Congressmen Claiming Secret Assurances from President to Flout New Law, Undermine Lower Cost Clean Electricity for Americans

WASHINGTON, July 7, 2025 – Recent press reports quote Members of Congress touting secret, eleventh-hour promises from the President that would further undermine clean energy tax credits. These promises are not incorporated in, or in any way reflected, in the plain language of the budget legislation the President signed into law last Friday. If carried out, they would only worsen the impacts of the Trump law on job losses, rising electricity prices and pollution increases across the country including in Arizona, North Carolina, Texas and Utah.

“The clean energy provisions in the legislation President Trump championed will prove devastating as we struggle to generate enough energy to meet increased demand and strengthen our grid in the face of constant extreme weather events,” said Joanna Slaney, vice president of political and governmental affairs for Environmental Defense Fund. “They will make the American people poorer, sicker and less safe. These last-minute deals undermine provisions added in the Senate and are intended to further restrict the buildout of clean energy – and will inflict even more harm on hard-working Americans eager for a better future.”

At the end of 2024 North Carolina, for example, was positioned as a clean energy leader with over 20,000 new clean energy jobs and billions of dollars of investment. This bright job and investment forecast for the years ahead would be even more severely and immediately threatened.

Similarly, if these secret assurances are carried out they risk worsening Utah job losses, immediately stalling the rapid job growth created from Arizona’s booming solar power and Texas’s extensive clean energy progress while also undermining private sector investments, making electricity more expensive, and increasing dangerous pollution.