Last week a massive spending and tax bill, named the “One, Big, Beautiful Bill” was signed into law by President Trump. It includes major cuts to clean energy tax credits, pushed forward by the Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).  

The law is a huge setback against cutting emissions and transitioning to clean energy. “How We Survive” host Amy Scott talks with Shannon Osaka, climate zeitgeist reporter at The Washington Post to find out more.

“It's hard to overestimate how devastating this bill will be to renewables in the United States,” Osaka says. “If you think about  the long history of U.S. climate action, we waited quite literally decades to get a bill that was trying to boost wind and solar, to get all of these technologies on the grid, to encourage adoption of EVs.” The new law removes all these incentives and tax credits. 

Osaka says it will take some time for some tax credits to phase out. Geothermal and nuclear tax credits will stay in place until early 2030s. But, she says, wind and solar are a different story. “Any wind or solar project has to begin construction within a year of the bill being signed.”

If you’re a consumer looking to take advantage of one of these clean energy tax credits, Osaka says you need to act fast. “The EV tax credit, which is $7,500 off a new EV, that will expire September 30. So if you're looking to buy a new EV, you should do that now,” Osaka says. 

Rooftop solar is another big one, “It's like a 30% tax credit on the cost of those panels,” she says, “there's a little bit more time. I actually went and visited with some installers last week, and they said the end of 2025 but they're still a little bit uncertain about how the rules are going to shake out, so they want to be talking to customers who want to install rooftop solar again in the next three months to get things in order so that they can install that system before the end of the year.”  

The law is also a blow to United States’ ability to stay competitive in the energy transition. “I think we're going to see a lot of investments moving overseas,” Osaka explains, “some of those companies are looking to places like India as a potential opportunity. And I think we're going to see China just continue to dominate the space of EV battery manufacturing [and] solar panel manufacturing.”

To hear the full interview with Shannon Osaka click the player above.