Just How Bad Is the Beautiful Bill for Clean Energy?

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Just How Bad Is the Beautiful Bill for Clean Energy?"

Podcast Information:

• Title: Boiling Point
• Host/Author: LA Times Studios
• Description: Climate change is battering California. Can the state find a way forward? Listen every Thursday as award-winning L.A. Times columnist Sammy Roth dives deep with scientists, energy leaders, legislators, activists, and journalists who are experts on today's climate challenges and solutions. They’ll discuss everything from electric cars to renewable energy to the difficulties of phasing out fossil fuels.
• Episode: Just How Bad Is the Beautiful Bill for Clean Energy?
• Release Date: July 10, 2025

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Introduction

In the episode titled "Just How Bad Is the Beautiful Bill for Clean Energy?" host Sammy Roth engages in a critical discussion with Jesse Jenkins, a professor and energy systems researcher at Princeton University. They delve into the ramifications of the recently passed federal budget bill, colloquially known as the "Beautiful Bill," and its detrimental effects on clean energy initiatives in the United States.

Overview of the Beautiful Bill

Sami Roth opens the conversation by highlighting the multifaceted nature of the Beautiful Bill. While it received significant attention for its provisions to slash Medicaid and increase funding for immigration enforcement, its impact on clean energy is profoundly concerning. Specifically, the bill repeals the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which had introduced substantial tax credits for renewable energy projects, including solar and wind farms.

Sami Roth [00:07]: "Under Trump's bill, those credits will soon be gone. So will tax credits for electric vehicles, rooftop solar, and energy efficiency upgrades for your home."

Impact on Clean Energy Growth

Jesse Jenkins elaborates on the analysis conducted by the Repeat Project, which models the effects of various energy and climate policies on greenhouse gas emissions. The findings are stark:

• Reduced Installation of Renewables: The United States is projected to install 300 gigawatts less solar and wind power over the next decade.

  Jesse Jenkins [02:46]: "They predicted that over the next decade, the United States will install 300 gigawatts less solar and wind power than it would have otherwise."

• Equivalent to Eliminating the Nuclear Fleet: By 2035, the reduction in clean electricity generation totals 820 terawatt-hours, mirroring the entire current contribution of the US nuclear fleet.

  Sami Roth [06:32]: "We're basically losing about a nuclear power fleet worth of new clean electricity supply between now and 2035 that we would otherwise have built."

• Increased Emissions: Greenhouse gas emissions are expected to rise by 2% in 2030 and 7% by 2035 relative to scenarios without the bill.

  Jesse Jenkins [09:08]: "Greenhouse gas emissions in 2035... is going to be a 7% increase relative to before this bill passed."

Economic Consequences for Households and Businesses

The bill's withdrawal of tax credits not only hampers renewable energy growth but also translates to higher energy costs for consumers and businesses:

• Household Expenditures: Energy costs for households are projected to increase by $165 annually in 2030 and $280 annually in 2035.

  Jesse Jenkins [15:17]: "US Household and business energy expenditures are going to increase by $28 billion annually in 2030 and over $50 billion in 2035."

• Broader Economic Implications: The higher costs stem from increased expenses in renewable energy projects and diminished incentives for energy-efficient upgrades.

Grid Reliability and Energy Security

A significant concern discussed is the potential threat to grid reliability. With the slowed growth in clean energy, the balance between supply and demand becomes precarious:

• Supply Constraints: The bill makes new energy projects more expensive, leading to slower additions of clean energy to the grid.

  Sami Roth [24:26]: "If we fail to add new supply fast enough to keep up with demand, it raises the risk of rolling blackouts."

• Increased Reliance on Fossil Fuels: As renewable growth stalls, there is a heightened dependency on natural gas and coal, further exacerbating emissions and undermining climate goals.

Political Dynamics and the Republican Party

The conversation shifts to the political underpinnings of the Beautiful Bill:

• Economic Self-Harm: Despite providing economic benefits, such as investment in energy supply and advanced manufacturing, the bill is perceived as economically detrimental to Republican constituencies due to increased energy costs.

  Sami Roth [11:54]: "This is just good for the oil and gas sector and owning the libs, if that's your top priority here."

• Party Cohesion Under Leadership: Republican leadership, particularly under President Trump, is criticized for enforcing party lines that prioritize fossil fuel interests over constituents' economic well-being.

• Case Study: Senator Tillis: An example is provided of Senator Rick Tillis from North Carolina, who opposed parts of the bill to protect Medicaid in his state, resulting in political alienation within his party.

  Sami Roth [23:36]: "Senator Tillis... is going to get a blip in power service. Is he right?"

Strategies for Mitigating the Bill’s Impact

To counteract the adverse effects of the Beautiful Bill, several strategies are proposed:

• Bipartisan Permitting Reforms: Emphasizing the need for streamlined processes to facilitate the rapid deployment of renewable energy projects.

  Sami Roth [28:47]: "Permitting reforms... would undoubtedly benefit clean energy more than dirty."

• Building a Pragmatic Pro-Business Coalition: Strengthening alliances with business interests and local communities that benefit economically from renewable projects to foster broader political support.

• Cultural Shift Towards Renewable Energy: Advocating for renewables as inherently American and culturally integrated, moving beyond being perceived solely as a liberal agenda.

  Sami Roth [37:47]: "There's anything less American about farming the wind or the sun than there is farming corn or soy or pumping oil."

Future Outlook and Recommendations

In concluding the discussion, Sami Roth emphasizes the critical need to build a robust political and cultural foundation to support clean energy expansion:

• Economic Incentives: Continuing to highlight the economic advantages of renewables, such as job creation and energy security, to garner bipartisan support.

• Community Engagement: Ensuring that renewable projects deliver tangible benefits to local communities to foster grassroots support.

• Investment in Advocacy: Encouraging philanthropists and stakeholders to invest in organizations that promote the economic and cultural narratives supportive of renewable energy.

Sami Roth [39:37]: "We need to be thinking about how to invest from a kind of organizing perspective in building a coordinated and cohesive kind of political block that supports that kind of pragmatic energy policy."

Conclusion

The episode underscores the profound setback the Beautiful Bill represents for clean energy progress in the United States. With significant reductions in renewable energy incentives and increased support for fossil fuels, the bill jeopardizes climate goals, economic stability, and energy security. The discussion between Sammy Roth and Jesse Jenkins highlights the urgent need for strategic political action, bipartisan cooperation, and cultural rebranding of renewable energy to navigate and mitigate the bill's adverse impacts.

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Notable Quotes:

• Sami Roth [06:32]: "We're basically losing about a nuclear power fleet worth of new clean electricity supply between now and 2035 that we would otherwise have built."

• Jesse Jenkins [09:08]: "Greenhouse gas emissions in 2035... is going to be a 7% increase relative to before this bill passed."

• Sami Roth [28:47]: "Permitting reforms... would undoubtedly benefit clean energy more than dirty."

• Sami Roth [37:47]: "There's anything less American about farming the wind or the sun than there is farming corn or soy or pumping oil."

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This detailed summary encapsulates the critical discussion on the impact of the Beautiful Bill on clean energy, intertwining economic, political, and cultural perspectives to provide a comprehensive overview for listeners and readers alike.

Transcript

[Sami Roth]

This is an LA Times Studios podcast.

[Jesse Jenkins]

My name is Sami Roth and I'm the climate columnist for the Los Angeles Times. This is Boiling Point. Last week was not a good week for climate progress. Republicans in Congress approved President Trump's budget bill, the so called one big, beautiful bill. It got a lot of news coverage for slashing Medicaid and increasing funding for immigration enforcement and deportations. But one of the other hugely consequential things that this bill does is decimate federal support for clean energy. You might remember that in 2022, President Biden signed a historic climate law, the Inflation Reduction act, with significant tax credits for solar and wind farms. Well, under Trump's bill, those credits will soon be gone. So will tax credits for electric vehicles, rooftop solar, and energy efficiency upgrades for your home. Meanwhile, coal, oil and gas will receive even more federal support. So this week on Boiling Point, we're gonna talk about the one big beautiful bill. Our guest is Jesse Jenkins. He's a professor and energy systems researcher at Princeton University. And most relevant for this conversation, he. He's the director of the Repeat project. That's an acronym, repeat. And the Repeat project models how different energy and climate policies might affect greenhouse gas emissions. All last week, as Republicans in the House and Senate were hammering out the final details of the budget bill, I was pretty much on tenterhooks, just waiting to see what the Repeat project would have to say about the final version of the bill. And lo and behold, the day the House passed the final version, Jesse and his colleagues published their rapid analysis. The results were not pretty for the climate. They predicted that over the next decade, the United states will install 300 gigawatts less solar and wind power than it would have otherwise. If that sounds like a crapload of clean energy, that's because it's a crapload of clean energy. The Repeat project also found that emissions will go up and energy bills will get higher compared to what would have happened if the law didn't pass. None of this means that we're irretrievably doomed, but it does mean that the climate problem just got even harder, and it was pretty hard to begin with. So here's my conversation with Jesse about how we got to this point politically and what happens next, and hopefully what we can do about it.

[Southern California Edison]

During one of the most severe windstorms Southern California experienced in more than a decade, Palisades and Eaton fires ignited, leaving heartbreaking losses in our communities. Now, as we build back, we're building stronger, cleaner, and more resilient in communities most vulnerable to dangerous weather conditions and wildfires. Southern California Edison is placing power lines underground, hardening the electric system by installing wires with protective coating and adding advanced technology to help keep communities safe. So when Southern California faces the next storm, the next most severe event copied.

[Sami Roth]

Helicopters structures adjacent here by up the.

[Southern California Edison]

Road we'll be ready. Learn [e-mail] disasterrecovery Today is the worst.

[Abby]

Day of Abby's life. The 17 year old cradles her newborn son in her arms.

[Jesse Jenkins]

They all saw how much I loved him.

[Abby]

They didn't have to take him from me. 1945 and the early 1970s, families shipped their pregnant teenage daughters to maternity homes and forced them to secretly place their babies for adoption in hidden corners across America. It's still happening. My parents had me locked up in.

[Jesse Jenkins]

The godparent home against my will. They worked with them to manipulate me and to steal my son away from me.

[Abby]

The godparent home is the brainchild of controversial preacher Jerry Falwell, the father of the modern evangelical rite and the founder of Liberty University, where powerful men emboldened by their faith determine who gets to be a parent and who must give their child away. Follow Liberty Lost on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jesse Jenkins]

Jesse, thank you very much for being with us on the Boiling Point podcast.

[Sami Roth]

Thanks for having me. Sammy, good to talk to you.

[Jesse Jenkins]

I guess I just want to, I want to ask you, how would you try to explain this to people who maybe aren't so deep in the weeds, like at a really high level, how bad is this bill for clean energy? Like, you know, try to, you know, we'll do the quantification side of it, but try to qualify it. Like you've been studying this thing and doing it really quickly. Like, you know, what does this really mean for fighting climate change at a high level?

[Sami Roth]

Well, I think what it really means is that Republicans basically just raised taxes on the most important new sources of energy we're adding to the US Power grid today. That's mostly wind and solar power, which account for something like 95% or more of all of the new generating capacity that we're adding to the US Grid. And the Republican bill basically raised taxes on energy production by about doubling. You know, basically doubled the cost. It's a removed a 50, 30 to 50% tax cut. And so now the costs of these projects are, you know, 30 to 50% more expensive. What that means for emissions and for the country as a whole is we're going to continue to build wind, solar, and batteries. They're going to be economic in a big chunk of the country. We're going to continue to see, I think, increasing sales of electric vehicles, but we're going to get less of all of that and it's going to be more expensive for American households and businesses. And because we're having less generation, our estimate is we're basically losing about a nuclear power fleet worth of new clean electricity supply between now and 2035 that we would otherwise have built. We're going to see emissions go up too, because that nuclear fleet's worth of lost clean electricity supply would otherwise have been displacing power generation from coal and natural gas.

[Jesse Jenkins]

Yeah, that one less nuclear fleet of generation stat really stood out to me that, you know, you're projecting, you and your team are projecting that this bill is going to decrease clean electricity generation in 2035 by more than 820 terawatt hours, which, you know, about the entire contribution of the US Nuclear fleet today. That's about a fifth of all of the electricity that we produce in the country right now, right?

[Sami Roth]

Yeah, that's right. Basically, what we're seeing is electricity demand is set to grow at about 25% between now and 2035. So if we want to reduce emissions, we not only have to meet all of that large growth in electricity demand with new clean electricity, we also need to be exceeding that pace and adding enough new clean supply that we can eat into the current generation from coal and natural gas. And it's that part that's actually at threat here. On the bright side, our results show US still adding 1,400 terawatt hours of new clean electricity supply between now and 2035, even despite the fact that Republicans are raising the cost of adding that supply. So that's more than enough new clean supply to meet expected demand growth, but not enough to bite deeply into existing fossil generation as we would have had under the Inflation Reduction act tax credits that were just wiped away.

[Jesse Jenkins]

Okay, so it's not like solar and wind and batteries are going away. It's just that we're not going to be accelerating the pace of growth at the rate that we need to meet the new electricity demand and deal with climate change.

[Sami Roth]

Yeah, that's right. I mean, wind and solar are still very economic scalable resources that are going to get built at large scale to meet basically all of that expected demand growth. We probably will also add additional natural gas fired generating capacity mostly to meet kind of peak demand moments or moments when the wind, wind and solar output are too low to reliably meet overall demand. Batteries are going to do a lot of that work, though, too. And so the amount of new gas turbines we add is limited by competition from batteries. That's still good. The big question is, how much gas do we burn in both those new gas plants and the existing fleet that supplies over a third of our electricity today, or the coal plants that still provide just under a fifth of our electricity? And to make progress on emissions, we need to be eating into that share, too. And that's basically where losing like a fifth of our current supply that would otherwise be competing with those existing gas and coal plants or maybe reducing the output from new gas plants that we would be building.

[Jesse Jenkins]

Yeah, I mean, I'm looking at the statistic that you have here, the projection that you have, and you're showing that greenhouse gas emissions in 2030, that we would have 190 million metric tons per year of additional greenhouse gas emissions, or will, you're projecting, have 190 million metric tons of additional emissions under this bill, 470 million metric tons additional by 2035. So that's a 2% increase by 2030, a 7% increase by 2035. And that's just relative to before this bill passed. So that's not even taking into account all of the other stuff that Trump is doing by executive action to penalize renewables, some of which is likely illegal or unconstitutional. So that's. I mean, that's a pretty big jump in emissions at a time when you really need to be getting emissions down really, really fast.

[Sami Roth]

Yeah, that's right. And again, I mean, missions are still falling under these scenarios, just much more slowly than they would otherwise. Basically only a couple percentage points of additional progress between now and 2030. We're at about 17% below peak emissions levels right now, and our modeling estimates that we'll be in the vicinity of 20% below by 2030 and maybe 25% below by 2035. If we had sustained Biden era policies, including importantly, the EPA tailpipe regulations for greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks and the power plant regulations on greenhouse gas emissions from existing coal and gas plants, we estimate that we would have been more like 40 to 44% below peak levels by 2035. So we're losing substantial gains here. We're going to have greenhouse gas emissions basically like a billion metric tons higher in 2035 than they would have been if we had sustained the Biden era policies. And about half of that gap comes from repealing the regulatory policies, and the other half comes from raising. Comes from Raising the cost of adding new clean electricity, increasing the cost of purchasing electric vehicles, increasing the cost of energy efficiency measures, all those things that would otherwise have received tax credits over the next decade.

[Jesse Jenkins]

Did you ever imagine after President Biden's climate bill passed Congress and he signed it into law, the Inflation Reduction act, so much of which is being rolled back right now. I mean, did it ever occur to you, or did you think that we could get to this point and so quickly, just three years later, that so much of this could get undone? I mean, there was, at least from, you know, from my read of the room and so many of the, you know, academics and advocates that I was following, it just, it kind of felt like there was this attitude of, okay, you know, like we haven't solved climate change now, but, you know, this progress is kind of locked into place because it's going to create so much economic growth. I mean, did you see this coming or did you think this was a possibility?

[Sami Roth]

Yeah, look, I mean, we're dealing with a world of extremely polarized American politics, right when extremely ideological, national scale politics that's kind of whipsawing back and forth every four years. That's a very difficult environment to sustain any policy over a long period of time. But I have to admit, I mean, I thought that these policies would have been more durable than they ended up being precisely because they deliver enormous economic benefits in the form of basically $1 trillion of additional investment in energy supply in Republican mostly, most of which is in Republican districts, hundreds of billions of dollars of investment in advanced manufacturing of batteries, battery supply chain components, wind, solar components, et cetera. Again, most of those factories are opening in Republican districts. And I mean, this is the Republican Party raising taxes on energy. It's a pretty remarkable thing to see them doing that, right? Especially in an environment where particularly electricity bills are already rising and where the President ran on an agenda of lowering household costs, not increasing them. And so it is a bit baffling to see this kind of economic self harm inflicted on their own constituents by the Republican Party. And there was a substantial block of Republicans in both the House and the Senate that didn't want to see this done. But we live in a world, right, in a country where the President is ruling the Republican Party with a pretty iron fist and forcing members to take votes that they really don't want to take and that their republic, you know, that their constituents aren't benefiting from. I mean, just look at what happened to Senator Tillis from North Carolina who decided that he didn't want to kick hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians off of Medicaid. Poor residents of his state that were gonna lose their health insurance under this bill and decided he wouldn't vote for it under the current form as it was in the Senate. And he's basically been excommunicated from the Republican Party. He can't run again. He's decided there's no hope for him winning reelection in 2026. And so in that environment, it's difficult to see Republicans stand up for basically what they believe, what they want for their constituents. It takes an act of courage and pretty much an act of self immolation when it comes to their future political careers to stand up for the right thing here. I wish more of them had followed Senator Tillis and done that. But I think that's really at the core of a lot of this. I mean, I asked on X a while back, actually one of the pieces that Elon Musk amplified later, who actually wants this policy environment? I mean, it's not good for US Manufacturing. It's not good for our competitiveness with China. It's not good for the future of our automotive sector. It's not good for meeting data center electricity demand growth. It's not good for household bills. You know, it's not good for investment in rural communities. What is this good for? Basically, just the oil and gas sector and owning the libs, if that's your top priority here. And unfortunately, it seems like owning the libs won out over doing what's right for American energy policy and for future economies of both Republican and Democratic districts.

[Jesse Jenkins]

So I agree with, I mean, all of that makes unfortunately perfect sense and tracks with just everything that we know about US Politics right now. But on the, you know, on the household energy costs, you know, just to pull out the numbers that you guys ran, you're finding that US Household and business energy expenditures are going to increase by $28 billion annually in 2030 and over $50 billion in 2035. And what that translates to is $165 more per household per year in energy expenditures in 2030 and $280 more per households per year in 2035. So people spending more for electricity, I assume just electricity, maybe other energy sources as well. Tell me where those numbers come from. Why, as a result of this bill, are people going to pay more for energy?

[Sami Roth]

Yeah, there's several reasons why. So first, basically, this is a tax increase on energy production from renewable electricity sources, which are losing the tax cuts that were that were available under current Law. So we're making clean electricity more expensive. And since most of what we're adding to the grid now is clean electricity, we're basically just making new electricity generation more expensive. That also means we're going to be adding less new electricity to the grid because these projects are more expensive. Less of them will make financial sense. And so we'll see less, you know, be able to secure investment and move forward. So we're in an environment of increasing demand growth and we're not going to be able to add as much new supply. And so anytime you have an imbalance between demand and supply, prices go up as well. And at the same time, a lot of the kind of household and business related tax credits here, whether it was electric vehicle adoption or energy efficiency or heat pumps or other electrification measures, the tax cuts in the IRA basically took.

[Jesse Jenkins]

Yeah, that's the Inflation Reduction Act. That's Biden's climate bill, by the way. Just putting that out there.

[Sami Roth]

That's right, yes. Not the Irish Republican Army.

[Jesse Jenkins]

That's right.

[Sami Roth]

Those tax cuts basically took some of that upfront cost of adopting an electric vehicle or installing a heat pump down and lowered the cost premium. All of those measures involve spending more upfront in order to spend less over time. And so by increasing the cost of adoption there, we're also going to see less investment in energy saving or energy cost saving measures like adopting an electric vehicle or adopting a heat pump or energy efficiency upgrades. So the supply we're adding is more expensive, demand is higher because we're not taking those energy efficiency or energy saving measures and we're not adding as much supply to keep up with demand growth. And that also increases energy costs, but not just electricity, but also at the gas pump as well. Because we're going to see slower adoption of electric vehicles, greater consumption of gasoline and diesel, and that's going to translate as well to higher prices at the pump. And actually that impact is not captured in our household expenditure number because our models don't do a very good job of capturing that kind of oil market price response.

[Jesse Jenkins]

So you talk about utilities are building this stuff because it's needed to meet growing electricity demand and because it's so cheap. I hear from people all the time, if renewable energy is so cheap and utilities are building it because it's needed to meet demand, why does it need all of these government incentives and subsidies? Could you just talk about that a little bit? I mean, outside of the climate question, which I think is the most important thing in the world, and I think the science backs that up. But what is the importance of these incentives that are being rolled back from just a cost of power and a reliable electric grid perspective?

[Sami Roth]

Yeah, I mean, this is. It makes sense that people are confused by those talking points. It's sort of hard to square the idea that these are the cheapest energy sources we have, but also they need subsidy. I mean, the reality is that the United States has subsidized energy production forever because it's in our national interest to make sure that we have an abundant supply of energy and that we can meet growing demand. We subsidized unconventional natural gas from the 1980s through the mid-2000s that helped give birth to shale gas and other unconventional gas production that now supplies the majority of our gas. We still offer some favorable tax treatment that's been on the books since the nineteen teens for oil and gas drilling, depreciating intangible assets and things like that. We have long subsidized various forms of energy for a variety of reasons, because they help make the country more secure in terms of energy supplies, because they lower energy costs for households and businesses, because they promote investment. And then, of course, in this case, we have resources that are clean, that are not producing air pollution, that are not producing climate warming greenhouse gas emissions. And there's a public value to that. So we either need to, if we don't reflect that public value in some kind of ongoing policy intervention that supports the deployment of cleaner energy sources, or in some kind of policy intervention that penalizes or increases the cost of polluting energy sources, we're always going to get less of that supply than makes sense from a societal perspective. So I guess, in short, we're still going to build a lot of wind, solar and batteries. We're just going to build less than makes sense if you care about energy affordability. Less than makes sense if you care about cleaner air. Less than makes sense if you care about climate change. All those sort of public objectives would support some level of subsidy. We can debate what the right level is and whether the policies enacted under the Biden administration were too generous or not. But some policy intervention is going to be needed. Otherwise, we're going to be building much more, much slower than would be ideal from a social public perspective.

[Jesse Jenkins]

We'll be back after a quick break.

[Southern California Edison]

During one of the most severe windstorms Southern California experienced in more than a decade, the Palisades and Eaton fires ignited, leaving heartbreaking losses in our communities. Now, as we build back, we're building stronger, cleaner, and more resilient in communities most vulnerable to dangerous weather conditions and wildfires, Southern California Edison is placing power lines underground, hardening the electric system by installing wires with protective coating and adding advanced technology to help keep communities safe. So when Southern California faces the next storm, the next most severe event, we'll be ready. Learn [e-mail] disasterrecovery Today is the worst.

[Abby]

Day of Abby's life. The 17 year old cradles her newborn son in her arms.

[Jesse Jenkins]

They all saw how much I loved him.

[Abby]

They didn't have to take him from me. Between 1945 and the early 1970s, families shipped their pregnant teenage daughters to maternity homes and forced them to secretly place their babies for adoption in hidden corners across America. It's still happening. My parents had me locked up in.

[Jesse Jenkins]

The godparent home against my will. They worked with them to manipulate me and to steal my son away from me.

[Abby]

The godparent home is the brainchild of controversial preacher Jerry Falwell, the father of the modern evangelical rite and the founder of Liberty University, where powerful men emboldened by their faith determine who gets to be a parent and who must give their child away. Follow Liberty Lost on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jesse Jenkins]

Senator Tillis you brought up before from North Carolina, the one who's not going to be running for reelection because Trump would support his primary challenger. One of the things he said on the floor of the Senate when he was going on about how we should really be continuing to incentivize solar and wind, he talked about how he's heard from utility industry executives that there's this global shortage of gas turbines and how it's hard to get a gas plant built right now and how that's one of the reasons, among others, among cost reasons, why utilities are really turning towards solar and wind and batteries as a resource to keep the lights on, unlike what Trump and MAGA folks are saying about how these resources are unreliable. And Tillis said flat out to his colleagues, if you pass this bill, you're going to get a blip in power service. Is he right? I mean, is this bill threatening the reliability of the grid and of keeping the lights on?

[Sami Roth]

Yeah, I mean, he's right that there is a shortage of gas turbines. There's a limited amount that the gas turbine manufacturers are willing to produce. They've been caught before in kind of boom bust cycles in the mid-2000s and other previous cycles when they don't want to be overproducing and have the same kind of boom bust now. And so they're also enjoying Pretty fat margins at the moment. And so they're happy to kind of keep supply in check and keep it a seller's market. So yeah, we've heard that the cost of gas turbines has more than doubled. The wait times to build a new gas turbine are anywhere from three to seven years. That's assuming you're even in the interconnection queue to get connected to the grid or and you have all your permits, which themselves take several years. So, you know, we're, we assume in our modeling and I think this is what's going to happen in reality, that basically like all of the gas turbines that have been ordered are going to get built whether this bill passed or not. And so the big question is what are we going to do to meet the rest of the demand growth that's coming? And what this bill does is it makes all of that new supply that we're going to add to meet that growth more expensive. Right? We're still gonna add wind and solar, we're just gonna add less of it and it's gonna be more expensive. And it raises the risk that we're not gonna be able to add it fast enough to keep up with demand in all parts of the country. And that's what Senator Tillis is talking about. If we get into tighter supply, demand balances. Where demand is starting to outstrip how quickly we can add new supply, then that raises the risk of the kind of rolling blackouts that California experienced a couple summers ago that Texas has experienced during extre conditions. And the solution to avoid that is just add more new supply, mostly wind, solar and batteries, as quickly as we can. It would be much easier to do that if we continued with current the tax cuts that were in place until this bill passed. And I should say, beyond the economics, if we also were proactively pursuing permitting reforms that made it easier and faster to build new supply, fixing interconnection processes to add new resources to the grid, doing better transmission planning so that they have the headroom on the grid to add these resources. So there's a variety of non market factors that also could help us keep supply going fast enough to keep up with demand. But we basically need both of those. They're not substitutes for one another. We need to make the economics make financial sense so that investors can plow their money here instead of into other sectors. And we need to make it easy and fast enough to build new clean supply that we can keep up with demand. And if we fail to do both of those things, which at the moment looks like we are about to do. That really does raise the risk that we're not going to be able to keep up with demand growth and we're going to start to see tighter grid conditions and more likelihood of blackouts or rolling outages.

[Jesse Jenkins]

So when you use the word permitting reform, used the word permitting reforms a minute ago. I think some listeners to this podcast just that probably their eyes glazed over because those are just wonky words that don't mean a lot to them. Some people were nodding along, oh, yep, permitting reform badly need that. And then some other listeners, their heads exploded because they're really mad at you because permitting reform is evil. So just permitting reform, basically the idea make it easier to build stuff. But it's controversial because permitting reform as it comes up In Sacramento or D.C. is typically applied to all energy infrastructure and gets applied not just to renewables, but to fossil fuel infrastructure as well as just briefly, what do you think can or should happen there? I mean, do you see there being a viable path or what? I don't even know what my question is here. I mean, I think as a reporter, I'm a little bit skeptical because seeing where Republicans are at right now and they're sort of totally detached from reality having to do with anything climate or energy, it would be hard for me to say, oh, this is great permitting reform, and it's also going to make it easier to build oil pipelines and coal mines and whatever else is going to be horrible. But as an energy reporter who focuses on renewables, I see exactly what you're saying, which is that it would certainly be helpful to make it easier to build solar farms or transmission lines, to connect wind farms to cities. What's your take? What would you advise?

[Sami Roth]

Yeah, I mean, of course, in an ideal world, we'd only be making it easier to build clean energy, but we don't live in an ideal world. I think there are some states where that can be their focus. Right. You know, if your state government is committed to clean energy supply, then states, this is an area where they can make real progress over the next few years, they should be relentlessly focusing on areas where, you know, bureaucracy and red tape and inconsistent processes across the state. Right. Where every municipality has a different rule for something. You know, any of those kinds of barriers we should be trying to sweep away so that we can add as much clean energy to the grid as possible and as much, you know, connect as many EV chargers and install as many heat pumps and all the kinds of measures that we want to be doing at the local level. So there are a lot of state level reforms that could be taken at the federal level. Of course, given a Republican trifecta. I mean, there's no way that we're going to see permitting reform unless it's on a bipartisan basis. They can't do it through budget reconciliation the way they did with this bill, which means they need a filibuster proof majority. And that means Republicans are going to need Democratic votes if they want to tackle any kind of permitting reform. But of course they're in a stronger position than Democrats are at the moment, being that they're in the majority. And so I guess the calculus at the federal level is if we just make it easier to build everything on net, will that benefit clean energy more than dirty energy?

[Jesse Jenkins]

I guess my question for you is, do you think the answer is yes?

[Sami Roth]

Yeah, I mean, I think it's a great question. Obviously the answer was easier to say yes before Republicans just raised the price on new clean energy. And I do think this bill is gonna make the politics of bipartisan permitting reform more difficult. I think there are specific things that can be done that will definitely benefit clean energy. Most of the things that we do on the grid side, whether that's transmission planning or giving federal siting authority and cost allocation authority over important interstate transmission lines, kicking the grid operators into gear so that they can interconnect resources in months instead of years, all of those would unquestionably be better for clean energy than dirty, because almost everything we're adding to the grid is clean. If we're talking about something like nepa, the National Environmental Protection act, and kind of sweeping away those sorts of rules across the board, that'll benefit whatever is getting built, any kind of new infrastructure. And I do think on net that's still going to continue to be cleaner rather than dirty. But that calculus just got a little bit worse because of this bill. And so I do think it's going to make it more challenging to come up with a bipartisan compromise. So I guess, in short, we got to make sure that if the federal government does pursue a permitting reform bill, that there's enough balancing out the fossil side here. In particular reforms that are focused on making it easier to add new electricity to the grid, those measures will definitely help clean energy more than dirty, because again, almost everything we're going to add is still going to be wind, solar and storage.

[Jesse Jenkins]

So now that we've gotten real deep into the weeds and talked a little bit of permitting reform, and you mentioned NEPA and for the federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Let's bring it back up to a high level to close out. You talked earlier about how this bill was basically just give the fossil fuel industry what they want and own the libs. What, if anything, do you think it might take or what could it take to snap national politics and the Republican Party in particular back to reality on energy? Is it that if we start to see blackouts when energy prices really do start to rise as a result of this? I mean we went from inflation reduction act in 2022 to slaughter clean energy in 2025. What do you think it might take for there to cause a real backlash to this? Or is it just going to be like get the Democrats back in power by one vote and do the opposite and hope that it doesn't change again?

[Sami Roth]

No, I definitely don't think that's sufficient. I mean, I think that the interesting counterpoint to what just happened at the federal level is what happened this year in the Texas legislative session where for the second legislative session in a row and Texas has by every other year session. So this sort of spans the last three years. There were a number of similar ideologically driven attacks on renewable energy that would have made it next to impossible to site new wind or solar facilities. That one bill would have required for every megawatt of wind or solar added to the grid, that you added a megawatt of natural gas capacity, which just doesn't make any sense.

[Jesse Jenkins]

Fair is fair, Jesse.

[Sami Roth]

Yeah, I guess that's not how the grid works, but yeah. And all of those measures Both in the 2025 session and in the 2023 session were beaten back successfully by a kind of pragmatic pro business, pro energy abundance, pro affordability coalition that included a bunch of business interests, a bunch of landowner interests who are benefiting from leasing land and rural county commissioners who are getting tax payments from wind and solar projects and of course Democrats in the legislature. And they were able to successfully push back and defeat these ideologically driven attacks. And I do think that is the template for what we need to do at the federal level is we need to continue to build a new base of power, political power and influence that supports clean energy for its economic benefits. This can't be something that's driven purely by greens by an environmental motive or it will continue to fall into this extremely ideological trap that we found ourselves in where unfortunately, environmentalism and climate policy have become part of the culture wars. And in order to break out of that, we I think need to strengthen that kind of pragmatic wing. Unfortunately, I do think it's going to have less influence while Donald Trump is in office at the federal level, just given the way that he is governing the party. But if anything is going to break through the culture wars, it's a strong economic business case for continuing to build out a cleaner energy system. And that case is strong. It is true. If we were to build more wind and solar and batteries, if we were to build more electric vehicles in America, if we were to add more or build a domestic battery supply chain, all of these things are better for the United States for our competitiveness, for our energy supplies, for reliability, for affordability. And I think we need to be thinking about how to invest from a kind of organizing perspective in building a coordinated and cohesive kind of political block that supports that kind of pragmatic energy policy, both at the local and state level and at the federal level. And I do see some optimism in the fact that, again, there were at least half a dozen senators, Senate Republicans and at least 20 House Republicans who were that pragmatic bloc and didn't want to see these policies move forward. We need to build on that block and expand it so that in the future this can break out of the culture wars and be something that is just smart, pragmatic American energy policy.

[Jesse Jenkins]

Well, I agree with all of that. Clearly you need a strong business case here. It's not going to happen. I think the one tweak or the one maybe addition I would suggest to that, which I'm curious what you make of is that the fact that renewable energy and climate have unfortunately gotten caught up in political culture wars. I do think that you do need sort of a cultural counter argument to it where you need, in addition to, I mean, the idea that solar and wind were ultimately going to triumph no matter what because there's such a strong business case because they're cheap, because they create jobs, because they create tax revenues, that has been an argument for them. I mean, it hasn't just been an environmental case for a while now that that was an argument that underpinned the Inflation Reduction Act. That was an argument that was made for why the Inflation Reduction act was likely to endure, which clearly didn't happen. The cultures sort of own. The libs argument won out. And even those Republican senators and House members who you mentioned who wanted to defend the Inflation Reduction act mostly folded at the end of the day. And I just saw reporting, I think it was from Heat Map News the other day, that something like one fifth of all U.S. counties now have passed ordinances either banning Or. Or restricting in some form solar and wind farms. And these are many, if not mostly rural places. So I do think that in addition to this business case, and again, curious what you make of this. There does need to be some sort of cultural component to this where it's not just accepted that, well, solar and wind, you can't stop them from being seen as a liberal project. So you just got to make the business case. Because. Because I think that doing that alone hasn't worked thus far, and there needs to be some kind of other element where they're baked into culture in a positive way.

[Sami Roth]

I think that's right. I think it's kind of bizarre to think that there's anything less American about farming the wind or the sun than there is farming corn or soy or pumping oil. These are American energy resources that we have in abundance, and we're willfully choosing here not to use them to their full potential. That doesn't make any sense. Right. And there is a good case that we need to, like you said, build this sort of cultural argument. I do think that also benefits, again, from having a strong economic argument here. And it's not just that this is good for business. I think one of the things that has become problematic at the local level is where people look at these wind farms or solar farms and say, hey, some billionaire out of state company is making money off of our view and off of our community, and they don't see the local benefits from those projects, where you do have the cultural support and the local support is where it's very clear and clearly communicated and understood that these projects do deliver local benefits, that they're lowering property taxes, that they're paying for the schools, that they're paying for the sheriff's office, that they're a real contributing part of the community, not just leasing land and paying a few of the landowners where the wind farms actually happen to see it. And so part of that is on developers, right, to find a better way to engage with communities and build projects. But it also could benefit from having kind of an organized constituency of an organized set of groups out there kind of consistently making this economic and cultural case at the local level and building from the ground up where possible. And we just have systematically, kind of, from a climate and energy strategy or philanthropy perspective, has systematically underinvested in those kinds of organizations and assets. And I think that that's something that has to change.

[Jesse Jenkins]

Well, to all the philanthropists listening to this podcast, some ideas for where to put your money and not just into small, modular reactors. Jesse Jenkins, thank you very much. Not that those aren't necessarily valuable. Maybe that'll work out. Fingers crossed. I hope so. Jesse, thank you very much for being with us on the Boiling Point podcast.

[Sami Roth]

Thanks, Sammy. Take care.

[Jesse Jenkins]

So you might have heard Jesse use the word abundance a few times in that conversation. This concept, abundance, also came up a couple of months ago in my conversation with Carter Rubin from the Natural Resources Defense Council. It's this popular but also very controversial idea these days that too much environmental regulation in liberal cities and states like California is stifling the development of renewable energy and affordable housing and other stuff that we actually want to build more of. Like I said, abundance. Popular but controversial. If you'll stay tuned for just a couple of weeks, we're going to do not one, but two podcasts dealing with abundance. So hopefully that's something to look forward to. Thank you as always for listening to Boiling Point. And if you're enjoying the show, please do rate us and subscribe. It really helps. Thank you for listening to Boiling Point. I'm your host, Sammy Roth. My producers are Mary Knauf and Jonathan Shiflett. Sound design and original music by Jonathan Shiflett. Elijah Wolfson is our editor. Denise Callahan is our studio manager. Ben Church is our production manager. Nick Norton is our engineer. Special thanks to LA Times Studio President Anna Mugzal, President and Chief Operating Officer of the Los Angeles Times, Chris Argentieri, and Executive Editor of the Los Angeles Times, Terry Tang. Boiling Point is executive produced by Darius Derekshon and created by me, Sami Roth.

[Abby]

Today is the worst day of Abby's life. The 17 year old cradles her newborn son in her arms.

[Jesse Jenkins]

They all saw how much I loved him.

[Abby]

They didn't have to take him from me. Between 1945 and the early 1970s, families shipped their pregnant teenage daughters to maternity homes and forced them to secretly place their babies for adoption in hidden corners across America. It's still happening. My parents had me locked up in.

[Jesse Jenkins]

The godparent home against my will. They worked with them to manipulate me and to steal my son away from me.

[Abby]

The godparent home is the brainchild of controversial preacher Jerry Falwell, the father of the modern Evangelical Rite and the founder of Liberty University, where powerful men, emboldened by their faith, determine who gets to be a parent and who must give their child away. Follow Liberty Lost on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast.

[Jesse Jenkins]

Hi, I'm Jane Coastin, former writer and podcaster for places like the New York Times, the Atlantic, and National Review. And now I'M here to hang out with you five days a week on what a Day. Crooked's daily news podcast. That's right. Now who's respected on both sides? These days, it's hard to separate what matters from all the noise, especially when the noise is an elderly guy mumbling conspiracy theories he heard on Newsmax. That's why every weekday, the team and I scour the headlines to bring you the stories that matter most to the way you look live. In just 20 minutes, you can listen to the show wherever you get your podcasts.