July 14, 2025 • 29 mins
This week, we explore how the legislation’s attack on renewable energy may push up electricity bills and damage US competitiveness in AI.
The tax credits in President Joe Biden’s sprawling Inflation Reduction Act were introduced to help the US keep up with rising electricity demand by making clean power sources cheaper. But now the big bill has changed all that, and an executive order issued days after its passage suggests his war on renewables isn’t over yet.
Joining host Stephanie Flanders to discuss this dramatic turn of events are guests Ethan Zindler, head of country and policy research at BloombergNEF and previously climate counselor to US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, and Bloomberg lobbying and influence reporter Emily Birnbaum.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi It Suksha. The US Congress has passed President Donald
Trump's One Big, Beautiful Bill, and it has huge implications
for America's climate goals and growing energy needs. Later this week,
Zero will host Jiggershaw, who used to be the head
of the US Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office, to
understand how the bill will affect the clean energy industry.
(00:23):
But there's a lot to unpack in this new legislation.
So today we are sharing a bonus episode from our
sister podcast, Trumpanomics. It's hosted by Bloomberg's head of Government
and Economics, Stephanie Flanders, and she is in conversation with
Bloomberg nefs Ethan Zindler and Bloomberg lobbying and influenced reporter
Emily Bernbaum. It's a good.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Listen Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News. This is not
the death of the US renewable energy industry in the
United States, but it is a major setback.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
I'm Stephanie Flanders, head of Government and Economics at Bloomberg.
Welcome to Trumppnomics, the podcast that looks at the economic
world of Donald Trump. Now he's already shaped the global
economy and what on Earth is going to happen next.
This week we're talking about the big beautiful assault on
renewable energy. Will the Republican Megabill pass last week bring
(01:28):
on a new American energy crisis? What could be the
impact on electricity bills, the broader economy, and America's leadership
in the race for artificial intelligence. We're recording this on Tuesday,
the eighth of July. And of all the elements of
the one Big Beautiful Bill, as Donald Trump called it,
that he signed going into the July fourth holiday, one
(01:49):
I find particularly hard to get my head round is
the decision to get rid of tax credits for clean energy.
As a result of that, wind and solar projects will
cost more and more likely there will be a lot
few you are built. In fact, in an analysis this week,
a climate policy think tank called Energy Innovation forecast that
the bill would put an end to three hundred gigawatts
of wind and solar projects that would have otherwise come
(02:11):
online in the next fifteen years. That's the equivalent of
about three hundred nuclear reactors. Now, obviously that set back
the fight against climate change and the decarbonization of the
US economy and That may not be much of a
worry for the supporters of the big bill, but there
could be more concern about another very likely consequence, higher
electricity prices. That matters for voters facing rising utility bills,
(02:34):
but it also matters for tech firms chasing the next
breakthroughs in AI. The country that reigns supreme in AI
will rule the world. Everyone seems to think that these days,
including Donald Trump. In fact, you might remember, on the
day after his inauguration he announced the creation of Stargate,
a project to expand AI infrastructure in the US, but.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
To announce the largest AI infrastructure project by far in history.
And it's all taking place right here in America. As
you know, there's great competition for AI and.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Book projects like Stargate need electricity, lots of it, And
in fact, that's part of the reason electricity demand in
the US is rising faster now than it has at
any time in the last twenty years. The tax credits
in the Inflation Reduction Act on the President Biden helped
the US keep up with that rising demand. In theory
by making clean power sources cheaper. Investments in wind, solar,
(03:26):
and battery storage had spiked in the years after the
IRA was passed. But now the big bill has changed
all that and a lot of people, including me, scratching
their heads wondering what the plan is now. And this
week I'm delighted to say I'm in the Washington Studio
with two guests who have a good perspective on this
topic and can help me think through the consequences for
(03:47):
the US economy. First up, Ethan Zindler, the head of
Country and Policy Research at Bloomberg NEF that's the part
of Bloomberg Research that's focused on the energy transition. And
we should say that before join US, Ethan served as
Climate Counselor to the US Treasury Secretary of Janet Yellen
from July twenty twenty three to January twenty five, so
(04:08):
he was across a lot of policy efforts then, including
helping to write and implement the Inflation Reduction Act.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Welcome Ethan, thanks for having.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
Me, and also with us Emily Bernbaut, who's a Bloomberg
reporter here in DC who covers corporate lobbying and influence.
Thank you so much for being on Trump andomics. Emily,
Thank you. So people will have heard quite a lot
about that bill, but it's probably useful to just take
(04:37):
stock of how that turn the tables for the renewable industry.
What are the specific measures that are going to be
pain for for that part of the US energy industry.
Speaker 5 (04:49):
There was a lot of last minute wrangling over the
details of what this bill will do to the clean
energy industry. The top line is is that it's very bad.
It's not as bad as it could have been. What
ended up in the bill was pretty aggressive timelines for
(05:10):
phasing out tax credits. But elements of the bill would
encourage companies to begin construction over the next year, and
if they're able to do so, it's likelier that they'll
be able to get some of these important tax credits.
But overall, they're going to have to begin construction very quickly,
(05:31):
and these tax credits are going away on a more
aggressive timeline than had initially been anticipated.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Yeah, and that was what was interesting, because when it
went from the House to the Senate, there was some
expectation that the Senate would want to extend the time
frame a little bit. The investments the drawer have been
announced give them a bit more time to get up
and running. But if anything, the bills seem to get worse.
Speaker 5 (05:56):
Yes, and at the last minute, there was something that
would have dealt a huge blow to the industry, which
was this excise tax. There was basically panic in the
industry and among moderate Republicans who said this excise tax
would so dramatically increase costs for solar and wind projects,
it would effectively make it untenable for a lot of
(06:19):
these projects to move forward or begin construction. So right
before the Senate passed it, they removed the excise tax,
which is a huge relief, but they still are dealing
with pretty aggressive phase outs.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Ethan, you were saying just before we started that even
though parts of the renewables industry was kind of breathing
a sigh of relief or having at least dodged that
particular bullet not having this extra tax, that the administration
has already sort of vindicated that it's not done with
the renewable industry. Yet what happened earlier this week.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Yeah, things have kind of gone from bad to worst,
even within the last less than twenty four hours. Basically,
there's been some real questions about whether projects could qualify
so long as they were quote unquo quote under construction
and the irs historically is to find under construction fairly liberally.
And yesterday the White House issue to executive order basically
(07:11):
saying that they are ordering the Treasury Department within the
next forty five days to rewrite that rule, and if
they do that in such a way, they can make
it very challenging for projects to qualify. It is not
even beyond the realm of the possible that they would
write something that is essentially retroactive and effectively make it
much more challenging for projects to actually be able to
(07:32):
qualify for the credit. So from our perspective at Bloomberg
n EF, we're trying to go back and sharpen our
pencils and try and think about how much stuff is
going to get built. But I think the one thing
that's pretty clear as of this morning is that many
who are in the wind and solar and storage industry
are probably scrambling to get as much stuff as they
can essentially under construction at this very moment, while they
(07:52):
are concurrently probably lobbying the Treasury Department about what this
new regulation is going to look like.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
And I'm going to come back to you on some
of the dynas on the Hill but Ethan, let's just
step back, and I know that's what Bloomerginny f likes doing.
They tend to do the twenty five year horizons considered
to be quite short term. But if you do take
that kind of longer term, you know, what has been
happening to energy demand and electricity demand within that in
(08:20):
recent years and what was you know, until this bill,
what was that basic plan for meeting it?
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Yeah, So the United States, like other wealthy developed countries,
has been able to grow its economy without growing demand
for electricity. Really for twenty years. Essentially, we've had flat
demand overall, largely because of energy efficiency improvements and new
technologies and the desire to save costs. The last couple
of years that started to change, and we think that's
(08:46):
going to continue to change going forward. The number one
driver in the short run has been AI and the
demand from new data centers. We also think electric vehicles
as you look further out, are going to start to
play a much bigger role as well. In the US,
we think we're going to see demand for electricity double
from about forty one hundred tarawad hours at the moment
up over six thousand by the time you get to
(09:08):
twenty fifty overall, and by twenty thirty five, we think
that about eight percent of capacity in the United States
is going to go specifically to powering data centers, which
is a really considerable portion overall. One other quick just
note in terms of trends, is that really over the
last ten years or fifteen years or so, the US
has really been rapidly decarbonizing our power generation sector. We
(09:32):
went from about half our power coming from coal to
well under twenty percent as the last year, could be
even under fifteen percent this year depending on conditions. And meanwhile,
renewables have grown from almost nothing to about twenty percent
of generation. Nuclear is about twenty percent, so we're about
forty percent zero carbon here. And the natural gas is
a huge part of the story, which is a lot
cleaner than coal overall. So the general trend has been
(09:54):
towards cleaner sources of energy going forward. And if you
look at what's gotten built in the last several years,
would get built in the next several years in terms
of purely cost, it's renewables. The vast majority of new
stuff that's due to come online as renewables, and so
that is why it's so questionable that you would go
out of your way to essentially raise the cost of
those technologies, which is effectively what Congress is now done.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Those of us who kind of looked on the outside
and seen the US go from being a net consumer
of energy or oil, I should say to an exporter,
have been very familiar with a rather different story, which
is America had this fracking revolution which was not environmentally friendly,
but did bring an enormous amount of gas online, which
(10:39):
has brought down the price of energy for US consumers.
So I guess the story that you might tell against
your story at least be sort of well, hang on
a minute, it's fracking that has made this a kind
of golden era for US energy prices, and the renewables
is not completely reliable and is more is a sort
of side show to that basic story.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Really good points. I mean, certainly, we have the lowest
price natural gas in the world in terms of production,
and that has allowed a lot of manufacturing to be
very competitive in the United States. I would note though,
that first of all, that renewables plus storage gets you
maybe not to twenty four hours of generation, but can
get you enough production of electricity into the sort of
key hours of the evening, and we're starting to see
(11:21):
solar plus storage be very cost competitive in many markets
around the world, not all markets in the United States,
but a bunch of markets. But then just purely speaking
practically in the United States, in terms of what we're
going to build over the next five years, you're absolutely
right that gas is cheap and gas is cost competitive
in a number of markets in the United States. The
problem is you just cannot get your hands on a
(11:42):
combined cycle gas turbine at the moment for a number
of years, anywhere from three to seven depending on who
you asked. So in terms of what our next mega
out of capacity is going to be, it basically has
to be renewables because there isn't really any other sources
and if we have rising demand from AI, that means
it's goin to probably come from renewables. And again, if
you take away essentially what has been a long standing
(12:05):
tax credit and subsidy to the clean energy industry that
is effectively socialized a discounted electricity production price in the
United States, you're just simply going to concentrate it on
certain markets. So the next place where you're going to
build a wind or solar project. Potentially you're going to
have to sign a higher price contract in order for
the developer to make the return that they need without
(12:26):
the tax credit.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
But if they're the only short term viable source of
additional energy, then it surely must be cost effective to build.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
I mean, here's the question, and I think we're going
to find this out over the next couple of years,
is what's the breaking point for consumers? So, yes, you
can pass on some form of higher electricity prices. But
if you're a developer of a large scale data center,
you're not necessarily entirely wedded to the United States. Just
because the most AI has been built not that far
from here, maybe thirty miles from here, just outside of Washington,
(12:57):
doesn't mean that every next AI data center has to
be here. To some large degree. AI is some the servers,
not all, to be clear, there's different types of servers,
and that's not my area of expertise, but some can
really be anywhere in the world, and so they will
go where the price of electricity is most affordable and reliable,
and there are other options. Brazil is about seventy eighty
(13:19):
percent hydropower low cost. They've been trying very much to
market Brazil as an AI place. Gulf States have enormous
amounts of sun, very cheap solar, They don't put big
tariff sun solar equipment like we do, can build batteries
to go along with it. They are certainly trying to
market themselves as hubs for AI as well. So no
foregone conclusion that the United States will be the one
(13:42):
and only place where we build all this new capacity.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
But as far as you're concerned, the only way that
this energy that we were expecting to come online, or
electricity that we were expecting to come online in the
US to meet this demand will actually come online is
through higher prices.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Seems inevitable. And I think one of the questions we're
just trying to parse out, given the incredible complexity of
what Congress has just done, is how many projects could
still qualify for the tax credit if they get under
construction basically yesterday, and how many of them will not.
And those that don't, obviously are going to have to
figure out some way to get compensated correctly so that
they can earn the return that they want. The best
(14:21):
guess at the moment is that if you get under
construction sometime in this calendar year, you'll probably be okay,
But the White House just created an additional uncertainty with
this executive order.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
One estimate I saw is that the future clean energy
products that don't have these tax credits will cost fifty
percent more to get built. Do you think that's in
the right ball part?
Speaker 2 (14:42):
That feels a little on the high side of me,
But we need to do the analysis ourselves. I think historically,
if you look around the world, the history of clean
energy is you have a number of countries that have
put in place very generous supports in the form of
feed in tariffs like we've seen in countries in Europe
and elsewhere, and when they disappear, it's terrible news for
the industry. But we also find that the industry is
(15:03):
incredibly innovative about finding ways to reduce costs. The US
is really not a low cost market when it comes
to putting solar on people's jews in particular, but also
large scale projects. So there's definitely some room for cost reduction,
I think, for the industry overall. But there's no question
this is going to boost costs. In the case of
a typical solar project. The tax credit is thirty percent
(15:24):
of CAPEX, So a billion dollar project, three hundred million
right off the top was basically disappearing because of tax credits.
That has to be dealt with somehow.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
And I've seen the Energy Innovation Thing Tank from what
you're saying, suggests that maybe it'd be a little bit
on the high side, but their estimate of the impact
on bills would be that the average energy bill by
twenty thirty five could be nearly five hundred dollars higher
in Michigan, similar maybe more in Maryland, and six or
seven hundred eight hundred dollars higher in Texas than it
(15:54):
would have been if the credits had remained.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Yeah, I can't, I won't. I guess I want to
dispute that we haven't done that analysis ourselves. I've seen
different numbers from other research firms as well. There's no question,
particularly in a market like Texas, which is really deregulated
and where pricing can get passed along directly to large
scale consumers, there's no question this is going to have
a real impact. Ultimately. I think the interesting question is
what about businesses. I mean, we talk a lot about
(16:16):
retail consumers, and eventually they are the ones who get hit,
but more immediately, and often cases it's wholesale purchases of
electricity that feel the effects. And that is one of
the puzzling things why in this debate where the utility
is not more engaged in this because ultimately they're the
ones who are going to get bigger bills that they're
going to have to pass along to their consumers. Or
where were the manufacturers who are going to have to
pay higher prices for electricity than they would if you're
(16:38):
in the say Ercot market or PJM. I'm puzzled as
to why there wasn't a more engaged conversation around this,
and you're.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
Readly my mind, even because I was thinking about your title,
Emily and the fact that you are a reporter of
focusing on corporate lobbying and influence. You know, people have
focused on the impact and the influence of the fossil
fuel lobby in driving part of this bill, and we
know that there's some parts of that industry that have
been big donors to Donald Trump. But there were awful
a lot of people on the other side of the argument,
(17:07):
including as Ethan mentions, there's the utilities and sectors that
would really be hurt by this, not to mention the
tech firms who are lobbying to get more cheap electricity.
So why is it those voices just weren't heard in
the last few weeks.
Speaker 5 (17:23):
Ultimately, the reason this bill goes so aggressively against clean
energy is because of House Speaker Mike Johnson's math issue,
which was that he could only stand to lose a
very small number of Republican votes, and so that made
(17:44):
the House Freedom Caucus, the group of hardline conservatives in
the House, that made them very powerful in this conversation,
and a lot of them, for the most part, really
leaned towards the oil and gas industry. So thinking about
Hip Roy from Texas, he was one of the most
(18:04):
consistent voices saying we really need to phase out these
subsidies very quickly. He was in communication very closely with
a conservative activist named Alex Epstein who actually shaped a
lot of this debate behind the scenes. And basically alex
Epstein's arguments are in favor of natural gas. He says
(18:28):
that solar and wind are unreliable sources of energy. You know,
I'll let you debunk some of what he has to say,
but essentially that the subsidies artificially lowered the cost of
electricity and we're creating inflation. So there is a lot
of arguments behind the scenes against the clean energy industry,
(18:50):
and ultimately I think oil and gas just really won
in this bill to subsidized too.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
Yeah. I was going to say, there's a hell of
a little substance on that side, but somehow they need
some to do, but the clean energy doesn't. I mean,
even Texas is a surprise, right, I mean that was
one of the things that we said after Donald Trump
won the election, and there was obviously this question mark
about where would he go on, and there was some
pushback initially on the idea that he would completely repeal
(19:18):
the IRA the Biden era tax credits, in part because
of the support from the tech industry, but also because
it was noticed that, partly because it's easier to build
stuff in the red states, that there were a lot
of Republican states that had actually benefited enormously from the RA,
including Texas. I think most of its new electricity supply
(19:41):
had come from renewables in the last couple of years.
So it's interesting that the representative from Texas just doesn't
seem to factor that in.
Speaker 5 (19:51):
Yeah, it just became such a political talking point, calling
the IRA the Green new Scam, making it democrat led
project essentially that Republicans had to completely nix and create
their own path forward when it comes to energy, And
an interesting element of the bill is that it's a
(20:14):
lot less aggressive when it comes to nuclear energy, which
is an area that I know that tech companies have
been investing a lot into. Obviously, that's a lot slower
moving and it doesn't address the immediate energy needs of
data centers. But the nuclear energy industry came out with
far less battle scars than some other parts of the industry,
(20:37):
and that's a part of this conversation too, is sort
of like weighing things in favor of certain kinds of
energy over others.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
There was again much conversation about the political fallout from
this bill. You know, over the last few weeks people
have wondered whether the Republicans already kind of ready for
what happens in their constituencies when the impact of Medicaid
cuts and others comes through. But you would think if
there's a short term big increase in energy prices and
(21:05):
that hits people's utility bills. They're electricity bills. Is there
not a fear on the Hill the finger will be
pointed to this bill when it comes to that. I mean,
it's cost of living is such a big element of
the Trump pledge, the promise if you like to voters,
do they just think they'll be able to blame other stuff? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (21:23):
I think part of the sleight of hand is that
tax cuts are coming in more immediately than some of
the spending cuts, So meaning in the more immediate term,
some people are going to see their taxes decrease, whereas
some of the potential added cost to electricity bills or
(21:44):
some of the loss of Medicaid coverage comes farther down
the line. So it is a lot about timelines as well.
They've written it in a way that at least Republicans
hope that people don't see the more negative effects until
after the midterms in twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
If I could jump in, I think you're also maybe
ascribing a much higher level of sophistication to this conversation.
Then probably actually went on, I don't know that people
on the Hill understand the economics of power generation at
the moment, and the fact that renewables are the most
cost competitive, and the fact that it's impossible to get
your hands on a natural gas turbine. These are things
that only nerds like me know, So I don't know
(22:23):
that stuff that they're kind of across.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
Would their argument be, yeah, it's hard under Biden to
get this stuff built, but we're going to lift all
of these stupid restrictions, and so that natural gas power
station could could go up in a year or so.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
That just I mean, again, hard to not get in
the rabbit hole here. But if there's three or four
companies that make these, we're talking large scale turbines. These
are big things, specialized manufacturing that goes into them. If
you're one of the three or four companies in the
world that makes them, and you are selling them at
a very high price at the moment, and you have
a back order, I guess the question is do you
ramp up your manufacturing of those turbines. If you do,
(23:00):
how long is it going to take you to ramp
that up? At least a couple of years at the
very very least, and then a few more years at
least before you can get some more turbines out. And
if you're one of those companies. And you're looking at
the US situation, the political situation here, I think you
might very well ask yourself, well, is this the new
world we're living in or are we going to see
some flip back in two or three years back to
renewables and suddenly I've got more gas turbine capacity, manufacturing
(23:23):
capacity than I know what to do with. I'd be
very surprised if there's big investment. But keep an eye
on GE and some of the others to see whether
they make announcements around that.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
I mean, it is true when you say is that
the world we're living in? I mean it's pretty clear
that the world we're living in looks very different, looks
more like the ira world. As you noted, there's lots
of countries that have got strong incentives in place for renewables,
and we also see developing countries moving to electrify large
parts of their grid because it is it's certainly cheaper
(23:54):
for them if they're reliant otherwise on imported oil and gas.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
No, I think you raise a very good question. Is
now the death of the US renewable energy industry in
the United States by any means because of the advancements
that we've seen, but it is a major setback, and
most importantly maybe at the bottom line, as it means
our chances of coming anywhere close to reducing our CO
two missions in line with address and climate change are
effectively over at the moment.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
I guess there's one argument, which if it's so unstoppable,
we've had this period where we've ramped up production with
these massive credits, which were extremely expensive. They blew at
least a trillion dollar hole in the deficit, And of
course we can say there are other things that are
now going to blow a hole in the deficit over
the coming years thanks to the last week's bill, But
there is an argument that says it ought to be
(24:41):
able to stand on its own two feet.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Well, two things. The clean energy credits did not on
their own blow a trillion dollar hole in the deficit.
They were projected potentially to have done so, but of
course now we're living in a different world where they
certainly are not going to cost as much as was projected.
And even that number I would take a little issue
with because it made certain assumptions about hydrogen and other
things that haven't really come to pass. But you're right,
there were living in a new world in which these
(25:04):
industry is going to have to compete without the benefit
of tax credits. Unfortunately, it's going to compete against, you know,
some existing sources of generation that have been subsidized for
a very long time. And of course the administration is
also going to try and take steps whatever they can
to try and make existing coal fire generation more cost competitive,
although it's very unclear to me like what they can
actually do that changes the economics of coal.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
I was going to ask you that, actually that's the
thing that Donald Trump has held out. You know, yes,
it's hard to build a new gas power station, but
if you have a coal powered station that you were
about to close down, or you've maybe just closed down,
how hard is it just to turn that back on,
and how hard is it to get the minds up
and running again, which is what he's.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Talked about hard is the short answer. You can issue
executive orders to try and order certain plants to keep online,
but the reality is that coal is not economically competitive
for the most part in the United States, particularly with
gas but also with so you can try and force
operators to keep running plants, but no one, I'm not
a lawyer here, but I think it's tough to force
people to lose money on every megawatt hour of electricity
(26:08):
that they produce, because you're trying to make a point
about what you think the world should look like in
terms of energy consumption that looks something like nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
It is extraordinary to me as someone who kind of
grew up with Margaret Thatcher's defining battle in the nineteen
eighties against the uneconomic coal producing mines in the UK,
and there was obviously enormous controversy ever trying to shut
them down, But to have a republic administration trying to
reopen a lot of uneconomic coal mines is an interesting site.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
I mean, the question is just is there money to
do this right? Ultimately, if you want to mobilize private
capital to go out and do that, then that money
has to believe that this is the world that we're
going to live in for the next five or ten
or twenty years. And I think most investors look at
this and say, Okay, certainly, this is a certainly regressive
period that we're living through, But the end of the day,
(26:59):
climate change isn't going anywhere. It's only going to get worse.
And so if you believe there's an inevitability that eventually
policy makers, whether they deal with climate change in the
short run of the long run, they eventually deal with it.
I think many people would find it very hard to
swallow the idea of making a ten or twenty year
investment in a new coal mine.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
But Emily, it seems like there'd be plenty of appetite
on the Hill for that.
Speaker 5 (27:22):
Yes, I think there will be. I think this bill
got held up in the House for just a couple
of days after leaving the Senate because this group of
Republicans said, we want to go harder against clean energy,
we want more favorable terms for oil and gas, and
(27:47):
they spent hours and hours in the White House at
the eleventh hour trying to extract as many concessions from
the administration on this as they possibly could. And I
think that is out that bore out yesterday in terms
of this executive order, and we're going to continue to
see the deals that were made, the agreements that they
(28:10):
hashed out recreating the energy landscape in their image.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
So, as Ethan appointedly made clear, this is the end
of the story for any expectation that the US would
meet its climate change obligations, but apparently not the end
of the story when it comes to the assault on renewables.
Emily Ethan, thank you so.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Much, Thank you.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
Thanks for listening to trump Andomics from Bloomberg. It was
hosted by me Stephanie Flanders I was joined by Bloomberg
reporter Emily Bernbaum and Bloomberg ne ef Ethan Zindler. Trump
Andomics is produced by Summer Sadi and Moses Andam with
help from Amy Keene and special thanks this week to
Rachel Lewis Chrisky. Sound design is by Blake Maples and
(28:57):
Sage Bowman is the head of Bloomberg Podcasts and Please
to help others find this show, please rate it and
review it highly wherever you listen.
Hi It Suksha. The US Congress has passed President Donald
Trump's One Big, Beautiful Bill, and it has huge implications
for America's climate goals and growing energy needs. Later this week,
Zero will host Jiggershaw, who used to be the head
of the US Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office, to
understand how the bill will affect the clean energy industry.
(00:23):
But there's a lot to unpack in this new legislation.
So today we are sharing a bonus episode from our
sister podcast, Trumpanomics. It's hosted by Bloomberg's head of Government
and Economics, Stephanie Flanders, and she is in conversation with
Bloomberg nefs Ethan Zindler and Bloomberg lobbying and influenced reporter
Emily Bernbaum. It's a good.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Listen Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News. This is not
the death of the US renewable energy industry in the
United States, but it is a major setback.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
I'm Stephanie Flanders, head of Government and Economics at Bloomberg.
Welcome to Trumppnomics, the podcast that looks at the economic
world of Donald Trump. Now he's already shaped the global
economy and what on Earth is going to happen next.
This week we're talking about the big beautiful assault on
renewable energy. Will the Republican Megabill pass last week bring
(01:28):
on a new American energy crisis? What could be the
impact on electricity bills, the broader economy, and America's leadership
in the race for artificial intelligence. We're recording this on Tuesday,
the eighth of July. And of all the elements of
the one Big Beautiful Bill, as Donald Trump called it,
that he signed going into the July fourth holiday, one
(01:49):
I find particularly hard to get my head round is
the decision to get rid of tax credits for clean energy.
As a result of that, wind and solar projects will
cost more and more likely there will be a lot
few you are built. In fact, in an analysis this week,
a climate policy think tank called Energy Innovation forecast that
the bill would put an end to three hundred gigawatts
of wind and solar projects that would have otherwise come
(02:11):
online in the next fifteen years. That's the equivalent of
about three hundred nuclear reactors. Now, obviously that set back
the fight against climate change and the decarbonization of the
US economy and That may not be much of a
worry for the supporters of the big bill, but there
could be more concern about another very likely consequence, higher
electricity prices. That matters for voters facing rising utility bills,
(02:34):
but it also matters for tech firms chasing the next
breakthroughs in AI. The country that reigns supreme in AI
will rule the world. Everyone seems to think that these days,
including Donald Trump. In fact, you might remember, on the
day after his inauguration he announced the creation of Stargate,
a project to expand AI infrastructure in the US, but.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
To announce the largest AI infrastructure project by far in history.
And it's all taking place right here in America. As
you know, there's great competition for AI and.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Book projects like Stargate need electricity, lots of it, And
in fact, that's part of the reason electricity demand in
the US is rising faster now than it has at
any time in the last twenty years. The tax credits
in the Inflation Reduction Act on the President Biden helped
the US keep up with that rising demand. In theory
by making clean power sources cheaper. Investments in wind, solar,
(03:26):
and battery storage had spiked in the years after the
IRA was passed. But now the big bill has changed
all that and a lot of people, including me, scratching
their heads wondering what the plan is now. And this
week I'm delighted to say I'm in the Washington Studio
with two guests who have a good perspective on this
topic and can help me think through the consequences for
(03:47):
the US economy. First up, Ethan Zindler, the head of
Country and Policy Research at Bloomberg NEF that's the part
of Bloomberg Research that's focused on the energy transition. And
we should say that before join US, Ethan served as
Climate Counselor to the US Treasury Secretary of Janet Yellen
from July twenty twenty three to January twenty five, so
(04:08):
he was across a lot of policy efforts then, including
helping to write and implement the Inflation Reduction Act.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Welcome Ethan, thanks for having.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
Me, and also with us Emily Bernbaut, who's a Bloomberg
reporter here in DC who covers corporate lobbying and influence.
Thank you so much for being on Trump andomics. Emily,
Thank you. So people will have heard quite a lot
about that bill, but it's probably useful to just take
(04:37):
stock of how that turn the tables for the renewable industry.
What are the specific measures that are going to be
pain for for that part of the US energy industry.
Speaker 5 (04:49):
There was a lot of last minute wrangling over the
details of what this bill will do to the clean
energy industry. The top line is is that it's very bad.
It's not as bad as it could have been. What
ended up in the bill was pretty aggressive timelines for
(05:10):
phasing out tax credits. But elements of the bill would
encourage companies to begin construction over the next year, and
if they're able to do so, it's likelier that they'll
be able to get some of these important tax credits.
But overall, they're going to have to begin construction very quickly,
(05:31):
and these tax credits are going away on a more
aggressive timeline than had initially been anticipated.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Yeah, and that was what was interesting, because when it
went from the House to the Senate, there was some
expectation that the Senate would want to extend the time
frame a little bit. The investments the drawer have been
announced give them a bit more time to get up
and running. But if anything, the bills seem to get worse.
Speaker 5 (05:56):
Yes, and at the last minute, there was something that
would have dealt a huge blow to the industry, which
was this excise tax. There was basically panic in the
industry and among moderate Republicans who said this excise tax
would so dramatically increase costs for solar and wind projects,
it would effectively make it untenable for a lot of
(06:19):
these projects to move forward or begin construction. So right
before the Senate passed it, they removed the excise tax,
which is a huge relief, but they still are dealing
with pretty aggressive phase outs.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Ethan, you were saying just before we started that even
though parts of the renewables industry was kind of breathing
a sigh of relief or having at least dodged that
particular bullet not having this extra tax, that the administration
has already sort of vindicated that it's not done with
the renewable industry. Yet what happened earlier this week.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Yeah, things have kind of gone from bad to worst,
even within the last less than twenty four hours. Basically,
there's been some real questions about whether projects could qualify
so long as they were quote unquo quote under construction
and the irs historically is to find under construction fairly liberally.
And yesterday the White House issue to executive order basically
(07:11):
saying that they are ordering the Treasury Department within the
next forty five days to rewrite that rule, and if
they do that in such a way, they can make
it very challenging for projects to qualify. It is not
even beyond the realm of the possible that they would
write something that is essentially retroactive and effectively make it
much more challenging for projects to actually be able to
(07:32):
qualify for the credit. So from our perspective at Bloomberg
n EF, we're trying to go back and sharpen our
pencils and try and think about how much stuff is
going to get built. But I think the one thing
that's pretty clear as of this morning is that many
who are in the wind and solar and storage industry
are probably scrambling to get as much stuff as they
can essentially under construction at this very moment, while they
(07:52):
are concurrently probably lobbying the Treasury Department about what this
new regulation is going to look like.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
And I'm going to come back to you on some
of the dynas on the Hill but Ethan, let's just
step back, and I know that's what Bloomerginny f likes doing.
They tend to do the twenty five year horizons considered
to be quite short term. But if you do take
that kind of longer term, you know, what has been
happening to energy demand and electricity demand within that in
(08:20):
recent years and what was you know, until this bill,
what was that basic plan for meeting it?
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Yeah, So the United States, like other wealthy developed countries,
has been able to grow its economy without growing demand
for electricity. Really for twenty years. Essentially, we've had flat
demand overall, largely because of energy efficiency improvements and new
technologies and the desire to save costs. The last couple
of years that started to change, and we think that's
(08:46):
going to continue to change going forward. The number one
driver in the short run has been AI and the
demand from new data centers. We also think electric vehicles
as you look further out, are going to start to
play a much bigger role as well. In the US,
we think we're going to see demand for electricity double
from about forty one hundred tarawad hours at the moment
up over six thousand by the time you get to
(09:08):
twenty fifty overall, and by twenty thirty five, we think
that about eight percent of capacity in the United States
is going to go specifically to powering data centers, which
is a really considerable portion overall. One other quick just
note in terms of trends, is that really over the
last ten years or fifteen years or so, the US
has really been rapidly decarbonizing our power generation sector. We
(09:32):
went from about half our power coming from coal to
well under twenty percent as the last year, could be
even under fifteen percent this year depending on conditions. And meanwhile,
renewables have grown from almost nothing to about twenty percent
of generation. Nuclear is about twenty percent, so we're about
forty percent zero carbon here. And the natural gas is
a huge part of the story, which is a lot
cleaner than coal overall. So the general trend has been
(09:54):
towards cleaner sources of energy going forward. And if you
look at what's gotten built in the last several years,
would get built in the next several years in terms
of purely cost, it's renewables. The vast majority of new
stuff that's due to come online as renewables, and so
that is why it's so questionable that you would go
out of your way to essentially raise the cost of
those technologies, which is effectively what Congress is now done.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Those of us who kind of looked on the outside
and seen the US go from being a net consumer
of energy or oil, I should say to an exporter,
have been very familiar with a rather different story, which
is America had this fracking revolution which was not environmentally friendly,
but did bring an enormous amount of gas online, which
(10:39):
has brought down the price of energy for US consumers.
So I guess the story that you might tell against
your story at least be sort of well, hang on
a minute, it's fracking that has made this a kind
of golden era for US energy prices, and the renewables
is not completely reliable and is more is a sort
of side show to that basic story.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Really good points. I mean, certainly, we have the lowest
price natural gas in the world in terms of production,
and that has allowed a lot of manufacturing to be
very competitive in the United States. I would note though,
that first of all, that renewables plus storage gets you
maybe not to twenty four hours of generation, but can
get you enough production of electricity into the sort of
key hours of the evening, and we're starting to see
(11:21):
solar plus storage be very cost competitive in many markets
around the world, not all markets in the United States,
but a bunch of markets. But then just purely speaking
practically in the United States, in terms of what we're
going to build over the next five years, you're absolutely
right that gas is cheap and gas is cost competitive
in a number of markets in the United States. The
problem is you just cannot get your hands on a
(11:42):
combined cycle gas turbine at the moment for a number
of years, anywhere from three to seven depending on who
you asked. So in terms of what our next mega
out of capacity is going to be, it basically has
to be renewables because there isn't really any other sources
and if we have rising demand from AI, that means
it's goin to probably come from renewables. And again, if
you take away essentially what has been a long standing
(12:05):
tax credit and subsidy to the clean energy industry that
is effectively socialized a discounted electricity production price in the
United States, you're just simply going to concentrate it on
certain markets. So the next place where you're going to
build a wind or solar project. Potentially you're going to
have to sign a higher price contract in order for
the developer to make the return that they need without
(12:26):
the tax credit.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
But if they're the only short term viable source of
additional energy, then it surely must be cost effective to build.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
I mean, here's the question, and I think we're going
to find this out over the next couple of years,
is what's the breaking point for consumers? So, yes, you
can pass on some form of higher electricity prices. But
if you're a developer of a large scale data center,
you're not necessarily entirely wedded to the United States. Just
because the most AI has been built not that far
from here, maybe thirty miles from here, just outside of Washington,
(12:57):
doesn't mean that every next AI data center has to
be here. To some large degree. AI is some the servers,
not all, to be clear, there's different types of servers,
and that's not my area of expertise, but some can
really be anywhere in the world, and so they will
go where the price of electricity is most affordable and reliable,
and there are other options. Brazil is about seventy eighty
(13:19):
percent hydropower low cost. They've been trying very much to
market Brazil as an AI place. Gulf States have enormous
amounts of sun, very cheap solar, They don't put big
tariff sun solar equipment like we do, can build batteries
to go along with it. They are certainly trying to
market themselves as hubs for AI as well. So no
foregone conclusion that the United States will be the one
(13:42):
and only place where we build all this new capacity.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
But as far as you're concerned, the only way that
this energy that we were expecting to come online, or
electricity that we were expecting to come online in the
US to meet this demand will actually come online is
through higher prices.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Seems inevitable. And I think one of the questions we're
just trying to parse out, given the incredible complexity of
what Congress has just done, is how many projects could
still qualify for the tax credit if they get under
construction basically yesterday, and how many of them will not.
And those that don't, obviously are going to have to
figure out some way to get compensated correctly so that
they can earn the return that they want. The best
(14:21):
guess at the moment is that if you get under
construction sometime in this calendar year, you'll probably be okay,
But the White House just created an additional uncertainty with
this executive order.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
One estimate I saw is that the future clean energy
products that don't have these tax credits will cost fifty
percent more to get built. Do you think that's in
the right ball part?
Speaker 2 (14:42):
That feels a little on the high side of me,
But we need to do the analysis ourselves. I think historically,
if you look around the world, the history of clean
energy is you have a number of countries that have
put in place very generous supports in the form of
feed in tariffs like we've seen in countries in Europe
and elsewhere, and when they disappear, it's terrible news for
the industry. But we also find that the industry is
(15:03):
incredibly innovative about finding ways to reduce costs. The US
is really not a low cost market when it comes
to putting solar on people's jews in particular, but also
large scale projects. So there's definitely some room for cost reduction,
I think, for the industry overall. But there's no question
this is going to boost costs. In the case of
a typical solar project. The tax credit is thirty percent
(15:24):
of CAPEX, So a billion dollar project, three hundred million
right off the top was basically disappearing because of tax credits.
That has to be dealt with somehow.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
And I've seen the Energy Innovation Thing Tank from what
you're saying, suggests that maybe it'd be a little bit
on the high side, but their estimate of the impact
on bills would be that the average energy bill by
twenty thirty five could be nearly five hundred dollars higher
in Michigan, similar maybe more in Maryland, and six or
seven hundred eight hundred dollars higher in Texas than it
(15:54):
would have been if the credits had remained.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Yeah, I can't, I won't. I guess I want to
dispute that we haven't done that analysis ourselves. I've seen
different numbers from other research firms as well. There's no question,
particularly in a market like Texas, which is really deregulated
and where pricing can get passed along directly to large
scale consumers, there's no question this is going to have
a real impact. Ultimately. I think the interesting question is
what about businesses. I mean, we talk a lot about
(16:16):
retail consumers, and eventually they are the ones who get hit,
but more immediately, and often cases it's wholesale purchases of
electricity that feel the effects. And that is one of
the puzzling things why in this debate where the utility
is not more engaged in this because ultimately they're the
ones who are going to get bigger bills that they're
going to have to pass along to their consumers. Or
where were the manufacturers who are going to have to
pay higher prices for electricity than they would if you're
(16:38):
in the say Ercot market or PJM. I'm puzzled as
to why there wasn't a more engaged conversation around this,
and you're.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
Readly my mind, even because I was thinking about your title,
Emily and the fact that you are a reporter of
focusing on corporate lobbying and influence. You know, people have
focused on the impact and the influence of the fossil
fuel lobby in driving part of this bill, and we
know that there's some parts of that industry that have
been big donors to Donald Trump. But there were awful
a lot of people on the other side of the argument,
(17:07):
including as Ethan mentions, there's the utilities and sectors that
would really be hurt by this, not to mention the
tech firms who are lobbying to get more cheap electricity.
So why is it those voices just weren't heard in
the last few weeks.
Speaker 5 (17:23):
Ultimately, the reason this bill goes so aggressively against clean
energy is because of House Speaker Mike Johnson's math issue,
which was that he could only stand to lose a
very small number of Republican votes, and so that made
(17:44):
the House Freedom Caucus, the group of hardline conservatives in
the House, that made them very powerful in this conversation,
and a lot of them, for the most part, really
leaned towards the oil and gas industry. So thinking about
Hip Roy from Texas, he was one of the most
(18:04):
consistent voices saying we really need to phase out these
subsidies very quickly. He was in communication very closely with
a conservative activist named Alex Epstein who actually shaped a
lot of this debate behind the scenes. And basically alex
Epstein's arguments are in favor of natural gas. He says
(18:28):
that solar and wind are unreliable sources of energy. You know,
I'll let you debunk some of what he has to say,
but essentially that the subsidies artificially lowered the cost of
electricity and we're creating inflation. So there is a lot
of arguments behind the scenes against the clean energy industry,
(18:50):
and ultimately I think oil and gas just really won
in this bill to subsidized too.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
Yeah. I was going to say, there's a hell of
a little substance on that side, but somehow they need
some to do, but the clean energy doesn't. I mean,
even Texas is a surprise, right, I mean that was
one of the things that we said after Donald Trump
won the election, and there was obviously this question mark
about where would he go on, and there was some
pushback initially on the idea that he would completely repeal
(19:18):
the IRA the Biden era tax credits, in part because
of the support from the tech industry, but also because
it was noticed that, partly because it's easier to build
stuff in the red states, that there were a lot
of Republican states that had actually benefited enormously from the RA,
including Texas. I think most of its new electricity supply
(19:41):
had come from renewables in the last couple of years.
So it's interesting that the representative from Texas just doesn't
seem to factor that in.
Speaker 5 (19:51):
Yeah, it just became such a political talking point, calling
the IRA the Green new Scam, making it democrat led
project essentially that Republicans had to completely nix and create
their own path forward when it comes to energy, And
an interesting element of the bill is that it's a
(20:14):
lot less aggressive when it comes to nuclear energy, which
is an area that I know that tech companies have
been investing a lot into. Obviously, that's a lot slower
moving and it doesn't address the immediate energy needs of
data centers. But the nuclear energy industry came out with
far less battle scars than some other parts of the industry,
(20:37):
and that's a part of this conversation too, is sort
of like weighing things in favor of certain kinds of
energy over others.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
There was again much conversation about the political fallout from
this bill. You know, over the last few weeks people
have wondered whether the Republicans already kind of ready for
what happens in their constituencies when the impact of Medicaid
cuts and others comes through. But you would think if
there's a short term big increase in energy prices and
(21:05):
that hits people's utility bills. They're electricity bills. Is there
not a fear on the Hill the finger will be
pointed to this bill when it comes to that. I mean,
it's cost of living is such a big element of
the Trump pledge, the promise if you like to voters,
do they just think they'll be able to blame other stuff? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (21:23):
I think part of the sleight of hand is that
tax cuts are coming in more immediately than some of
the spending cuts, So meaning in the more immediate term,
some people are going to see their taxes decrease, whereas
some of the potential added cost to electricity bills or
(21:44):
some of the loss of Medicaid coverage comes farther down
the line. So it is a lot about timelines as well.
They've written it in a way that at least Republicans
hope that people don't see the more negative effects until
after the midterms in twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
If I could jump in, I think you're also maybe
ascribing a much higher level of sophistication to this conversation.
Then probably actually went on, I don't know that people
on the Hill understand the economics of power generation at
the moment, and the fact that renewables are the most
cost competitive, and the fact that it's impossible to get
your hands on a natural gas turbine. These are things
that only nerds like me know, So I don't know
(22:23):
that stuff that they're kind of across.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
Would their argument be, yeah, it's hard under Biden to
get this stuff built, but we're going to lift all
of these stupid restrictions, and so that natural gas power
station could could go up in a year or so.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
That just I mean, again, hard to not get in
the rabbit hole here. But if there's three or four
companies that make these, we're talking large scale turbines. These
are big things, specialized manufacturing that goes into them. If
you're one of the three or four companies in the
world that makes them, and you are selling them at
a very high price at the moment, and you have
a back order, I guess the question is do you
ramp up your manufacturing of those turbines. If you do,
(23:00):
how long is it going to take you to ramp
that up? At least a couple of years at the
very very least, and then a few more years at
least before you can get some more turbines out. And
if you're one of those companies. And you're looking at
the US situation, the political situation here, I think you
might very well ask yourself, well, is this the new
world we're living in or are we going to see
some flip back in two or three years back to
renewables and suddenly I've got more gas turbine capacity, manufacturing
(23:23):
capacity than I know what to do with. I'd be
very surprised if there's big investment. But keep an eye
on GE and some of the others to see whether
they make announcements around that.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
I mean, it is true when you say is that
the world we're living in? I mean it's pretty clear
that the world we're living in looks very different, looks
more like the ira world. As you noted, there's lots
of countries that have got strong incentives in place for renewables,
and we also see developing countries moving to electrify large
parts of their grid because it is it's certainly cheaper
(23:54):
for them if they're reliant otherwise on imported oil and gas.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
No, I think you raise a very good question. Is
now the death of the US renewable energy industry in
the United States by any means because of the advancements
that we've seen, but it is a major setback, and
most importantly maybe at the bottom line, as it means
our chances of coming anywhere close to reducing our CO
two missions in line with address and climate change are
effectively over at the moment.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
I guess there's one argument, which if it's so unstoppable,
we've had this period where we've ramped up production with
these massive credits, which were extremely expensive. They blew at
least a trillion dollar hole in the deficit, And of
course we can say there are other things that are
now going to blow a hole in the deficit over
the coming years thanks to the last week's bill, But
there is an argument that says it ought to be
(24:41):
able to stand on its own two feet.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Well, two things. The clean energy credits did not on
their own blow a trillion dollar hole in the deficit.
They were projected potentially to have done so, but of
course now we're living in a different world where they
certainly are not going to cost as much as was projected.
And even that number I would take a little issue
with because it made certain assumptions about hydrogen and other
things that haven't really come to pass. But you're right,
there were living in a new world in which these
(25:04):
industry is going to have to compete without the benefit
of tax credits. Unfortunately, it's going to compete against, you know,
some existing sources of generation that have been subsidized for
a very long time. And of course the administration is
also going to try and take steps whatever they can
to try and make existing coal fire generation more cost competitive,
although it's very unclear to me like what they can
actually do that changes the economics of coal.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
I was going to ask you that, actually that's the
thing that Donald Trump has held out. You know, yes,
it's hard to build a new gas power station, but
if you have a coal powered station that you were
about to close down, or you've maybe just closed down,
how hard is it just to turn that back on,
and how hard is it to get the minds up
and running again, which is what he's.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Talked about hard is the short answer. You can issue
executive orders to try and order certain plants to keep online,
but the reality is that coal is not economically competitive
for the most part in the United States, particularly with
gas but also with so you can try and force
operators to keep running plants, but no one, I'm not
a lawyer here, but I think it's tough to force
people to lose money on every megawatt hour of electricity
(26:08):
that they produce, because you're trying to make a point
about what you think the world should look like in
terms of energy consumption that looks something like nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
It is extraordinary to me as someone who kind of
grew up with Margaret Thatcher's defining battle in the nineteen
eighties against the uneconomic coal producing mines in the UK,
and there was obviously enormous controversy ever trying to shut
them down, But to have a republic administration trying to
reopen a lot of uneconomic coal mines is an interesting site.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
I mean, the question is just is there money to
do this right? Ultimately, if you want to mobilize private
capital to go out and do that, then that money
has to believe that this is the world that we're
going to live in for the next five or ten
or twenty years. And I think most investors look at
this and say, Okay, certainly, this is a certainly regressive
period that we're living through, But the end of the day,
(26:59):
climate change isn't going anywhere. It's only going to get worse.
And so if you believe there's an inevitability that eventually
policy makers, whether they deal with climate change in the
short run of the long run, they eventually deal with it.
I think many people would find it very hard to
swallow the idea of making a ten or twenty year
investment in a new coal mine.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
But Emily, it seems like there'd be plenty of appetite
on the Hill for that.
Speaker 5 (27:22):
Yes, I think there will be. I think this bill
got held up in the House for just a couple
of days after leaving the Senate because this group of
Republicans said, we want to go harder against clean energy,
we want more favorable terms for oil and gas, and
(27:47):
they spent hours and hours in the White House at
the eleventh hour trying to extract as many concessions from
the administration on this as they possibly could. And I
think that is out that bore out yesterday in terms
of this executive order, and we're going to continue to
see the deals that were made, the agreements that they
(28:10):
hashed out recreating the energy landscape in their image.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
So, as Ethan appointedly made clear, this is the end
of the story for any expectation that the US would
meet its climate change obligations, but apparently not the end
of the story when it comes to the assault on renewables.
Emily Ethan, thank you so.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Much, Thank you.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
Thanks for listening to trump Andomics from Bloomberg. It was
hosted by me Stephanie Flanders I was joined by Bloomberg
reporter Emily Bernbaum and Bloomberg ne ef Ethan Zindler. Trump
Andomics is produced by Summer Sadi and Moses Andam with
help from Amy Keene and special thanks this week to
Rachel Lewis Chrisky. Sound design is by Blake Maples and
(28:57):
Sage Bowman is the head of Bloomberg Podcasts and Please
to help others find this show, please rate it and
review it highly wherever you listen.
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