Since sweeping to power in 2025, Republicans have waged an all-out war on clean energy. Congress gutted major clean energy and electric vehicle subsidies enacted under Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, killed state-level rules to spur electric vehicle adoption, and blocked legislation to ease permitting for wind power projects. The Trump administration has gone further, paying developers billions to abandon offshore wind projects and invest in oil and gas instead, freezing wind and solar development on federal lands, and terminating $20 billion in clean energy grants (all three moves have been challenged in court). The Republican trifecta could deliver one clean energy priority in the form of a bipartisan permitting reform bill currently taking shape in the Senate, but otherwise stands firmly athwart the decarbonization agenda the White House has termed the “Green New Scam.” In recent months, however, the clean energy industry has started to fight back. A new super PAC organized by solar investors and executives, Invest in Tomorrow Coalition PAC, has made waves in the press by targeting some of the industry’s biggest antagonists in Congress. The PAC reported about $5 million in total spending through August, most of it against three far-right Republicans who led the charge to undo Biden’s clean energy subsidies: Representative Chip Roy in his bid for Texas attorney general; Representative Andy Ogles in his Tennessee reelection campaign; and Representative Ralph Norman in the South Carolina Senate primary. All three lost. After Ogles’s defeat, Politico suggested the PAC “may be showing conservatives the power of clean energy money.” “We needed to instill fear,” Peter Davidson, CEO of the investment firm Aligned Climate Capital and a founding organizer of Invest in Tomorrow, told me of the group’s philosophy. The industry has historically focused on winning hearts and minds rather than playing political hardball. Now, Davidson wants politicians to understand that “if they cross the industry—just like crypto, just like the NRA—there would be consequences.” Invest in Tomorrow plans to spend $20 to $30 million by the end of the midterms to send that message. But in our brave new world of unlimited election spending, is that enough to instill fear in Washington? James Carville, the veteran Democratic strategist, ridiculed me for even asking the question. “Twenty million—what the fuck do you think the carbon industry spends in a year?” In the 2024 elections, that number was $219 million. The cryptocurrency industry, which Davidson… [TheTopNews] Read More.
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