June 19, 2025 • 38 mins
In Citizens Climate Radio's newest installment of our policy series, hosts Elissa Tennant and Dana Nuccitelli dive deep into the latest updates from Capitol Hill. With the Senate Finance Committee’s budget proposal now public, they unpack what it means for the clean energy tax credits created by the Inflation Reduction Act.
How do the House and Senate versions compare? What would repealing these tax credits cost American households and jobs? What role does energy security—and even AI—play in the clean energy conversation? Elissa and Dana bring clarity to a complex policy moment and offer listeners tangible next steps for action.
You’ll also hear about upcoming CCL leadership changes, summer conference plans, and two thoughtful listener voicemails—including one from someone who really wants to bring back Energy Star.
🎧 Topics Covered:
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Senate vs. House proposals on clean energy tax credits
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The mysterious “bird bath” process
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Projected increases in household energy costs
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Threats to clean energy manufacturing and jobs
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What to expect next in Congress
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How you can make your voice heard
📞 Call or text us with your questions or comments: +1 (619) 512-9646
🗳️ Take action to defend clean energy tax credits: https://cclusa.org/IRAdefense
🎟️ Join us at the Summer Conference in Washington, D.C., July 20–22: https://cclusa.org/conference
🎙️ Citizens Climate Radio is a project of Citizens’ Climate Education.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (00:00):
M.
>> Peterson Toscano (00:02):
Welcome to Citizens Climate Radio, the podcast that helps you
understand the climate policy news behind the
headlines. I'm Peterson Centiscano.
Each month we bring you timely updates from
Capitol Hill and beyond, breaking down
complex topics and showing how you can
(00:22):
make an impact. In this episode, you
will hear big news from Citizens Climate Lobby
regarding our leadership. But first,
we're continuing our new series with CCL's
Elissa Tennant and Dana Nuccitelli. They
team up to help you navigate the fast
changing world of climate legislation.
Today, they're diving into the latest news and
(00:45):
research on the Inflation Reduction act and
how repealing it would hurt American families
and businesses. I imagine, too. So what's in the
new text, what's at stake and how can climate
advocates respond to Elissa? Uh, and Dana,
welcome back to the show.
>> Elissa Tennant (01:02):
Glad to be here. Thanks, Peterson.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (01:03):
Um, hey, Peterson.
>> Peterson Toscano (01:04):
Hey. So I've got a question actually for you first.
What's one climate policy term or phrase
you wish more people understood and why?
>> Dana Nuccitelli (01:14):
I'm going to say the concept of net zero
emissions, which is that's just when you're
pulling as much carbon out of the atmosphere as you're adding in a
given year, and so you're not increasing the amount of greenhouse
gases in the atmosphere. And some people will say
that that's not good enough because our emissions
aren't zero. And some people will say it's actually an
impossible thing to reach. We can't get to
(01:37):
net zero emissions. And really it's not only is it
possible, it's actually a good target because once you reach net zero
emissions, that's when global warming stops. And that's what we're trying to do,
is get, uh, global warming to stop.
>> Elissa Tennant (01:48):
And mine segues nicely into our discussion. Mine is
budget reconciliation, which is not directly a climate
related term, but something I had never heard of before I
came to Citizens Climate Lob. And it has such
a big impact on so many policies, but that
includes climate and energy. And I wish that
more people knew what that one meant, but it's. I get it. Cause it's a
(02:08):
really long process.
>> Peterson Toscano (02:09):
Same. It was a, uh, new thing for me until
recently, so. Yeah, I agree. Great. I love
those answers. Thanks so much and thank you for
taking over the mic today, listener. You
are in absolutely good hands. I'm handing it over to you too, and
I'll see you at the end of the show.
>> Elissa Tennant (02:26):
Thank you, Peterson. All right, and thank you for listening
and for joining us. And later in the show we will share
some listener voicemails with you. Along with our responses.
And we will tell you how you can leave your own voicemail or
question for us.
But first, Dana, we are knee
deep in budget reconciliation. Let's talk
(02:47):
about it. So, our last episode covered the
release of the House Ways and Means Committee's version of the
budget, which gutted, uh, the Inflation Reduction Act's
clean energy tax credits. And the House
ultimately passed their version of the budget, and
negotiations have now moved to the Senate.
So let's set the scene. Let's get some background.
What's happening in the Senate right now.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (03:08):
So now all of the Senate committees have released their
text, their version of what they want to do with the
budget reconciliation bill. The last committee
to go was the Senate Finance Committee because they have kind of the
most complicated and the most stuff to do, including,
uh, addressing what they want to do with the, uh, inflation reduction acts,
clean energy tax credits. So they have now
(03:28):
released their text, and now it's going through
what's called the bird bath, which is when the Senate parliamentarian
checks all of their proposals and make sure that they're
suitable for the budget reconciliation process.
>> Elissa Tennant (03:39):
Talk to me more about the bird bath. I don't know if we mentioned it in our last
episode, but I feel like that's a term we can't just throw out there and then
leave.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (03:46):
We talked about the poly. Yeah, we talked about the parliamentarian, whose
name I think is Elizabeth McDonough. I hope I didn't
get that wrong.
>> Elissa Tennant (03:53):
Shout out.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (03:54):
Yeah, shout out to Elizabeth. So, in any case, in
order to qualify for the
budget reconciliation process in the Senate, each provision
has to be primarily budgetary in nature,
meaning that it affects the budget. And that's, like, the primary thing
that it's meant to do. It's not just, like, some change to a regulation that has
maybe some minor little side impact on the
(04:14):
budget has to be, like, focused on the budget. And so the person who
decides if the provisions are each focused on the
budget and budgetary nature is the Senate parliamentarian,
and it's called the bird bath. It's named after Senator
Bird, Robert Bird, I think, a long ways
back from West Virginia, who kind of created this whole
reconciliation process. And this is one of the rules that it has to be
(04:35):
budgetary in nature to fit into the
budget reconciliation process.
>> Elissa Tennant (04:40):
Okay. And we learn something new every day.
So the Senate Finance Committee is kind of the Senate
counterpart to the House Ways and Means Committee,
correct?
>> Dana Nuccitelli (04:49):
Correct. You got good.
>> Elissa Tennant (04:50):
That's what I was told. So I wanted to make sure nobody was lying to me.
So how Is the Senate Finance Committee's
proposed budget different from the House bill? Let's
get into it.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (05:00):
Yeah. So they definitely improved
on the House version. When it comes to the clean
energy tax credits. They gave a number of
them kind of a longer Runway in terms of when they're
being phased out, like the clean electricity tax credits,
The House version essentially, uh,
effectively just repeal them immediately for all
(05:20):
practical purposes. Whereas the Senate
version, it. It treats different
kinds of energy differently. So solar and wind energy, it
phases them out after starting after
2025 through 2027. So it's,
it's still quick, but at least it's not
immediate. So that's an improvement.
And then these other sources of clean energy we call. We tend to call
(05:42):
them like clean firm because they're sort of more
like baseload energy. They're not intermittent, not reliant on
the weather. So these are things like geothermal power,
nuclear power, hydroelectricity, and batteries. Um, they
got a much longer Runway. They don't phase out until
the2030s. So they're in pretty good shape. That's especially
good for us for, for battery storage
because that's really important for, you know, addressing the
(06:05):
intermittent intermittency that comes with solar, uh, power that
relies on when the sun is shining. And so then you
can, if you get lots of sunshine, you can store some of that energy in the
batteries and then use it at a different time when you need it during the
day. And so it's good that batteries
are treated much better in the
Senate version. So we like that. So those are
(06:25):
kind of some of the good improvements. They also got rid of some of the, the
very technical kind of poison pills that the
House version put in there that we can get into, if you want to get into.
Deep into the weeds.
>> Elissa Tennant (06:35):
Oh, I want to get into the weeds.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (06:37):
So there's one called the Foreign Entities of Concern
fiac, which they're basically, the
government defines what we, what we. Countries that we consider foreign
entities of concern, which are currently China,
Russia, North Korea and Iran, I believe
are the four for various geopolitical
reasons. So mainly the purpose here
is so that we're not. We're reducing our
(06:59):
reliance on China for these various
technologies. We're trying not to import everything from
China because then if we have some kind of disagreement with China,
like say a bunch of tariffs in. In war, in
wars to do with. Yeah. Like fighting, like trade
wars, then they have a lot of leverage over us.
And so the idea, which was part of the idea
(07:20):
in Inflation Reduction act too, is to create more
of a supply chain and more manufacturing in the United States. So we're
relying less on China. And so the House version of the bill,
it took this to the extreme and it basically said,
fusion, anything in your project that comes from China,
like a nut or a bolt or a piece of copper
wire, your project does not qualify for any tax
(07:41):
credits whatsoever. And everybody said, wait
a second, how are we possibly going to comply
with that right away? We use so much stuff, so many
different components in our, you know, solar
arrays and wind turbines and everything.
So the Senate said, yeah, that's not so good. Let's try to improve
that. And so they did their own foreign entities
(08:01):
of concern FIAC language, which folks are still looking
at, to see if it's workable. I think it seems like it's at least
more workable than the extreme House
version. So that was an improvement. Hopefully,
like, people are still like, this is very complicated, detailed
language. So they're starting trying to still feel it, figure out, is
this going to work for, like, my technology. And so
hopefully that's an, um. It's definitely an improvement. We'll see how much
(08:24):
of an improvement it is. Another one was
transferability of the tax credits, because these
things are tax credits. And so what it's basically saying,
if you qualify for this, we will give you some credits to
offset your taxes in the next year. But small companies,
they might not have very much tax liability, and so getting a big
credit to offset their taxes doesn't do them much good.
(08:44):
And so the Inflation Reduction act made these transferable,
and so they can take that tax credit and send it to another
business so they can sell it on a marketplace, basically. And so it
makes it much easier for them to use, whereas
the House version would have taken that out and kind of gone
back to the way it used to be done, which is basically like,
you have to. Then if you don't have much tax liability, if you're like a
(09:06):
small solar company, you have to partner with some kind of
entity that has a lot of tax liability, which is like basically a
big financial institution, and then they're going to take a cut. They're going to
say, well, you got to work with me. And so I'm going to take some of that tax
liability money and you're going to be able to use less of it, and in
your solar, in your solar project, and I'm going to take some of it. And so it just
makes the tax credits less efficient
(09:26):
to take away the transferability. And so everybody was like, why Are
you taking away transferability? And it was basically to make it less
usable. And so the Senate took that, uh, out. They said, no, we're going to leave
the transferability in. So that's a nice improvement because it just,
it just makes it more like your taxpayer dollars are actually going
to the clean energy as as opposed to going to, like a bank.
So that's a good thing.
>> Elissa Tennant (09:46):
Um, so it is a little bit in the weeds, but it does sound
like the metaphor we've been using internally on our staff calls is
like, the House bill really, really dug us a
hole. And the Senate version kind of put some
shovelfuls back in.
So we're, we love a good metaphor. So it's.
Yes, we called, we lobbied, we emailed,
and it is a little, uh, it's an improvement.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (10:08):
It is definitely improvement. The House version, the,
uh, House version was quite bad. And the Senate version, like, they
definitely took some significant measures to get
rid of some of the bad things in the House
version. So we made some progress. That's
worth celebrating. It's not as bad. It's an improvement.
>> Elissa Tennant (10:26):
And now we're going to stop celebrating because we're going to talk
about. Let's talk impacts.
As our resident nerd, I know you've been pouring over 10 to
15 different studies on the impacts of repealing the
IRA Clean Energy Tax credits. So let's
talk impacts. What's the headline here? If we
lose these tax credits or they're phased out?
>> Dana Nuccitelli (10:46):
Yeah, so, I mean, specifically I looked at about 8 or
so of these reports. Didn't quite make it. Didn't quite
make it to the 1015 range, but around 8 or 8 to 10
maybe. And so I think the headline
impact is that it would if the tax credits are repealed
or the more of them that are repealed, the higher
our energy bills are going to be for households.
(11:07):
Yeah, nobody likes higher energy bills. And that includes higher
gasoline bills, which everybody really hates. And politicians
are very scared of higher electricity bills
and also higher natural gas bills. So lots of
different types of energy, and then the costs all go
up.
>> Elissa Tennant (11:22):
How much? How much? How much we talking?
>> Dana Nuccitelli (11:25):
So gasoline prices will go up. Uh,
there's a couple of different estimates, but in the range of 3 to
25 cents per gallon. So it's a
fairly significant increase in gasoline prices. That's
because if you repeal the electric electric vehicle tax
credit, you're going to sell a lot fewer EVs, and so a lot
more people are going to be driving gas cars burning more
(11:45):
gasoline increases the demand for gasoline, which
Increases the price of gasoline.
>> Elissa Tennant (11:50):
Ooh, little economics.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (11:51):
Little economics, little supply and demand. Yeah,
and then electricity bills will go up
somewhere in the ballpark of $100 per
year per household and
vehicle costs because of those increased gasoline costs and
because fewer people are going to have EVs, which EVs have
significantly cheaper fueling costs than
gasoline cars by almost a thousand dollars per
(12:14):
year if you combine those. So it's about
a hundred dollars per year per household for
higher electricity costs, about $100 per year per
household and higher, uh, vehicle fuel costs.
And then natural, uh, gas costs kind of get wrapped in there too,
because if, if you're, if you have less clean
electricity, then you have to burn more natural gas. And so then again,
(12:34):
supply and demand natural gas prices go up. And so if you
have natural gas appliances in your house, like a stove or
a furnace, or you're heating your household, heating your H Vac
is natural gas, then you have to pay that as well. Or the higher
natural gas prices that go along with that as well. So if
you lump it all together, it's somewhere in the range of about
a thousand to $3,000 over the next
(12:54):
10 years, uh, increase in overall
average household energy costs.
>> Elissa Tennant (12:59):
Dana, I'm going to dare to speak on behalf of the listener.
I'm going to say we, the collective, we the listeners and I
are not loving this news. This is
horrible.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (13:08):
Yeah, I don't want to pay an extra two grand. And over the next
20 year or 10 years, that's a lot of money.
>> Elissa Tennant (13:13):
Oh, no. Okay. Well, in terms of,
like, not just individual impacts, I mean, let's talk about
manufacturing and jobs, too.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (13:21):
Yeah. So we have, we've had sort of, uh, a clean
energy manufacturing boom since the Inflation Reduction act
passed. We've had especially a lot, lot of
investments in battery manufacturing and also
EVs and solar panels.
And so the problem is those,
you know, investments in those facilities were made because
(13:41):
companies knew they were going to get the benefit associated with
these tax credits. And if so, if you start to take tax credits
away, suddenly these companies are going to stop building
so much, uh, new manufacturing capacity because
there's not going to be the market of people buying them. Like, if there's no EV
tax credit, a lot fewer people are going to buy EVs. And
so you're not going to have to make as many batteries or EVs.
(14:01):
And so, for example, the Princeton team estimated
that if the EV tax rates are appealed, as was
proposed in both the House and Senate versions, within the
next six, six Months. That means
that EV demand goes down by like
20 to 40 million over the next 10 years. There's going to
be like some tens of millions fewer EVs on American
(14:22):
roads in 2035, as if the
EV tax rates were stay in place. And so
that significant decrease in demand means we
already have enough manufacturing capacity in
place in the United States of building, uh,
batteries and EVs that we're not going to need to build
any more manufacturing. If we build any more manufacturing, we're just not going to end
(14:42):
up using it because there's not going to be enough people buying those EVs. And
in fact, we might already have too much capacity.
And so companies might have to reduce their
manufacturing output. And if they have to do that, then they have to lay off
workers. And so that means you also get
a loss in jobs, which we'll probably get to next.
>> Elissa Tennant (15:00):
This whole conversation is so painful, everybody. The only
way out is through.
Let's talk about jobs.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (15:06):
Yeah, so exactly. If you reduce
that demand for the products like the EVs, and then you
reduce the need for manufacturing, you're also
going to lose jobs. And also if
you're reducing the amount of clean energy we're deploying
solar panels, wind turbines, and solar and wind
farms, then you're gonna have to manufacture a few of the fewer of those
(15:26):
too. And you're gonna have money, fewer
construction jobs to actually build those solar and wind
farms. Because the estimates are if we
use the go buy the house version and immediately phase out
the tax credits for clean electricity, then the
amount of solar and wind we're going to build over the next 10
years is basically going to be half as much as it would otherwise have been.
It might be a little bit better with the center version because the
(15:49):
Senate gave them a little bit of a Runway, but it's probably not going to be a whole
lot, lot better. So in the ballpark of half as much
clean power, uh, facilities built.
And so if you kind of estimate those,
like the impact on jobs altogether, which several of these reports did,
you're talking about hundreds of thousands of lost jobs
in manufacturing and construction and also
(16:09):
like throughout the economy, because, like when these folks
have construction jobs and manufacturing jobs and they get these salaries and they
spend that money on, like food and products and, you
know, clothes and shoes and things like that. And that money goes throughout
the economy and creates more jobs because you have more demand for stuff. So if
you're taking that money away from those workers, then it pulls money
out of the economy and costs Even more jobs. So overall,
(16:30):
hundreds of thousands of total jobs lost.
>> Elissa Tennant (16:32):
Okay, so we're paying more money, we're losing manufacturing, we're losing
jobs, we're losing gdp.
Talk to me about energy security.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (16:39):
Yeah, so one issue we're facing
is that we have a very large increase in
demand for electricity all of a sudden because we
have a lot of data centers that we're building because there's a lot of
artificial intelligence, really rapid development.
And to train your artificial intelligence machines,
you need a lot of power from these, a lot of data centers, a lot of
(17:00):
power. And we're also seeing more and
more people buy electric cars and electrify their homes with
heat pumps and things like that. And we're also seeing
higher temperatures due to global warming, means people have to use
more air conditioning. So all these things are kind of conspiring
to suddenly significantly increased the amount of
electricity that we're using. Whereas over the past
(17:20):
20 years it was almost flat because like we
didn't have all this Data center and A.I. uh, development and we were doing a
good job becoming more energy efficient. And so now
all this new demand for power is just going to overwhelm that.
And so the projections are that over the next
10 years our power demand growth is going to be somewhere
probably in the range of five to 10 times faster than it was over
(17:40):
the prior 20 years. And so,
yeah, that's going to create issues, especially if
we are now pulling out the incentives for clean
electricity facilities to be built, because that's kind of the fastest thing
you can build. And so if you have this really rapid increase
in demand and you're not able to keep up with increasing
supply fast enough because now there's not enough financial
incentive for the solar and wind facilities to get built, or at least as
(18:03):
many of them, then suddenly you're creating
this mismatch where there's really high demand, not a, ah, not
high, not high enough supply. And that can create the
conditions for more blackouts and power
outages and thus decreased energy security.
>> Elissa Tennant (18:18):
Yeah, why did solar and wind get the short end of the stick here? What did they
ever do?
>> Dana Nuccitelli (18:21):
The argument is that they are
m now mature technologies and so they don't
need the tax credits. And there is, I mean,
some validity to that because they are, they have become
much more like technologies have advanced and become cheaper.
I mean, the problem is that they're really
pulling the rug out from them in terms of getting rid
(18:42):
of the tax credits really fast that a lot of these projects were
depending on. And so that just Changes the finances.
There's a case to be made to get rid of the
tax credits, but just it makes more sense to do it
over a longer period of time, phase them out like over many years
as opposed to phasing them out, uh, over like a year or two.
And also the Trump administration also just
(19:02):
generally hates wind altogether is the other
thing Wynn got treated especially badly in, in
this bill because the Trump administration doesn't like it.
>> Elissa Tennant (19:11):
This is an audio meetup, so I want the record to state that
I am squinting my eyes suspiciously in
disapproval for the listener at home. All right, there's.
There can't be any more bad impacts. Right. Data.
Right. That's the end. There's no more to talk about.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (19:25):
Well, you mentioned the gdp, which we didn't go into the
details of that, but again, if you're ah, how you're
deploying less energy, building, less manufacturing, less
clean energy, less jobs, that has a general impact
throughout the economy, which as you mentioned, reduces
gdp. The estimates are that it reduces
our GDP by about a trillion dollars
over the next decade, which is a big
(19:48):
number, especially when you consider that the savings of
these tax credit repeals are about half of a trillion
dollars. And so you're kind of
basically losing a much
bigger savings over time or a much bigger
amount of money over time than you're saving by repealing the tax
credits, which is not very good long term
(20:08):
thinking. So that's another bad impact.
>> Elissa Tennant (20:11):
One did say.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (20:11):
Yeah, yeah. And then there's air pollution
and people's health because if you are
getting fewer EVs, more people burning gasoline
in their cars, fewer clean energy
facilities. So, um, more burning of fossil fuel and power plants,
all that extra burning of fossil fuels from tailpipes and
smokestacks, uh, creates local air pollution and
(20:32):
people breathe that air pollution and then it causes all kinds of bad
health effects. So energy innovation, which is one of
the reports that uh, I looked over, estimated
several thousand additional premature deaths over
the next decade because people breathing this pollution.
They didn't put numbers on it, but there's a lot of other adverse health
impacts like asthma and dementia and
(20:52):
all kinds of bad things that happen when you're breathing more air pollution.
And then of course there is the climate pollution as well, which
is very important.
>> Elissa Tennant (20:59):
Oh, you're still going?
>> Dana Nuccitelli (21:00):
I'm still going. The climate pollution, yes,
of course, you know, if we reduce all these
clean energy deployments, then you get more greenhouse gas
emissions and you are significantly further away
from your prior climate
commitments than you would otherwise be. And so we'll only be about
20 to 30% below 2005 levels by
2030, whereas we had in, uh, our Paris commitment
(21:23):
previously committed to being more than 50% below
2005 levels by 2030. And so we're going to be well short of
our climate targets as well.
>> Elissa Tennant (21:31):
All right, Dana, thank you so much for bringing the vibe down
today. It could not be lower.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (21:35):
Can I call me. I going to rename myself Captain Bring down
Today.
>> Elissa Tennant (21:39):
Really bad vibes on this call. We got to bring it
back up. So, um, let's summarize what happened this
week. So the Iraq clean
energy tax credits, we would like to keep them intact.
The Senate version of the budget does not keep
them intact. It is not as bad
as the House version in terms of clean energy
(21:59):
tax. Tax cuts. Clean. It is
not as bad as the House version in terms of clean energy
tax credit cuts. Does that sound right?
>> Dana Nuccitelli (22:08):
It is not as bad.
>> Elissa Tennant (22:10):
Yay.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (22:12):
Yay.
>> Elissa Tennant (22:15):
So what comes next? What can we
expect from D.C. now that the Senate has
released their version of bill?
>> Dana Nuccitelli (22:22):
Uh, so he talked about how it's going to go through the bird
bath, and then probably most of
the provisions will survive because the senators try to pull
out things that they expect won't survive the
bird bath. And in fact, there is a relevant one for electric
vehicles. The House had put in sort of an EV
penalty or like a fee that EV owners have to pay of
$250 per year, and hybrid owners would have to
(22:44):
pay $100 per year, basically to pay for
road maintenance kind of things.
>> Elissa Tennant (22:49):
Oh, I hate that.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (22:50):
In the state of Ohio, you would have to double pay
it.
>> Elissa Tennant (22:53):
So that would be great. No notes on that.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (22:56):
Yeah, there are a number of states that have this. This would be a federal ones. Everybody
has to pay if you own an EV or a hybrid. But
the Senate pulled that out probably because they
expected it wouldn't survive the bird bath, because that is
kind of regulatory. Yeah. So hopefully that
stays out. So, in any case, the bird bath
is going to happen. The parliamentarians looking over all the provisions, that
(23:17):
takes something like a week. And there will
probably more be more negotiations in these between the Senate
and the House in the meantime, because, like, there have already been members
of the House who said, I can't vote for this version of the Senate bill for
one reason or another. They all have their kind of different
priorities and things that the Senate change
that. They say, that's a bridge too far for me that
goes past my red line. So they're going to have to have
(23:40):
more negotiations and More
changes before. Once the
bird bath is done, then it, uh, ultimately goes to a
vote on the floor of the Senate if they expect
they can get a majority of senators to vote for it.
And. But then they also need a majority of members of
the House to vote for it because they don't really want
another version change to go back and forth. So there's going to
(24:03):
be more negotiations until they can try to come to that sense,
final version of the bill that a majority of Republicans
in both the House and the Senate are willing to vote for.
So that's going to take some time. It's hard to say how much
time. Depends how belligerent everybody is and
how good they are at negotiating. So that's
what's coming next.
>> Elissa Tennant (24:22):
What I'm hearing is the listeners stuck with us. Somebody
has to walk the people through this,
I guess.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (24:29):
Yeah.
>> Elissa Tennant (24:30):
I also love the drama of surviving the bird
bath. Somebody should make a documentary with that
title because leave it to Congress.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (24:38):
You never know what predators are hovering around the
birdbath.
>> Elissa Tennant (24:43):
So what can we do right now? So the
good news is we have a fresh action ready. For
anybody who is represented by a Republican senator.
You can visit
cclusa.org
IRA defense to urge your senator to
call on Senate leadership to better preserve clean
energy tax credits in this bill. Because, Dana,
(25:04):
you said that we have read that the Senate is still open
to negotiating.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (25:08):
They are. They've said they're still open to make changes. They
have to make changes because they don't have a bill that's got a majority of
votes yet. So harass them until they make it
a better bill. That's, that's my philosophy.
>> Elissa Tennant (25:19):
Politely ask
them@cclusa.org
IRA defense so thank you, Dana, as
always, for this fantastic update on the IRA clean energy
tax credits. We at CCL have been working
to defend these tax credits since last November, but
I feel like every month there's, like, new information, there's new updates. So
thank you for doing the work and keeping us posted.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (25:41):
I feel like it's every day at this point.
>> Elissa Tennant (25:44):
I agree.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (25:45):
Thanks, Elissa.
>> Elissa Tennant (25:47):
We love hearing from you, the listener. And I have
two voicemails to share with you today. And Dana,
I need you to answer the first one because it is a question
for you. So here is our first
voicemail.
>> Charlie Dominicki (26:00):
Hi there. Um, I really enjoyed your recent,
uh, saving clean energy tax credits
episode. Um, and I'd love to
request, um, maybe a deeper
dive into how the
removal of the 45L
tax credit from the IRA, um,
and potentially to the um, ending
(26:22):
of the Energy Structure Star program, which
has been around since the mid-90s, it's bipartisan, how
that will impact homeowners and what they pay
monthly on, um, their energy bills and how that's such an important
message as you lobby, uh,
Congress and Senate and their understanding of
how these clean tax credits could
(26:44):
actually impact the daily lives of, uh, their
constituents, um, just in their homes and those utility
costs that are going higher and higher. Um, so
if, if uh, you don't mind, love to hear more
of that. Um, and again, really enjoyed your show.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (27:01):
Yeah, so that is a great question. So
45L is the tax credit for making
new homes energy efficient? So if a,
uh, home developer builds a building so
that it's got really good insulation and windows and
maybe energy efficient appliances, and so it
meets, there's an Energy Star standard for new
homes. If it meets that, then they can get a tax credit for that,
(27:23):
basically. And then the Energy Star
program in general is just a really nice
program or it was a really nice program in which there's
just a, uh, certification that this particular
appliance is energy efficient. And it meets the Energy
Star standard. And so it gets the stamp of Energy
Star approval. And it tells people if you buy this
appliance, then you're going to be saving energy.
(27:46):
And both those things like saving energy and
being energy efficient in general is good for a
lot of reasons. I mean, just for the homeowner, if you're
using less energy by having an energy efficient home
and energy efficient appliances, that means your energy bills are
going to be lower. And that's a really good
thing. It also means that that home is
(28:07):
using less energy at a time where, as we talked about, energy
demand is going up and up and up. And so the
reason it didn't go up in the prior two decades is because we got
more energy efficient because of programs like Energy Star. And now
we're getting rid of these programs at a time
when energy demand is going up.
If we get rid of all our energy efficiency, our tax
(28:27):
credits to make homes energy efficient, our Energy Star program,
that's going to make our energy demand go up even faster at a
time where it's already going up too fast, which again is going to make
electricity bills go up even higher.
So, yeah, this is bad stuff. I hope
somebody will step in and maybe create some kind of third party
Energy Star equivalent so that consumers
(28:48):
can still have the information available to them to buy
energy efficient appliances. And I hope home builders
will still make the effort to make energy
efficient Buildings. Although now there's not going to be a tax credit for
that after very much time. But come on,
let's, let's, let's get, let's keep some energy efficiency.
Efficiency is a good thing.
>> Elissa Tennant (29:07):
Thank you, Dana. Everybody listening, Please let us know when you start a third
party energy star efficiency company. And
uh, we'll give you a shout out on the show because it sounds like we need it.
Our second voicemail comes from a longtime
CCL volunteer.
>> Charlie Dominicki (29:22):
Hello Peterson and the team.
This is Craig Preston, Orange County Coast
Chapter member of Citizens Climate
Lobby. Why do I live and
I. My mood comes up as I
stay online thinking, oh my goodness, it's like a
40 minute episode. What I really want to do that. I'm, um, I
find myself addicted to these short
(29:44):
radio shows, news shows, and
yet every time I come to listen to CCL
radio, I find a
boost to my mood and my
inspiration and my energy
for more activism. So thank you for the gift of
that, Craig.
>> Elissa Tennant (30:05):
That's so nice. Thank you so much for saying that.
You are the best. And I look forward to seeing you
in July at the CCL Summer conference and
lobby day. So what about you? You have a question,
a story to share comments on the show? You can
call or text our listener line at
619-512-9646.
(30:27):
That's
619-512-9646.
So let's segue into the conference. Actually, I got one
last question for you, Dan. I want to give our good listeners a sneak
peek about what they can expect to see from
us at the summer conference. So what
sessions can we expect to hear you present this year? In
July?
>> Dana Nuccitelli (30:47):
I'll definitely be doing, I'll be moderating a breakout
session related to our, uh, healthy forest policy
agenda, talking with uh, a panel of
experts on things like wildfires and
climate change and the fix our Forest act and
planting lots more trees and things like that. So that'll be
really interesting. And then Jen Tyler and I,
VP of Government affairs will likely be doing
(31:10):
some talking about what's happening with the Inflation Reduction
act and the budget reconciliation because we can't get enough of that
topic unless Congress has already
passed a reconciliation bill by then, in which case then we'll have to
figure out something else to do.
>> Elissa Tennant (31:23):
We'll just do a live podcast and I will be doing
a, ah, social media breakout. So we hope you join
us July 20th through 22nd in
Washington D.C. you can register
now@CCUSA.org
conference and uh, next episode I
Think we'll be talking about this again and covering new updates. I mean,
honestly, next time we get on the mic, we could have a finalized bill
(31:46):
from both chambers in Congress. Or, uh, we could be
in about the same place or somewhere in the middle. You never know because
budget reconciliation is a process. But we are
committed to keeping you posted and taking action every
step of the way. So we'll let you know what comes next in our next
episode. But thank you for listening to this one. Back to
Peterson to close things out.
>> Peterson Toscano (32:05):
Hey, thank you. Bird bath. I'm so glad that
no, uh, actual birds were harmed in the. The
bathing process. I. I've
been hearing that phrase a lot lately, and I'm glad that you broke it
down for me and the rest of the listeners.
Uh, and speaking of energy stars, we have a new
star that has risen here
at Citizens, uh, Climate Lobby.
(32:27):
One who is very important to the show.
On the June 2025 CCL monthly call
in which you, Dana, talked about the IRA,
CCL board chair, Bill Blancato, made
a big announcement.
>> Bill Blancato (32:41):
Hey, everybody. I'm Bill Blancato. I've been a
CCL volunteer since 2013.
In 2014, I helped start the second chapter in
North Carolina. And I've worn several hats in
ccl. Group leader, regional coordinator, state
coordinator, liaison. Last year I joined
the CCE board, and earlier this year, I
transitioned to the CCL board and became
(33:04):
chair of the CCL board on June 1.
The leadership update I want to share with you is that Rachel
Koresta is. Our current executive director
has notified us that she's going to resign her position
effective July 15th. Together with
Sandy and the other board members, we've offered Ricky
Bradley, our VP of, uh, Field operations,
(33:24):
the role of interim executive director.
And I'm happy to report that Ricky has accepted that offer
and he'll officially assume the role on July 16th.
Uh, Rachel and those of us on the boards are working
together to ensure a, ah, smooth
transition with Ricky. I'm grateful to Rachel
for her efforts, and I'm excited about where Ricky's leadership
(33:46):
can take us from here. He's been with the organization
for over 13 years as a volunteer and staff member,
and he's the perfect person to take over from Rachel next
month and carry our mission forward.
Ricky, would you like to say anything?
>> Ricky Bradley (33:59):
Thank you, Bill. I am deeply, uh, honored by this
opportunity. For those of you who don't know me or haven't had
a chance, uh, haven't had a chance to get to know you. As Bill mentioned,
I've been a Part of CCO for quite a while. I started as a volunteer in
January of 2012, something that might
resonate with a lot of you. I held my first chapter meeting the
following month at my kitchen table with my
spouse and one other person. I was so excited that that one
(34:22):
other person showed up for that meeting.
After volunteering full time for two years, former
Executive director Mark Reynolds invited me to join the CCL staff in
2014. And since then, I've worn a lot of hats.
I've helped relaunch our main website, uh, started
Citizens Climate University, was our effort to scale
and our training education nationwide,
(34:43):
and created CCL Community. And then later I, uh,
was also had the opportunity to become the regional coordinator for
Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Oklahoma.
Those are my favorite memories of ccl coming from those summer
days, traveling those states with Susan Adams, Peterson
Brand and Brett Cease and cars that had little or no AC
and just staying with volunteers or wherever we could find a bed.
(35:04):
Sometimes, uh, those are, those are the moments that I'll always hold dear
to myself. In 2018, Madeline Pera
gave me the opportunity to become the director of it. And then
late last year, when Brett decided to step away as VP of Operations,
Rachel asked me to step in and really build on the incredible
foundation that Brett and our regional directors had built.
The words were barely out of her mouth before I said yes.
(35:25):
I'm excited for this opportunity. Before
ccl, I worked at hsbc Hong Kong,
Shanghai Banking Corporation. For them, I was leading
strategic planning and, uh, implementation efforts.
But from the moment I found ccl, I knew I'd found my
place. I was then, and I still am,
moved by CCL founder Marshall Saunders
vision that respectful, persistent,
(35:48):
nonpartisan advocacy will move policymakers and
others even when the odds seem long.
I fully realize that what makes CCL possible isn't just the
strategy. It's the people. It's us. It's the
relationships we built together. The power of CCL
comes from all of us. It's volunteers, staff, donors
and our board who show up again and again
(36:09):
with all of us with a clarity of purpose and a lot
of passion. I know that
at, uh, Citizens Climate.
>> Peterson Toscano (36:16):
Radio, Ricky Bradley has a soft spot in our
hearts. Ricky first approached me about
creating this podcast almost 10 years
ago. So, as Bill said,
Ricky has been with the organization for a long time.
So, Ricky, congratulations.
If you want to see Ricky in action, come to the
(36:38):
Citizens Climate Lobby's summer conference.
It is held from July 20th to the
22nd, 2025, live in Washington,
DC. Learn more sign up
at
cclusa.org
conference and you'll also get to
meet Dana and Elissa and see them
(37:00):
in person so you can see if they actually have a filter
on in the video version or if this is real.
There's no filter. There's no filter.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (37:08):
No filters.
>> Peterson Toscano (37:10):
So as Elissa, uh, said, if you've got a story to share,
leave us a voicemail. You can even text us at the following
number,
619-512-9646
plus one. If you're calling from outside the USA,
that's
619-512-9646.
You'll find show notes and links at, uh,
(37:30):
cclusa.org
radio and I just want to remind you one more
time you can take action to
protect clean energy tax credits. Visit
cclusa.org
IRA defense
this episode was written
by Elissa Tennant and Dana Niccitelli and
(37:52):
me, Peterson Toscano. I also did the recording and
editing. Although there was no editing in this one.
There were no mistakes. Music comes from Epidemic
Sound Citizens Climate Radio is a project of
Citizens Climate Education. Stay
strong, determined and creative in your work
on climate change.
>> Elissa Tennant (38:28):
SA.
M.
>> Peterson Toscano (00:02):
Welcome to Citizens Climate Radio, the podcast that helps you
understand the climate policy news behind the
headlines. I'm Peterson Centiscano.
Each month we bring you timely updates from
Capitol Hill and beyond, breaking down
complex topics and showing how you can
(00:22):
make an impact. In this episode, you
will hear big news from Citizens Climate Lobby
regarding our leadership. But first,
we're continuing our new series with CCL's
Elissa Tennant and Dana Nuccitelli. They
team up to help you navigate the fast
changing world of climate legislation.
Today, they're diving into the latest news and
(00:45):
research on the Inflation Reduction act and
how repealing it would hurt American families
and businesses. I imagine, too. So what's in the
new text, what's at stake and how can climate
advocates respond to Elissa? Uh, and Dana,
welcome back to the show.
>> Elissa Tennant (01:02):
Glad to be here. Thanks, Peterson.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (01:03):
Um, hey, Peterson.
>> Peterson Toscano (01:04):
Hey. So I've got a question actually for you first.
What's one climate policy term or phrase
you wish more people understood and why?
>> Dana Nuccitelli (01:14):
I'm going to say the concept of net zero
emissions, which is that's just when you're
pulling as much carbon out of the atmosphere as you're adding in a
given year, and so you're not increasing the amount of greenhouse
gases in the atmosphere. And some people will say
that that's not good enough because our emissions
aren't zero. And some people will say it's actually an
impossible thing to reach. We can't get to
(01:37):
net zero emissions. And really it's not only is it
possible, it's actually a good target because once you reach net zero
emissions, that's when global warming stops. And that's what we're trying to do,
is get, uh, global warming to stop.
>> Elissa Tennant (01:48):
And mine segues nicely into our discussion. Mine is
budget reconciliation, which is not directly a climate
related term, but something I had never heard of before I
came to Citizens Climate Lob. And it has such
a big impact on so many policies, but that
includes climate and energy. And I wish that
more people knew what that one meant, but it's. I get it. Cause it's a
(02:08):
really long process.
>> Peterson Toscano (02:09):
Same. It was a, uh, new thing for me until
recently, so. Yeah, I agree. Great. I love
those answers. Thanks so much and thank you for
taking over the mic today, listener. You
are in absolutely good hands. I'm handing it over to you too, and
I'll see you at the end of the show.
>> Elissa Tennant (02:26):
Thank you, Peterson. All right, and thank you for listening
and for joining us. And later in the show we will share
some listener voicemails with you. Along with our responses.
And we will tell you how you can leave your own voicemail or
question for us.
But first, Dana, we are knee
deep in budget reconciliation. Let's talk
(02:47):
about it. So, our last episode covered the
release of the House Ways and Means Committee's version of the
budget, which gutted, uh, the Inflation Reduction Act's
clean energy tax credits. And the House
ultimately passed their version of the budget, and
negotiations have now moved to the Senate.
So let's set the scene. Let's get some background.
What's happening in the Senate right now.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (03:08):
So now all of the Senate committees have released their
text, their version of what they want to do with the
budget reconciliation bill. The last committee
to go was the Senate Finance Committee because they have kind of the
most complicated and the most stuff to do, including,
uh, addressing what they want to do with the, uh, inflation reduction acts,
clean energy tax credits. So they have now
(03:28):
released their text, and now it's going through
what's called the bird bath, which is when the Senate parliamentarian
checks all of their proposals and make sure that they're
suitable for the budget reconciliation process.
>> Elissa Tennant (03:39):
Talk to me more about the bird bath. I don't know if we mentioned it in our last
episode, but I feel like that's a term we can't just throw out there and then
leave.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (03:46):
We talked about the poly. Yeah, we talked about the parliamentarian, whose
name I think is Elizabeth McDonough. I hope I didn't
get that wrong.
>> Elissa Tennant (03:53):
Shout out.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (03:54):
Yeah, shout out to Elizabeth. So, in any case, in
order to qualify for the
budget reconciliation process in the Senate, each provision
has to be primarily budgetary in nature,
meaning that it affects the budget. And that's, like, the primary thing
that it's meant to do. It's not just, like, some change to a regulation that has
maybe some minor little side impact on the
(04:14):
budget has to be, like, focused on the budget. And so the person who
decides if the provisions are each focused on the
budget and budgetary nature is the Senate parliamentarian,
and it's called the bird bath. It's named after Senator
Bird, Robert Bird, I think, a long ways
back from West Virginia, who kind of created this whole
reconciliation process. And this is one of the rules that it has to be
(04:35):
budgetary in nature to fit into the
budget reconciliation process.
>> Elissa Tennant (04:40):
Okay. And we learn something new every day.
So the Senate Finance Committee is kind of the Senate
counterpart to the House Ways and Means Committee,
correct?
>> Dana Nuccitelli (04:49):
Correct. You got good.
>> Elissa Tennant (04:50):
That's what I was told. So I wanted to make sure nobody was lying to me.
So how Is the Senate Finance Committee's
proposed budget different from the House bill? Let's
get into it.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (05:00):
Yeah. So they definitely improved
on the House version. When it comes to the clean
energy tax credits. They gave a number of
them kind of a longer Runway in terms of when they're
being phased out, like the clean electricity tax credits,
The House version essentially, uh,
effectively just repeal them immediately for all
(05:20):
practical purposes. Whereas the Senate
version, it. It treats different
kinds of energy differently. So solar and wind energy, it
phases them out after starting after
2025 through 2027. So it's,
it's still quick, but at least it's not
immediate. So that's an improvement.
And then these other sources of clean energy we call. We tend to call
(05:42):
them like clean firm because they're sort of more
like baseload energy. They're not intermittent, not reliant on
the weather. So these are things like geothermal power,
nuclear power, hydroelectricity, and batteries. Um, they
got a much longer Runway. They don't phase out until
the2030s. So they're in pretty good shape. That's especially
good for us for, for battery storage
because that's really important for, you know, addressing the
(06:05):
intermittent intermittency that comes with solar, uh, power that
relies on when the sun is shining. And so then you
can, if you get lots of sunshine, you can store some of that energy in the
batteries and then use it at a different time when you need it during the
day. And so it's good that batteries
are treated much better in the
Senate version. So we like that. So those are
(06:25):
kind of some of the good improvements. They also got rid of some of the, the
very technical kind of poison pills that the
House version put in there that we can get into, if you want to get into.
Deep into the weeds.
>> Elissa Tennant (06:35):
Oh, I want to get into the weeds.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (06:37):
So there's one called the Foreign Entities of Concern
fiac, which they're basically, the
government defines what we, what we. Countries that we consider foreign
entities of concern, which are currently China,
Russia, North Korea and Iran, I believe
are the four for various geopolitical
reasons. So mainly the purpose here
is so that we're not. We're reducing our
(06:59):
reliance on China for these various
technologies. We're trying not to import everything from
China because then if we have some kind of disagreement with China,
like say a bunch of tariffs in. In war, in
wars to do with. Yeah. Like fighting, like trade
wars, then they have a lot of leverage over us.
And so the idea, which was part of the idea
(07:20):
in Inflation Reduction act too, is to create more
of a supply chain and more manufacturing in the United States. So we're
relying less on China. And so the House version of the bill,
it took this to the extreme and it basically said,
fusion, anything in your project that comes from China,
like a nut or a bolt or a piece of copper
wire, your project does not qualify for any tax
(07:41):
credits whatsoever. And everybody said, wait
a second, how are we possibly going to comply
with that right away? We use so much stuff, so many
different components in our, you know, solar
arrays and wind turbines and everything.
So the Senate said, yeah, that's not so good. Let's try to improve
that. And so they did their own foreign entities
(08:01):
of concern FIAC language, which folks are still looking
at, to see if it's workable. I think it seems like it's at least
more workable than the extreme House
version. So that was an improvement. Hopefully,
like, people are still like, this is very complicated, detailed
language. So they're starting trying to still feel it, figure out, is
this going to work for, like, my technology. And so
hopefully that's an, um. It's definitely an improvement. We'll see how much
(08:24):
of an improvement it is. Another one was
transferability of the tax credits, because these
things are tax credits. And so what it's basically saying,
if you qualify for this, we will give you some credits to
offset your taxes in the next year. But small companies,
they might not have very much tax liability, and so getting a big
credit to offset their taxes doesn't do them much good.
(08:44):
And so the Inflation Reduction act made these transferable,
and so they can take that tax credit and send it to another
business so they can sell it on a marketplace, basically. And so it
makes it much easier for them to use, whereas
the House version would have taken that out and kind of gone
back to the way it used to be done, which is basically like,
you have to. Then if you don't have much tax liability, if you're like a
(09:06):
small solar company, you have to partner with some kind of
entity that has a lot of tax liability, which is like basically a
big financial institution, and then they're going to take a cut. They're going to
say, well, you got to work with me. And so I'm going to take some of that tax
liability money and you're going to be able to use less of it, and in
your solar, in your solar project, and I'm going to take some of it. And so it just
makes the tax credits less efficient
(09:26):
to take away the transferability. And so everybody was like, why Are
you taking away transferability? And it was basically to make it less
usable. And so the Senate took that, uh, out. They said, no, we're going to leave
the transferability in. So that's a nice improvement because it just,
it just makes it more like your taxpayer dollars are actually going
to the clean energy as as opposed to going to, like a bank.
So that's a good thing.
>> Elissa Tennant (09:46):
Um, so it is a little bit in the weeds, but it does sound
like the metaphor we've been using internally on our staff calls is
like, the House bill really, really dug us a
hole. And the Senate version kind of put some
shovelfuls back in.
So we're, we love a good metaphor. So it's.
Yes, we called, we lobbied, we emailed,
and it is a little, uh, it's an improvement.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (10:08):
It is definitely improvement. The House version, the,
uh, House version was quite bad. And the Senate version, like, they
definitely took some significant measures to get
rid of some of the bad things in the House
version. So we made some progress. That's
worth celebrating. It's not as bad. It's an improvement.
>> Elissa Tennant (10:26):
And now we're going to stop celebrating because we're going to talk
about. Let's talk impacts.
As our resident nerd, I know you've been pouring over 10 to
15 different studies on the impacts of repealing the
IRA Clean Energy Tax credits. So let's
talk impacts. What's the headline here? If we
lose these tax credits or they're phased out?
>> Dana Nuccitelli (10:46):
Yeah, so, I mean, specifically I looked at about 8 or
so of these reports. Didn't quite make it. Didn't quite
make it to the 1015 range, but around 8 or 8 to 10
maybe. And so I think the headline
impact is that it would if the tax credits are repealed
or the more of them that are repealed, the higher
our energy bills are going to be for households.
(11:07):
Yeah, nobody likes higher energy bills. And that includes higher
gasoline bills, which everybody really hates. And politicians
are very scared of higher electricity bills
and also higher natural gas bills. So lots of
different types of energy, and then the costs all go
up.
>> Elissa Tennant (11:22):
How much? How much? How much we talking?
>> Dana Nuccitelli (11:25):
So gasoline prices will go up. Uh,
there's a couple of different estimates, but in the range of 3 to
25 cents per gallon. So it's a
fairly significant increase in gasoline prices. That's
because if you repeal the electric electric vehicle tax
credit, you're going to sell a lot fewer EVs, and so a lot
more people are going to be driving gas cars burning more
(11:45):
gasoline increases the demand for gasoline, which
Increases the price of gasoline.
>> Elissa Tennant (11:50):
Ooh, little economics.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (11:51):
Little economics, little supply and demand. Yeah,
and then electricity bills will go up
somewhere in the ballpark of $100 per
year per household and
vehicle costs because of those increased gasoline costs and
because fewer people are going to have EVs, which EVs have
significantly cheaper fueling costs than
gasoline cars by almost a thousand dollars per
(12:14):
year if you combine those. So it's about
a hundred dollars per year per household for
higher electricity costs, about $100 per year per
household and higher, uh, vehicle fuel costs.
And then natural, uh, gas costs kind of get wrapped in there too,
because if, if you're, if you have less clean
electricity, then you have to burn more natural gas. And so then again,
(12:34):
supply and demand natural gas prices go up. And so if you
have natural gas appliances in your house, like a stove or
a furnace, or you're heating your household, heating your H Vac
is natural gas, then you have to pay that as well. Or the higher
natural gas prices that go along with that as well. So if
you lump it all together, it's somewhere in the range of about
a thousand to $3,000 over the next
(12:54):
10 years, uh, increase in overall
average household energy costs.
>> Elissa Tennant (12:59):
Dana, I'm going to dare to speak on behalf of the listener.
I'm going to say we, the collective, we the listeners and I
are not loving this news. This is
horrible.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (13:08):
Yeah, I don't want to pay an extra two grand. And over the next
20 year or 10 years, that's a lot of money.
>> Elissa Tennant (13:13):
Oh, no. Okay. Well, in terms of,
like, not just individual impacts, I mean, let's talk about
manufacturing and jobs, too.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (13:21):
Yeah. So we have, we've had sort of, uh, a clean
energy manufacturing boom since the Inflation Reduction act
passed. We've had especially a lot, lot of
investments in battery manufacturing and also
EVs and solar panels.
And so the problem is those,
you know, investments in those facilities were made because
(13:41):
companies knew they were going to get the benefit associated with
these tax credits. And if so, if you start to take tax credits
away, suddenly these companies are going to stop building
so much, uh, new manufacturing capacity because
there's not going to be the market of people buying them. Like, if there's no EV
tax credit, a lot fewer people are going to buy EVs. And
so you're not going to have to make as many batteries or EVs.
(14:01):
And so, for example, the Princeton team estimated
that if the EV tax rates are appealed, as was
proposed in both the House and Senate versions, within the
next six, six Months. That means
that EV demand goes down by like
20 to 40 million over the next 10 years. There's going to
be like some tens of millions fewer EVs on American
(14:22):
roads in 2035, as if the
EV tax rates were stay in place. And so
that significant decrease in demand means we
already have enough manufacturing capacity in
place in the United States of building, uh,
batteries and EVs that we're not going to need to build
any more manufacturing. If we build any more manufacturing, we're just not going to end
(14:42):
up using it because there's not going to be enough people buying those EVs. And
in fact, we might already have too much capacity.
And so companies might have to reduce their
manufacturing output. And if they have to do that, then they have to lay off
workers. And so that means you also get
a loss in jobs, which we'll probably get to next.
>> Elissa Tennant (15:00):
This whole conversation is so painful, everybody. The only
way out is through.
Let's talk about jobs.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (15:06):
Yeah, so exactly. If you reduce
that demand for the products like the EVs, and then you
reduce the need for manufacturing, you're also
going to lose jobs. And also if
you're reducing the amount of clean energy we're deploying
solar panels, wind turbines, and solar and wind
farms, then you're gonna have to manufacture a few of the fewer of those
(15:26):
too. And you're gonna have money, fewer
construction jobs to actually build those solar and wind
farms. Because the estimates are if we
use the go buy the house version and immediately phase out
the tax credits for clean electricity, then the
amount of solar and wind we're going to build over the next 10
years is basically going to be half as much as it would otherwise have been.
It might be a little bit better with the center version because the
(15:49):
Senate gave them a little bit of a Runway, but it's probably not going to be a whole
lot, lot better. So in the ballpark of half as much
clean power, uh, facilities built.
And so if you kind of estimate those,
like the impact on jobs altogether, which several of these reports did,
you're talking about hundreds of thousands of lost jobs
in manufacturing and construction and also
(16:09):
like throughout the economy, because, like when these folks
have construction jobs and manufacturing jobs and they get these salaries and they
spend that money on, like food and products and, you
know, clothes and shoes and things like that. And that money goes throughout
the economy and creates more jobs because you have more demand for stuff. So if
you're taking that money away from those workers, then it pulls money
out of the economy and costs Even more jobs. So overall,
(16:30):
hundreds of thousands of total jobs lost.
>> Elissa Tennant (16:32):
Okay, so we're paying more money, we're losing manufacturing, we're losing
jobs, we're losing gdp.
Talk to me about energy security.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (16:39):
Yeah, so one issue we're facing
is that we have a very large increase in
demand for electricity all of a sudden because we
have a lot of data centers that we're building because there's a lot of
artificial intelligence, really rapid development.
And to train your artificial intelligence machines,
you need a lot of power from these, a lot of data centers, a lot of
(17:00):
power. And we're also seeing more and
more people buy electric cars and electrify their homes with
heat pumps and things like that. And we're also seeing
higher temperatures due to global warming, means people have to use
more air conditioning. So all these things are kind of conspiring
to suddenly significantly increased the amount of
electricity that we're using. Whereas over the past
(17:20):
20 years it was almost flat because like we
didn't have all this Data center and A.I. uh, development and we were doing a
good job becoming more energy efficient. And so now
all this new demand for power is just going to overwhelm that.
And so the projections are that over the next
10 years our power demand growth is going to be somewhere
probably in the range of five to 10 times faster than it was over
(17:40):
the prior 20 years. And so,
yeah, that's going to create issues, especially if
we are now pulling out the incentives for clean
electricity facilities to be built, because that's kind of the fastest thing
you can build. And so if you have this really rapid increase
in demand and you're not able to keep up with increasing
supply fast enough because now there's not enough financial
incentive for the solar and wind facilities to get built, or at least as
(18:03):
many of them, then suddenly you're creating
this mismatch where there's really high demand, not a, ah, not
high, not high enough supply. And that can create the
conditions for more blackouts and power
outages and thus decreased energy security.
>> Elissa Tennant (18:18):
Yeah, why did solar and wind get the short end of the stick here? What did they
ever do?
>> Dana Nuccitelli (18:21):
The argument is that they are
m now mature technologies and so they don't
need the tax credits. And there is, I mean,
some validity to that because they are, they have become
much more like technologies have advanced and become cheaper.
I mean, the problem is that they're really
pulling the rug out from them in terms of getting rid
(18:42):
of the tax credits really fast that a lot of these projects were
depending on. And so that just Changes the finances.
There's a case to be made to get rid of the
tax credits, but just it makes more sense to do it
over a longer period of time, phase them out like over many years
as opposed to phasing them out, uh, over like a year or two.
And also the Trump administration also just
(19:02):
generally hates wind altogether is the other
thing Wynn got treated especially badly in, in
this bill because the Trump administration doesn't like it.
>> Elissa Tennant (19:11):
This is an audio meetup, so I want the record to state that
I am squinting my eyes suspiciously in
disapproval for the listener at home. All right, there's.
There can't be any more bad impacts. Right. Data.
Right. That's the end. There's no more to talk about.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (19:25):
Well, you mentioned the gdp, which we didn't go into the
details of that, but again, if you're ah, how you're
deploying less energy, building, less manufacturing, less
clean energy, less jobs, that has a general impact
throughout the economy, which as you mentioned, reduces
gdp. The estimates are that it reduces
our GDP by about a trillion dollars
over the next decade, which is a big
(19:48):
number, especially when you consider that the savings of
these tax credit repeals are about half of a trillion
dollars. And so you're kind of
basically losing a much
bigger savings over time or a much bigger
amount of money over time than you're saving by repealing the tax
credits, which is not very good long term
(20:08):
thinking. So that's another bad impact.
>> Elissa Tennant (20:11):
One did say.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (20:11):
Yeah, yeah. And then there's air pollution
and people's health because if you are
getting fewer EVs, more people burning gasoline
in their cars, fewer clean energy
facilities. So, um, more burning of fossil fuel and power plants,
all that extra burning of fossil fuels from tailpipes and
smokestacks, uh, creates local air pollution and
(20:32):
people breathe that air pollution and then it causes all kinds of bad
health effects. So energy innovation, which is one of
the reports that uh, I looked over, estimated
several thousand additional premature deaths over
the next decade because people breathing this pollution.
They didn't put numbers on it, but there's a lot of other adverse health
impacts like asthma and dementia and
(20:52):
all kinds of bad things that happen when you're breathing more air pollution.
And then of course there is the climate pollution as well, which
is very important.
>> Elissa Tennant (20:59):
Oh, you're still going?
>> Dana Nuccitelli (21:00):
I'm still going. The climate pollution, yes,
of course, you know, if we reduce all these
clean energy deployments, then you get more greenhouse gas
emissions and you are significantly further away
from your prior climate
commitments than you would otherwise be. And so we'll only be about
20 to 30% below 2005 levels by
2030, whereas we had in, uh, our Paris commitment
(21:23):
previously committed to being more than 50% below
2005 levels by 2030. And so we're going to be well short of
our climate targets as well.
>> Elissa Tennant (21:31):
All right, Dana, thank you so much for bringing the vibe down
today. It could not be lower.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (21:35):
Can I call me. I going to rename myself Captain Bring down
Today.
>> Elissa Tennant (21:39):
Really bad vibes on this call. We got to bring it
back up. So, um, let's summarize what happened this
week. So the Iraq clean
energy tax credits, we would like to keep them intact.
The Senate version of the budget does not keep
them intact. It is not as bad
as the House version in terms of clean energy
(21:59):
tax. Tax cuts. Clean. It is
not as bad as the House version in terms of clean energy
tax credit cuts. Does that sound right?
>> Dana Nuccitelli (22:08):
It is not as bad.
>> Elissa Tennant (22:10):
Yay.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (22:12):
Yay.
>> Elissa Tennant (22:15):
So what comes next? What can we
expect from D.C. now that the Senate has
released their version of bill?
>> Dana Nuccitelli (22:22):
Uh, so he talked about how it's going to go through the bird
bath, and then probably most of
the provisions will survive because the senators try to pull
out things that they expect won't survive the
bird bath. And in fact, there is a relevant one for electric
vehicles. The House had put in sort of an EV
penalty or like a fee that EV owners have to pay of
$250 per year, and hybrid owners would have to
(22:44):
pay $100 per year, basically to pay for
road maintenance kind of things.
>> Elissa Tennant (22:49):
Oh, I hate that.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (22:50):
In the state of Ohio, you would have to double pay
it.
>> Elissa Tennant (22:53):
So that would be great. No notes on that.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (22:56):
Yeah, there are a number of states that have this. This would be a federal ones. Everybody
has to pay if you own an EV or a hybrid. But
the Senate pulled that out probably because they
expected it wouldn't survive the bird bath, because that is
kind of regulatory. Yeah. So hopefully that
stays out. So, in any case, the bird bath
is going to happen. The parliamentarians looking over all the provisions, that
(23:17):
takes something like a week. And there will
probably more be more negotiations in these between the Senate
and the House in the meantime, because, like, there have already been members
of the House who said, I can't vote for this version of the Senate bill for
one reason or another. They all have their kind of different
priorities and things that the Senate change
that. They say, that's a bridge too far for me that
goes past my red line. So they're going to have to have
(23:40):
more negotiations and More
changes before. Once the
bird bath is done, then it, uh, ultimately goes to a
vote on the floor of the Senate if they expect
they can get a majority of senators to vote for it.
And. But then they also need a majority of members of
the House to vote for it because they don't really want
another version change to go back and forth. So there's going to
(24:03):
be more negotiations until they can try to come to that sense,
final version of the bill that a majority of Republicans
in both the House and the Senate are willing to vote for.
So that's going to take some time. It's hard to say how much
time. Depends how belligerent everybody is and
how good they are at negotiating. So that's
what's coming next.
>> Elissa Tennant (24:22):
What I'm hearing is the listeners stuck with us. Somebody
has to walk the people through this,
I guess.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (24:29):
Yeah.
>> Elissa Tennant (24:30):
I also love the drama of surviving the bird
bath. Somebody should make a documentary with that
title because leave it to Congress.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (24:38):
You never know what predators are hovering around the
birdbath.
>> Elissa Tennant (24:43):
So what can we do right now? So the
good news is we have a fresh action ready. For
anybody who is represented by a Republican senator.
You can visit
cclusa.org
IRA defense to urge your senator to
call on Senate leadership to better preserve clean
energy tax credits in this bill. Because, Dana,
(25:04):
you said that we have read that the Senate is still open
to negotiating.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (25:08):
They are. They've said they're still open to make changes. They
have to make changes because they don't have a bill that's got a majority of
votes yet. So harass them until they make it
a better bill. That's, that's my philosophy.
>> Elissa Tennant (25:19):
Politely ask
them@cclusa.org
IRA defense so thank you, Dana, as
always, for this fantastic update on the IRA clean energy
tax credits. We at CCL have been working
to defend these tax credits since last November, but
I feel like every month there's, like, new information, there's new updates. So
thank you for doing the work and keeping us posted.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (25:41):
I feel like it's every day at this point.
>> Elissa Tennant (25:44):
I agree.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (25:45):
Thanks, Elissa.
>> Elissa Tennant (25:47):
We love hearing from you, the listener. And I have
two voicemails to share with you today. And Dana,
I need you to answer the first one because it is a question
for you. So here is our first
voicemail.
>> Charlie Dominicki (26:00):
Hi there. Um, I really enjoyed your recent,
uh, saving clean energy tax credits
episode. Um, and I'd love to
request, um, maybe a deeper
dive into how the
removal of the 45L
tax credit from the IRA, um,
and potentially to the um, ending
(26:22):
of the Energy Structure Star program, which
has been around since the mid-90s, it's bipartisan, how
that will impact homeowners and what they pay
monthly on, um, their energy bills and how that's such an important
message as you lobby, uh,
Congress and Senate and their understanding of
how these clean tax credits could
(26:44):
actually impact the daily lives of, uh, their
constituents, um, just in their homes and those utility
costs that are going higher and higher. Um, so
if, if uh, you don't mind, love to hear more
of that. Um, and again, really enjoyed your show.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (27:01):
Yeah, so that is a great question. So
45L is the tax credit for making
new homes energy efficient? So if a,
uh, home developer builds a building so
that it's got really good insulation and windows and
maybe energy efficient appliances, and so it
meets, there's an Energy Star standard for new
homes. If it meets that, then they can get a tax credit for that,
(27:23):
basically. And then the Energy Star
program in general is just a really nice
program or it was a really nice program in which there's
just a, uh, certification that this particular
appliance is energy efficient. And it meets the Energy
Star standard. And so it gets the stamp of Energy
Star approval. And it tells people if you buy this
appliance, then you're going to be saving energy.
(27:46):
And both those things like saving energy and
being energy efficient in general is good for a
lot of reasons. I mean, just for the homeowner, if you're
using less energy by having an energy efficient home
and energy efficient appliances, that means your energy bills are
going to be lower. And that's a really good
thing. It also means that that home is
(28:07):
using less energy at a time where, as we talked about, energy
demand is going up and up and up. And so the
reason it didn't go up in the prior two decades is because we got
more energy efficient because of programs like Energy Star. And now
we're getting rid of these programs at a time
when energy demand is going up.
If we get rid of all our energy efficiency, our tax
(28:27):
credits to make homes energy efficient, our Energy Star program,
that's going to make our energy demand go up even faster at a
time where it's already going up too fast, which again is going to make
electricity bills go up even higher.
So, yeah, this is bad stuff. I hope
somebody will step in and maybe create some kind of third party
Energy Star equivalent so that consumers
(28:48):
can still have the information available to them to buy
energy efficient appliances. And I hope home builders
will still make the effort to make energy
efficient Buildings. Although now there's not going to be a tax credit for
that after very much time. But come on,
let's, let's, let's get, let's keep some energy efficiency.
Efficiency is a good thing.
>> Elissa Tennant (29:07):
Thank you, Dana. Everybody listening, Please let us know when you start a third
party energy star efficiency company. And
uh, we'll give you a shout out on the show because it sounds like we need it.
Our second voicemail comes from a longtime
CCL volunteer.
>> Charlie Dominicki (29:22):
Hello Peterson and the team.
This is Craig Preston, Orange County Coast
Chapter member of Citizens Climate
Lobby. Why do I live and
I. My mood comes up as I
stay online thinking, oh my goodness, it's like a
40 minute episode. What I really want to do that. I'm, um, I
find myself addicted to these short
(29:44):
radio shows, news shows, and
yet every time I come to listen to CCL
radio, I find a
boost to my mood and my
inspiration and my energy
for more activism. So thank you for the gift of
that, Craig.
>> Elissa Tennant (30:05):
That's so nice. Thank you so much for saying that.
You are the best. And I look forward to seeing you
in July at the CCL Summer conference and
lobby day. So what about you? You have a question,
a story to share comments on the show? You can
call or text our listener line at
619-512-9646.
(30:27):
That's
619-512-9646.
So let's segue into the conference. Actually, I got one
last question for you, Dan. I want to give our good listeners a sneak
peek about what they can expect to see from
us at the summer conference. So what
sessions can we expect to hear you present this year? In
July?
>> Dana Nuccitelli (30:47):
I'll definitely be doing, I'll be moderating a breakout
session related to our, uh, healthy forest policy
agenda, talking with uh, a panel of
experts on things like wildfires and
climate change and the fix our Forest act and
planting lots more trees and things like that. So that'll be
really interesting. And then Jen Tyler and I,
VP of Government affairs will likely be doing
(31:10):
some talking about what's happening with the Inflation Reduction
act and the budget reconciliation because we can't get enough of that
topic unless Congress has already
passed a reconciliation bill by then, in which case then we'll have to
figure out something else to do.
>> Elissa Tennant (31:23):
We'll just do a live podcast and I will be doing
a, ah, social media breakout. So we hope you join
us July 20th through 22nd in
Washington D.C. you can register
now@CCUSA.org
conference and uh, next episode I
Think we'll be talking about this again and covering new updates. I mean,
honestly, next time we get on the mic, we could have a finalized bill
(31:46):
from both chambers in Congress. Or, uh, we could be
in about the same place or somewhere in the middle. You never know because
budget reconciliation is a process. But we are
committed to keeping you posted and taking action every
step of the way. So we'll let you know what comes next in our next
episode. But thank you for listening to this one. Back to
Peterson to close things out.
>> Peterson Toscano (32:05):
Hey, thank you. Bird bath. I'm so glad that
no, uh, actual birds were harmed in the. The
bathing process. I. I've
been hearing that phrase a lot lately, and I'm glad that you broke it
down for me and the rest of the listeners.
Uh, and speaking of energy stars, we have a new
star that has risen here
at Citizens, uh, Climate Lobby.
(32:27):
One who is very important to the show.
On the June 2025 CCL monthly call
in which you, Dana, talked about the IRA,
CCL board chair, Bill Blancato, made
a big announcement.
>> Bill Blancato (32:41):
Hey, everybody. I'm Bill Blancato. I've been a
CCL volunteer since 2013.
In 2014, I helped start the second chapter in
North Carolina. And I've worn several hats in
ccl. Group leader, regional coordinator, state
coordinator, liaison. Last year I joined
the CCE board, and earlier this year, I
transitioned to the CCL board and became
(33:04):
chair of the CCL board on June 1.
The leadership update I want to share with you is that Rachel
Koresta is. Our current executive director
has notified us that she's going to resign her position
effective July 15th. Together with
Sandy and the other board members, we've offered Ricky
Bradley, our VP of, uh, Field operations,
(33:24):
the role of interim executive director.
And I'm happy to report that Ricky has accepted that offer
and he'll officially assume the role on July 16th.
Uh, Rachel and those of us on the boards are working
together to ensure a, ah, smooth
transition with Ricky. I'm grateful to Rachel
for her efforts, and I'm excited about where Ricky's leadership
(33:46):
can take us from here. He's been with the organization
for over 13 years as a volunteer and staff member,
and he's the perfect person to take over from Rachel next
month and carry our mission forward.
Ricky, would you like to say anything?
>> Ricky Bradley (33:59):
Thank you, Bill. I am deeply, uh, honored by this
opportunity. For those of you who don't know me or haven't had
a chance, uh, haven't had a chance to get to know you. As Bill mentioned,
I've been a Part of CCO for quite a while. I started as a volunteer in
January of 2012, something that might
resonate with a lot of you. I held my first chapter meeting the
following month at my kitchen table with my
spouse and one other person. I was so excited that that one
(34:22):
other person showed up for that meeting.
After volunteering full time for two years, former
Executive director Mark Reynolds invited me to join the CCL staff in
2014. And since then, I've worn a lot of hats.
I've helped relaunch our main website, uh, started
Citizens Climate University, was our effort to scale
and our training education nationwide,
(34:43):
and created CCL Community. And then later I, uh,
was also had the opportunity to become the regional coordinator for
Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Oklahoma.
Those are my favorite memories of ccl coming from those summer
days, traveling those states with Susan Adams, Peterson
Brand and Brett Cease and cars that had little or no AC
and just staying with volunteers or wherever we could find a bed.
(35:04):
Sometimes, uh, those are, those are the moments that I'll always hold dear
to myself. In 2018, Madeline Pera
gave me the opportunity to become the director of it. And then
late last year, when Brett decided to step away as VP of Operations,
Rachel asked me to step in and really build on the incredible
foundation that Brett and our regional directors had built.
The words were barely out of her mouth before I said yes.
(35:25):
I'm excited for this opportunity. Before
ccl, I worked at hsbc Hong Kong,
Shanghai Banking Corporation. For them, I was leading
strategic planning and, uh, implementation efforts.
But from the moment I found ccl, I knew I'd found my
place. I was then, and I still am,
moved by CCL founder Marshall Saunders
vision that respectful, persistent,
(35:48):
nonpartisan advocacy will move policymakers and
others even when the odds seem long.
I fully realize that what makes CCL possible isn't just the
strategy. It's the people. It's us. It's the
relationships we built together. The power of CCL
comes from all of us. It's volunteers, staff, donors
and our board who show up again and again
(36:09):
with all of us with a clarity of purpose and a lot
of passion. I know that
at, uh, Citizens Climate.
>> Peterson Toscano (36:16):
Radio, Ricky Bradley has a soft spot in our
hearts. Ricky first approached me about
creating this podcast almost 10 years
ago. So, as Bill said,
Ricky has been with the organization for a long time.
So, Ricky, congratulations.
If you want to see Ricky in action, come to the
(36:38):
Citizens Climate Lobby's summer conference.
It is held from July 20th to the
22nd, 2025, live in Washington,
DC. Learn more sign up
at
cclusa.org
conference and you'll also get to
meet Dana and Elissa and see them
(37:00):
in person so you can see if they actually have a filter
on in the video version or if this is real.
There's no filter. There's no filter.
>> Dana Nuccitelli (37:08):
No filters.
>> Peterson Toscano (37:10):
So as Elissa, uh, said, if you've got a story to share,
leave us a voicemail. You can even text us at the following
number,
619-512-9646
plus one. If you're calling from outside the USA,
that's
619-512-9646.
You'll find show notes and links at, uh,
(37:30):
cclusa.org
radio and I just want to remind you one more
time you can take action to
protect clean energy tax credits. Visit
cclusa.org
IRA defense
this episode was written
by Elissa Tennant and Dana Niccitelli and
(37:52):
me, Peterson Toscano. I also did the recording and
editing. Although there was no editing in this one.
There were no mistakes. Music comes from Epidemic
Sound Citizens Climate Radio is a project of
Citizens Climate Education. Stay
strong, determined and creative in your work
on climate change.
>> Elissa Tennant (38:28):
SA.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.