Transition Finance Weekly - 6/12/2025
House Republicans Backtrack on IRA; MD Wind Win; The End of FEMA?
1. 13 House Republicans Try to Have It Both Ways on IRA Credits
Will the Senate fix what they broke?
13 House Republicans who voted for the Big Terrible Budget Bill sent a letter to their Senate counterparts urging them to preserve IRA clean energy tax credits that have brought jobs to their districts. Eliminating the credits would eliminate hundreds of thousands of jobs and more than $1 trillion in GDP.
They want the Senate to loosen the bill’s restrictive Foreign Entity of Concern (FEOC) provisions, extend the credit phaseout schedule, and retain transferable tax credits that benefit investors (see our previous coverage).
Why the sudden change of heart? Many of these lawmakers — like VA Rep. Jen Kiggans and PA Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick — won on thin margins and know how much their districts benefit from clean energy. Any of them could have killed the bill; by making a public push to preserve the tax credits, they hope to contain the political fallout from their choices.
Bottom line: As it stands now, the budget bill would hurt our economy, raise energy prices, and cost jobs — and Congressional Republicans know it.
2. A New Wind’s Blowing in Maryland
Offshore wind project clears final huddle, though risks remain.
US Wind’s 114-turbine wind farm project cleared its last major permitting hurdle last week to proceed with construction. Approximately 10 miles off the coast of Ocean City, Maryland, the project would deliver up to 2 GW of clean power to the Delmarva Peninsula if all goes smoothly.
And there’s the rub. A court challenge to the project could still be coming from local residents, who claim the wind farm could impact tourism. And the Trump administration could enter the fray and backtrack on approvals already granted, as it did with Empire Wind in New York. (On that project, Gov. Kathy Hochul stood firm and Trump relented.)
Offshore wind has the potential to provide gigawatts of needed power to coastal communities. With 73,000 MW of wind capacity under development — enough to power 30 million homes — the wind industry is poised to be a major economic engine, supporting 56,000 US jobs by 2030.
3. Southern California’s Gas Lobby Scores a Win
Regulators pull back on a proposed gas appliance phaseout.
In a major setback for clean air and electrification, the Southern California Air Quality Management District board narrowly voted down a proposal to phase out gas-powered water heaters and furnaces and shift appliances towards zero-emission models, a bold proposal that mirrors existing policy in the Bay Area.
The merest whiff of regulation was too much for the gas industry, which joined the building industry in an aggressive and vocal opposition campaign that falsely labeled the proposal a “gas ban.” Trump’s Justice Department also threatened the AQMD with a lawsuit.
This is a disappointing loss for public health and a setback for electrification in Southern California, which is also seeing other clean air regulations suspended as wildfire victims rebuild.
Chris Chavez, deputy policy director with the Coalition for Clean Air: “Simply put, you have failed. For this failure you are now inviting federal sanctions, limits on industry, limits on economic activity, and those are consequences you will have brought on yourself.”
4. Oregon Passes Bill to Make Heavy Energy Users Pay Their Share
Rate relief could be coming to everyday consumers.
Last Thursday, the Oregon Senate passed HB 3546, aka the POWER Act, which would partly shield residential electricity customers from shouldering the full cost of massive new energy demand from data centers and Bitcoin mining facilities. It would let the Oregon Public Utility Commission create a new rate class for new high-consumption users, requiring them to cover grid expansion and infrastructure costs.
The bill picks and chooses among heavy energy users; some, like semiconductor manufacturers, would not be covered. And existing facilities would be exempted, too.
Nevertheless, it’s a step toward balancing the interests of power-hungry industrial facilities and those of regular consumers as the rising costs of grid upgrades skyrocket to serve new big loads.
Johnny Earl, President of Oregon’s SEIU Local 503: “Working families, low-income households, and small businesses — already stretched thin in a worsening economy — cannot subsidize the massive energy demands of corporate tech giants.”
5. Is a FEMA Phase-Out On the Horizon?
Trump says he’ll sunset the agency after hurricane season.
We’ve extensively covered how the Trump administration has gutted federal agencies critical to America's disaster response. As of yesterday, he has shared the end goal: to completely phase out FEMA at the end of 2025’s hurricane season. Trump to reporters: “We’re moving it back to the states so the governors can handle it. That’s why they’re governors. Now, if they can’t handle it, they shouldn’t be governor.”
We’ve said it before: There’s no way states can replace federal agencies like FEMA, NOAA, and the National Weather Service. And while imperfect, FEMA offers life-saving coordination, expertise, and financial support that are more cost-effectively handled at a national level.
With more deadly, damaging extreme weather events becoming the norm thanks to climate change, these services are more vital than ever. This will be a more-active-than-average hurricane season, and FEMA, NOAA, and NWS are already struggling to cope with deep staffing cuts that have the Trump administration scrambling to rehire essential employees they let go. Next year could be worse.
An anonymous FEMA leader on the Trump administration’s phase-out plan: “This is a complete misunderstanding of the role of the federal government in emergency management and disaster response and recovery, and it’s an abdication of that role when a state is overwhelmed.”
6. Extreme Heat Protections: Under Federal Attack, Under State Attack
Outdoor workers left to withstand deadly conditions on their own.
Anxiety spiked in April when the Trump administration gutted staff at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NOISH) effectively dismantling federal heat response research. Now, he seems poised to kill OSHA’s 2024 draft heat rule, the first federal requirement for workers to get breaks when temperatures reach unsafe levels from climate change.
Removing OSHA’s rule would put the federal government in lockstep with right-wing state legislators fighting to kill heat safety rules. Florida and Texas have both banned local governments from instituting any kind of extreme heat protection, a spiteful play by politicians sitting in air-conditioned legislative chambers — and one that could get people killed.
Theirs is part of a coordinated municipal preemption strategy to hijack cities’ authority to take climate action while states fail to act.
From Climate Cabinet Education: “Despite being the party of “local control” and supposed defendants against “government overreach,” Republican state legislators are extending their assault on democratic governance and climate leadership by handcuffing the actions of city and county governments.”