., 20515

The Honorable Richard Neal
Ranking Member
House Committee on Ways and Means
United States House of Representatives
Washington, D.C., 20515 

Dear Chairman Smith and Ranking Member Neal,

On behalf of our millions of members, we urge you to reject the Ways and Means reconciliation bill that guts America’s clean energy production, raises costs for families, worsens air pollution, and eliminates hundreds of thousands of good-paying manufacturing jobs – all to fund massive tax breaks for billionaires.

Make no mistake, this bill takes a sledgehammer approach. It is effectively a full repeal of a suite of widely supported clean energy incentives. The bill strikes down clean electricity credits while calling it a “phaseout.” This is a retroactive tax increase that upsets the rules of the road that projects have operated under for more than a decade, and would, in particular, make large-scale projects that require a longer timeframe for development – such as new geothermal – all but impossible. This bill will undermine investment certainty and sow chaos by making it difficult to finance projects and forcing businesses to navigate an impossible maze of requirements.

This bill will increase energy prices for American families and businesses and make us more reliant on other countries. This is not an “energy dominance” strategy. Repealing clean energy tax credits could raise electricity prices by more than $110 per year for the average U.S. household starting next year. Solar, wind, and battery storage accounted for 93% of all new American energy supply in 2024. Undermining these key energy supplies, just as demand is skyrocketing, would lead to dramatically higher energy costs for American families and businesses.

This bill will also add to economic chaos and uncertainty, and kill American manufacturing jobs. On top of the more than 62,000 clean energy jobs already lost or stalled since the beginning of theTrump administration due to a slew of tariffs and executive orders, this plan would pull the rug out from under manufacturing companies looking to make long-term investment decisions in the United States and cede our leadership of the global clean energy economy to other countries, including our adversaries.

By eliminating the clean vehicle tax credits and the credits that support the buildout of electric vehicle charging infrastructure – in addition to other provisions contained in the reconciliation bill – as much as 100% of planned construction and expansion of U.S. EV assembly and half of existing capacity could be at risk of cancellation or closure. Without clean vehicle tax credits, between 29% and 72% of battery cell manufacturing capacity currently operating or online by the end of 2025 would be unnecessary to meet automotive demand and could be at risk of closure, in addition to 100% of other planned facilities. Facilities building the future of the automotive industry across Georgia, Michigan, Tennessee, and more are at a direct risk of downsizing or closure should the repeal of clean vehicle tax credits become law.

Repealing these clean energy investments will increase harmful pollution. It will mean more than 530 million metric tons of climate pollution in 2035, which is the smog-generating equivalent of putting 116 million more cars on the road. Researchers estimated the implementation of these provisions would prevent almost a million asthma attacks, more than 40,000 heart attacks, 1.4 million respiratory illnesses, and 3.3 million lost work days. In short, eliminating these investments will make Americans sicker.  

At a time when families and businesses are deeply concerned with energy prices, we should be doubling down on affordable, clean energy incentives, not gutting them. We urge members to vote no on this bill because it will lead to skyrocketing electricity costs, job losses, the shuttering of manufacturing plants, and undermine our global competitiveness.

Sincerely,

Climate Action Campaign
Climate Power
Earthjustice
Evergreen Action
League of Conservation Voters
Natural Resources Defense Council
Sierra Club
Union of Concerned Scientists

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May 13, 2025

The Honorable Brett Guthrie                             
Chairman                                                                 
House Committee on Energy and Commerce      
2125 Rayburn House Office Building               
Washington, D.C., 20515                                      

The Honorable Frank Pallone
Ranking Member
House Committee on Energy and Commerce
2322A Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C., 20515

Dear Chair Guthrie and Ranking Member Pallone, 

On behalf of our millions of members, we urge you to reject the extreme proposal by the Energy and Commerce Committee to meet House leadership’s reconciliation targets. In addition to wide-ranging cuts to Medicaid for some of the most vulnerable Americans, it fulfills a polluter’s wishlist of rollbacks of environmental programs that protect communities and public health, all while bending over backwards to create new giveaways for the oil and gas industry.

The text continues the White House’s obsession with dismantling the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), attempting to rescind funding from a host of high-impact programs that lower energy bills for hard working Americans, reduce air pollution in schools, modernize our nation’s ports and upgrade old diesel engines, revitalize American industrial manufacturing, and create economic opportunity in frontline communities. Even worse, the text would dismantle the government’s ability to administer and oversee the use of IRA funds that the federal government has already obligated in a misguided effort to unravel the law in its entirety. In practice, these shortsighted repeals would undermine Federal agencies’ ability to properly manage public investments that the government has already made.

The Energy and Commerce proposal also takes a number of anti-environmental deregulatory actions, in addition to defunding IRA programs. The text repeals existing fuel efficiency and air pollution standards, forcing Americans to breathe dirtier air, jeopardizing new clean vehicle manufacturing jobs in the United States and ceding global leadership of the auto industry of the future, and providing drivers fewer vehicle choices. In short, the public will be left paying more in gas (and gas taxes) with less fuel-efficient vehicles, making the everyday American foot the bill for tax breaks for the wealthy and giveaways to Big Oil.

Instead of working toward addressing environmental harms and helping communities prosper, the Energy and Commerce proposal doubles down on fossil fuel giveaways. The bill lets major fossil fuel infrastructure projects – such as cross-border pipelines and liquefied natural gas export terminals – simply pay a fee to be approved, to bypass permitting and other legally-required analyses altogether, and to protect them from lawsuits, allowing powerful corporations to run roughshod over local communities. Even more astonishingly,  if, even after all these sweetheart exemptions from the standard permitting and judicial review processes, a project runs afoul of the law, the legislation offers fossil fuel and nuclear companies – and only them – taxpayer money as “compensation.”

Nearly every component of the House’s reconciliation bill revealed so far has included attacks on the environment, and the Energy and Commerce Committee’s proposal is no different. Please vote “no” on this radical proposal that would harm the health and welfare of the American people.

Sincerely,

Climate Action Campaign
Climate Power
Earthjustice
Evergreen Action
League of Conservation Voters
Natural Resources Defense Council
Sierra Club
Union of Concerned Scientists