“This administration is devastating one of our nation’s fastest-growing sources of clean, reliable and affordable energy,” said Attorney General Letitia James of New York, which is one of the plaintiffs. She said the halt threatened “the loss of thousands of good-paying jobs and billions in investments” and was “delaying our transition away from the fossil fuels that harm our health and our planet.”

The halt on federal permits for wind energy was first laid out in a Jan. 20 executive order, one of a barrage that President Trump signed immediately upon taking office. It directed agencies to stop all permits for wind farms pending federal review.

The lawsuit says that, by complying, federal agencies have put major investments that have already been made at risk. The order also instructed the United States attorney general and the interior secretary to explore “terminating or amending” existing leases to wind farms, further increasing uncertainty for companies.

The wind industry provides about 10 percent of the nation’s electricity, and has many new projects under development, particularly in the Great Plains and the Atlantic Ocean.

Last month, the Trump administration halted a major wind farm under construction off the coast of Long Island, the Empire Wind project. It was designed to provide enough electricity to power a half-million homes. It had already received the permits it needed, but Interior Secretary Doug Burgum suggested the Biden administration’s analysis during the approval process was rushed and insufficient.

Ms. James noted that Mr. Trump had also declared an energy emergency. Energy experts have called that declaration overstated. Nevertheless, she said, the moratorium on wind permits is harming the ability to provide a new source of energy.

New York also has a new law on the books requiring it to dramatically increase the amount of electricity that comes from renewable sources. Achieving that goal will become more complicated without wind sources.

The lawsuit names numerous federal officials and agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department. The E.P.A. didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman, accused the Democratic attorneys general who sued of using “lawfare” to thwart the president’s energy agenda. “Americans in blue states should not have to pay the price of the Democrats’ radical climate agenda,” she said.

The Interior Department said in a statement that it was committed to “overseeing public lands and waters for the benefit of all Americans, while prioritizing fiscal responsibility for the American people.”

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Massachusetts, asks a judge to prevent federal agencies from taking any action to block wind-energy development and to declare the executive order unlawful.

“The Trump administration’s directive to halt the development of offshore wind energy is illegal,” said Rob Bonta, the attorney general of California.

His office said the federal policy would “derail the clean energy transition” and lead to higher costs for Americans. In addition to onshore wind sites, the state has five federal offshore wind leases, the office said. Offshore operations are more complicated and expensive to operate.

Timothy Fox, managing director of ClearView Energy Partners, a Washington consulting firm, said that he expected the lawsuit to face an uphill climb in convincing the court to block the executive order. The firm’s “best-case scenario” for the offshore wind industry is that facilities that are already operating, or far along in development, may continue without opposition from the Trump administration, he said.

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When they list measures that are making the most difference, it lines up with policies Trump has said he’ll target.

These rollbacks will come as more lives are being lost in heat waves, record amounts of climate pollution are accumulating in the atmosphere, the United States has been hit with what may be two of its most expensive hurricanes, and nations, which will meet in Baku, Azerbaijan next week for climate negotiations, have failed to take strong action to change these realities.

Here are some of the measures.

The Inflation Reduction Act, the nation’s landmark climate law

This law is significant because it is expected to reduce U.S. emissions by about 40% by 2030, if it unfolds as planned in the coming years.

It funnels money to measures that substitute clean energy for dirty. One major way it does so is by giving credits to businessespeople who build new solar and wind farms.

But it’s not limited to that. It encourages developers of geothermal energy and businesses that separate the carbon dioxide from their smokestacks and bury it underground. It incentivizes the next generation of nuclear power. It gives a $7,500 tax credit to people who buy electric cars. People who buy their cars used can get a credit too, as long as they don’t earn too much to qualify.

Trump, by contrast, has summed up his energy policy as “drill, baby, drill” and pledged to dismantle what he calls Democrats’ “green new scam” in favor of boosting production of fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas and coal, the main causes of climate change.

He vows to end subsidies for wind power that were included in the landmark 2022 climate law.

If Trump does target the climate law, there are provisions that are likely safe. One is a credit for companies in advanced manufacturing, because it is perceived as “America first and pro-U.S. business,” said David Shepheard, partner and energy expert at the global consultant Baringa. Incentives for electric vehicles are likely most at risk, he added.

In a call Wednesday morning, Scott Segal, head of a communications group at the law firm Bracewell LLP, which represents the energy industry, said the climate law is not likely to be repealed.

Dan Jasper, a senior policy advisor at Project Drawdown, said repealing parts of the climate law could backfire because most of the investments and jobs are in Republican congressional districts.

Pollution from electric power plants

The main U.S. rule aimed at reducing the climate change that comes from making electricity at power plants that burn coal is also considered vulnerable. This rule from the Environmental Protection Agency, announced in April, would force many coal-fired plants to capture 90% of their carbon emissions or shut down within eight years, Shepheard said.

It was projected to reduce roughly 1.38 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide through 2047, along with tens of thousands of tons of other harmful air pollutants.

Industry groups and Republican-controlled states have filed legal challenges to a host of EPA rules including this one and Trump’s victory means the Justice Department is unlikely to defend it.

Under a Trump presidency, it is unlikely to survive, Shepheard said.

The United States has been reducing carbon dioxide emissions primarily by replacing coal-fired power plants with clean, renewable power, said Stanford University climate scientist Rob Jackson, who chairs the Global Carbon Project, a group of scientists that tracks countries’ carbon dioxide emissions.

“I hope that we don’t lose sight of the benefits of clean energy,” he said. “It’s not just about the climate. It’s about our lives and our health.”

Limiting leaks from damaging methane, or natural gas

The Biden administration was under pressure to reduce one of the main pollutants contributing to drought, heat waves, flooding and stronger hurricanes — methane or natural gas. It leaks out of oil and gas equipment, sometimes deliberately when companies consider it too expensive to transport.

The Biden administration issued the first national rules on this.

Industry groups and Republican-leaning states have challenged the rule in court. They say the Environmental Protection Agency overstepped its authority and set unattainable standards.

The EPA said the rules are squarely within its legal responsibilities and would protect the public.

Fuel-efficient vehicles

The Environmental Protection Agency has issued its strongest rules on tailpipe emissions from cars and trucks under the Biden administration.

While it is unclear who will head the EPA under Trump, the agency is considered likely to begin a lengthy process to repeal and replace a host of standards including the one on tailpipe emissions, which Trump falsely calls an electric vehicle “mandate.″ Trump rolled back more than 100 environmental laws as president and that number is likely to grow in a second term.

Trump has said EV manufacturing will destroy jobs in the auto industry and has falsely claimed that battery-powered cars don’t work in cold weather and aren’t able to travel long distances. Trump softened his rhetoric in recent months after Tesla CEO Elon Musk endorsed him and campaigned heavily for his election.

Even so, industry officials expect Trump to try to slow a shift to electric cars.

Drilling in Alaska refuge

Trump is almost certain to reinstate oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, continuing a partisan battle that has persisted for decades. Biden and other Democratic presidents have blocked drilling in the sprawling refuge, which is home to polar bears, caribou and other wildlife. Trump opened the area to drilling in a 2017 tax cut law enacted by congressional Republicans. No drilling has occurred in the refuge, although the U.S. Bureau of Land Management on Wednesday proposed a lease sale by the end of December that could lead to oil drilling. The sale is required under the 2017 law.

Transition to cleaner energy, transport will continue

Trump, who has cast climate change as a “hoax,” has said he will also eliminate regulations by the Biden administration to increase the energy efficiency of lightbulbs, stoves, dishwashers and shower heads.

Dan Jasper, a senior policy advisor at Project Drawdown said climate action will continue to move forward at the state and local level.

Zara Ahmed, who leads policy analysis and science strategy at Carbon Direct, agreed. While there may be an abdication of leadership at the federal level on climate, she’s optimistic that states including California will continue to lead.

Clean Air Task Force Executive Director Armond Cohen said on Wednesday that states, cities, utilities and businesses that have committed to net zero emissions will keep working toward those goals, driving record installations of wind and solar energy.

Governors of both parties are also interested in ramping up nuclear energy as a carbon-free source of electricity, Cohen said.

Trump has said he, too, is interested in developing the next generation of nuclear reactors that are smaller than traditional reactors.

Gina McCarthy, a former EPA administrator who was Biden’s first national climate adviser, said Trump will be unable to stop clean energy such as wind, solar and geothermal power.

“No matter what Trump may say, the shift to clean energy is unstoppable and our country is not turning back,″ McCarthy said. Advocates for clean energy are bipartisan, well-organized “and fully prepared to deliver climate solutions, boost local economies, and drive climate ambition,′ she said.

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They also expressed concern about the devastation wrought in the Southeast by Hurricane Helene and called for a vigorous response from government to help those affected by the powerful storm. Helene was one of the deadliest storms in U.S. history, with the death toll surpassing 150 across six states. Damage stretched from Florida to Virginia, with some of the worst in western North Carolina, which experienced substantial inland flooding.

Vance, a Republican senator from Ohio and former President Trump’s running mate, called the destruction from Helene an “unbelievable and unspeakable human tragedy.” He said that he and Trump “want as robust and aggressive [of] a federal response as we can get to save as many lives as possible and then of course, afterwards, to help the people in those communities rebuild.”

“I commit that when Donald Trump is president again, the government will put the citizens of this country first when they suffer from a disaster,” he said.

On climate change, Vance said that “a lot of people are justifiably worried about all these crazy weather patterns,” and that he and Trump “support clean air, clean water” and “want the environment to be cleaner and safer.”

Vance did not answer how a Trump administration would address climate change, but said it would support more domestic energy production. He called Democratic concerns about carbon emissions a debate about “weird science.”

If emissions are a concern, Vance said, Democrats are addressing them in the wrong way. He said Democrats should be more interested in making energy cleanly in the United States than allowing energy to be produced in dirtier ways in other countries, such as China.

“If we actually care about getting cleaner air and cleaner water, the best thing to do is to double down and invest in American workers and the American people. And unfortunately, Kamala Harris has done exactly the opposite,” Vance said.

Walz, the Democratic governor of Minnesota and Vice President Harris’ running mate, also called the devastation in the Southeast “a horrific tragedy,” adding that he and other governors have been in contact on how to address the disaster.

Walz said officials are working on helping people, and “we need to make sure that they’re staying there, staying focused.”

On climate change, Walz attacked Trump for calling it a “hoax” in the past and for suggesting that rising ocean levels will provide more beachfront property.

Walz said his constituents in Minnesota, including many farmers, understand that climate change is very real. And they are helping to lead the country on the right path forward, toward truly clean energy.

“They’ve seen 500-year droughts, 500-year floods back to back. But what they’re doing is adapting, and this has allowed them to tell me, ‘Look, I harvest corn, I harvest soybean and I harvest wind.’ ”

He also said the Biden-Harris administration has invested in infrastructure and other programs that are helping communities adapt to climate change and has invested in domestic energy.

“We are producing more natural gas and more oil at any time than we ever have. We’re also producing more clean energy,” Walz said. “So the solution for us is to continue to move forward. That climate change is real. Reducing our impact is absolutely critical.”

Trump has slammed the Biden administration’s response to Helene as inadequate, and alleged with no evidence that the administration and Democratic leaders in North Carolina were “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas.”

The Biden administration has rejected Trump’s claims. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre dismissed them as unfounded and said that more than 1,400 people have been supported or rescued in affected areas. Republican leaders have said the White House has been helpful in disaster relief.

President Biden has approved major disaster declarations in Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina, which will ease the path for those states to receive recovery funds.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s a red state or blue state,” Jean-Pierre said Monday. “This is their job — to get food there, to get generators there, to save some lives, to rescue people.”

Trump’s supporters, including those behind Project 2025, have called for federal agencies that warn of weather disasters to be disbanded or face dramatic budget cuts, and Trump as president delayed post-hurricane aid to Puerto Rico. He also diverted money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which responds to natural disasters, to an initiative aimed at returning undocumented migrants to Mexico.

More than 150,000 households have already registered for assistance from FEMA in the wake of Helene, and that number is expected to rise rapidly in coming days, agency officials have said.

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Before he was a presidential candidate, he said global warming was “a hoax” invented by China to kneecap the American economy.

“The climate has always been changing,” he shrugged more recently.

If he’s elected president, Trump says, one of his “Day One” priorities will be increasing oil and gas production — or, as he puts it: “Drill, baby, drill!”

With more fossil fuels, he promises, “we will be rich again and happy again.”

Those positions are at the heart of Trump’s campaign to regain the White House. And they put him on a collision course with California, where the Democratic-led government, supported by most voters, has made a clean-energy economy a major goal.

“It’s breathtaking how easily manipulated this man is,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement. “His only interest is pleasing Big Oil CEOs, and mortgaging our kids and the planet in the process.”

A large majority of Californians support their state’s ambitious climate goals, the Public Policy Institute of California found in a survey last year. Almost two-thirds said they believe protecting the environment should be a priority even at the risk of curbing economic growth.

“If you look at California, it’s got brownouts and blackouts every single day,” he claimed in a campaign video last year. “People can’t turn on their air conditioners.” (Not true; California hasn’t had significant power grid problems since 2020.)

If he wins a second term, Trump plans to scrap President Biden’s programs encouraging renewable energy. He has said he would offer tax breaks to oil, gas and coal producers; repeal federal subsidies for solar, wind and other renewable energy projects; and roll back Biden’s efforts to encourage the use of electric vehicles.

“First day in office, I’ll be ending all of that,” Trump said last year, referring to EV tax credits and other subsidies. (In fact, he couldn’t repeal the tax credit on Day One — that would take an act of Congress — but he could add requirements to limit the cars and trucks that qualify for the subsidy.)

Former aides say Trump is also likely to revive two of his first-term goals that spurred clashes with California: revoke the state’s tough vehicle emissions standards and open more federal waters to oil drilling, including off the Pacific coast.

He failed at both partly because of opposition from California and other states but also because of his administration’s incompetence.

“In the first term, the Trump administration had a kind of blunderbuss approach. Their proposals weren’t well thought out. They often didn’t hold up under close review,” said Richard M. Frank, a professor of environmental law at UC Davis School of Law. “Now they appear to be trying to learn from those mistakes. … They could be a lot more strategic the second time.”

The clearest example is Trump’s attack on California’s tough automotive emissions standards.

The 1970 Clean Air Act allows the federal Environmental Protection Agency to limit air pollution from automobiles. It also allows California to impose tougher standards because of its decades-long battle to reduce smog, under a “waiver” the EPA normally grants each year.

Congress also allowed other states to adopt the California standards; 17 states and the District of Columbia have done so.

In 2019, after automobile manufacturers complained that the California standards were a burden, Trump announced that he was revoking the state’s waiver “in order to produce far less expensive cars for the consumer.”

His decision was part of a broad effort to scale back federal rules requiring auto fleets to reduce fuel consumption.

Newsom and then-Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra sued the federal government, charging that the EPA had overstepped its authority. The case meandered through the courts until Biden took office and restored California’s waiver.

Trump hasn’t talked explicitly about attacking California’s waiver again. But last year, the conservative Heritage Foundation assembled a team of former Trump aides to compile a policy agenda called “Project 2025.” The approximately 900-page document includes a detailed strategy for revoking or limiting California’s emissions standards.

It suggests that instead of revoking the waiver, the EPA could limit California’s standards to smog-producing pollutants like ozone, not greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide. If that fails, the agenda says, the EPA could try to block other states from adopting greenhouse gas standards.

“They’re recognizing that they screwed up the first time and laying out a road map to try to do better the second time,” said Dan Becker, an environmental lawyer at the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity. “They’re basically choosing each of the areas in which California can act and going after each of them.”

Becker said the strategy may be aimed at getting the case into the Supreme Court, where a second Trump administration could try its luck before a 6-3 conservative majority.

If a second Trump administration tried to revoke the waiver, Newsom said at a February news conference, the state would go to court again.

“We know the playbook,” he said. “We were successful over and over [in Trump’s first term] in the courts, and we have confidence that will continue.”

Offshore oil drilling could produce another standoff.

In 2018, Trump proposed opening federal waters along the entire Pacific Coast, as well as Alaska and the Atlantic Coast, to drilling for oil and gas. That kicked up a storm of opposition, including — to Trump’s surprise — from Republicans.

And Trump’s administration found itself tied up in the federal rule-making process.

“They made procedural errors that slowed everything down,” said Kassie Siegel, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity.

If he wins a second term, Trump would have broad authority to open the continental shelf to oil leases, but he would run into other problems.

One is economics: Deep-water drilling in the North Pacific is expensive and risky. Oil companies are more interested in drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska, where known reserves are larger.

The other is local politics. In 2018, when Trump proposed opening the Pacific Coast to drilling, the California Legislature quickly passed a law banning new oil pipelines, piers or other infrastructure within three miles of shore. That could make it prohibitively expensive to move oil from offshore wells to onshore refineries or terminals.

Oil companies know that any attempt to drill new wells off California would spark massive opposition. A PPIC poll in 2021 found that 72% of Californians, including 43% of Republicans, oppose the idea.

A third potential conflict: wind. Offshore wind farms are a big part of California’s clean energy plans, aimed at supplying about 13% of the state’s power supply by 2045. But wind is Trump’s least favorite energy source.

“Windmills rot. They rust. They kill the birds. It’s the most expensive energy there is,” he charged last year. There’s much more to say about that, and I’ll return to it in a later column.

Newsom says he doesn’t believe Trump will get a second term.

“It won’t happen,” he said at the February news conference. Still, just in case, “we’re definitely trying to future-proof California in every way, shape or form.”

“We’re hardly just a punching bag on this,” the governor added. “We’re trying to assert ourselves.”

But environmentalists are still worried.

“The problem is, a second Trump term would come when the climate crisis is more dire than it was in his first term,” Becker said. “Everything the scientists predicted is happening more quickly than they expected. … But Trump doesn’t believe it’s a problem, doesn’t want to solve it and would only make it worse.”

Which helps explain why so many environmental groups, including the Sierra Club and the League of Conservation Voters, have endorsed Biden’s reelection, even though they have criticized many of his decisions: They’ve considered the alternative.

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Led by new solar power, the world added renewable energy at breakneck speed in 2023, a trend that if amplified will help Earth turn away from fossil fuels and prevent severe warming and its effects.

Clean energy is often now the least expensive, explaining some of the growth. Nations also adopted policies that support renewables, some citing energy security concerns, according to the International Energy Agency. These factors countered high interest rates and persistent challenges in getting materials and components in many places.

The IEA projected that more than 440 gigawatts of renewable energy would be added in 2023, more than the entire installed power capacity of Germany and Spain together.

Here’s a look at the year in solar, wind and batteries.

ANOTHER BANNER YEAR FOR SOLAR

China, Europe, and the U.S. each set solar installation records for a single year, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.

China’s additions dwarfed those of all other countries, at somewhere between 180 and 230 gigawatts, depending on how end-of-the-year projects turn out. Europe added 58 gigawatts.

Solar is now the cheapest form of electricity in a majority of countries. Solar panel prices fell a whopping 40% to 53% in Europe between December 2022 and November 2023 and are now at record lows.

“Particularly in Europe, it’s been really at breakneck speed of scaling up the deployment,” said Michael Taylor, senior analyst at IRENA.

When the final numbers for 2023 are in, solar energy is expected to surpass hydropower in total capacity globally, but for actual electricity produced, hydropower will still make more clean power for some time because it can produce around the clock.

In the United States, California continues to have the most solar energy, followed by Texas, Florida, North Carolina, and Arizona.

Both state and federal incentives had a large influence on U.S. solar growth, said Daniel Bresette, president of the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, a non-profit education and policy organization.

Despite solar’s success in 2023, there are hurdles. There has been a shortage of transformers, Bresette said, while interest rates have risen.

In the U.S., solar manufacturing grew as well. “We have seen the impact of the Inflation Reduction Act in terms of fueling investments … more than 60 solar manufacturing facilities were announced over the past year,” said Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association.

CHALLENGES FOR WIND ENERGY

By the end of 2023, the world will have added enough wind energy to power nearly 80 million homes, making it a record year.

As with solar, most of the growth, or more than 58 gigawatts, was added in China, according to research from Wood Mackenzie. China is on track to surpass its ambitious 2030 target of 1,200 gigawatts of utility-scale solar and wind power capacity five years ahead of schedule if planned projects are all built, the Global Energy Monitor said.

China was one of the few growing markets this year for wind, the Global Wind Energy Council said. Faster permitting and other improvements in key markets such as Germany and India also helped add more wind energy. But installations were down in Europe by 6% year-over-year, Wood Mackenzie said.

Short-term challenges such as high inflation, rising interest rates and increased costs of building materials forced some ocean wind developers to renegotiate or even cancel project contracts, and some land-based wind developers to delay projects to 2024 or 2025.

The economic headwinds came at a difficult time for the nascent U.S. offshore wind industry as it tries to launch the nation’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farms. Construction began on two this year. Both aim to open early in 2024 and one of the sites is already sending electricity to the U.S. grid. Large offshore wind farms have been making electricity for three decades in Europe, and more recently in Asia.

After years of record growth, the industry group American Clean Power expects less land-based wind to be added in the United States by year’s end, about enough to power 2.7 million to 3 million homes. The group says developers are taking advantage of new tax credits passed last year in the Inflation Reduction Act, but it takes years to bring the projects online. There has been $383 billion in announced clean energy investments since passage of the IRA, it said.

“We’re talking about 2023 essentially as a lower performance year, but in the grand scheme of things, 8 to 9 gigawatts is still a number to get excited about. It’s a lot of new clean energy that’s being added to the grid,” said John Hensley, ACP’s vice president for research and analytics.

Globally the wind buildout was slower this year as well. The top three markets this year are still China, the United States and Germany for wind energy produced on land, and China, the United Kingdom and Germany for offshore.

The analysts are predicting that the global industry will rebound next year and make nearly 12% more wind energy available worldwide.

In June, the industry celebrated passing 1 terawatt of installed wind energy worldwide. It took more than 40 years to reach that milestone, but it could take less than seven years for the second terawatt, at the pace the industry is on now.

MASSIVE YEAR FOR BATTERIES

Amid an ongoing push to make transportation less damaging to the climate, the electric vehicle trend accelerated globally in 2023, with one in five cars sold this year expected to be electric, according to the International Energy Agency. That meant it also turned out to be another banner year for batteries.

More than $43.4 billion has been spent on battery manufacturing and battery recycling just in the U.S. this year, thanks largely to the Inflation Reduction Act, according to Atlas Public Policy. This puts the U.S. on a more level playing field with Europe, but still behind battery powerhouse China.

As for large battery factories, called gigafactories, the U.S. and Europe each had 38 in the works by late November, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. But China had 295 in the works.

The industry continued to explore different ways of making batteries without depending so much on harmful materials, as well as ways of making components more sustainable, and the battery recycling industry made headway, experts said.

The cost of key battery raw materials, including lithium, also dropped significantly, Benchmark senior analyst Evan Hartley said.

“The battery cost is now on that trajectory that most Americans will be able to afford an EV,” said Paul Braun, a University of Illinois professor of materials science and engineering.

2023 wasn’t an easy journey. The U.S. industry, in particular navigated several headwinds. A massive Panasonic battery facility in Kansas had energy challenges. Toyota needs to shore up a talent pool for its site in North Carolina. Health and safety violations were found at a joint venture plant between General Motors Co. and LG Energy Solution in Ohio. The list goes on.

Regardless of the region, roadblocks remain in minerals, responsible supply chains, and the buildout of charging infrastructure. “That’s going to be the next agenda item,” John Eichberger, executive director of the Transportation Energy Institute.

But experts are optimistic that battery growth across the globe will continue.

“The story of batteries in the U.S. in small is the story of batteries globally in 2023 at large,” said Daan Walter, principal in the strategy team at the Rocky Mountain Institute, a sustainability research group, “and how momentous this shift in 2023 has been.”

Find your latest news here at the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle

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FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — On a recent day under the July sun, three men heaved solar panels onto the roof of a roomy, two-story house near the banks of the Kentucky River, a few miles upstream from the state capitol where lawmakers have promoted coal for more than a century.

The U.S. climate law that passed one year ago offers a 30% discount off this installation via a tax credit, and that’s helping push clean energy even into places where coal still provides cheap electricity. For Heather Baggett’s family in Frankfort, it was a good deal.

“For us, it’s not politically motivated,” said Baggett. “It really came down to financially, it made sense.”

On August 16, after the hottest June ever recorded and a scorching July, America’s long-sought response to climate change, the Inflation Reduction Act, turns one year old. In less than a year it has prompted investment in a massive buildout of battery and EV manufacturing across the states. Nearly 80 major clean energy manufacturing facilities have been announced, an investment equal to the previous seven years combined, according to the American Clean Power Association.

“It seems like every week there’s a new factory facility somewhere” being announced, said Jesse Jenkins, a professor at Princeton and leader of the REPEAT Project which has been deeply involved in analysis of the law.

“We’ve been talking about bringing manufacturing jobs back to America for my entire life. We’re finally doing it, right? That’s pretty exciting,” he said.

The IRA is America’s most significant response to climate change, after decades of lobbying by oil, gas and coal interests stalled action, while carbon emissions climbed, creating a hotter, more dangerous world. It is designed to spur clean energy buildout on a scale that will bend the arc of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. It also aims to build domestic supply chains to reverse China’s and other nations’ early domination of this vital sector.

One target of the law is cleaner transportation, the largest source of climate pollution for the U.S. Siemens, one of the biggest tech companies in the world, produces charging stations for EVs. Executives say this alignment of U.S. policy on climate is driving higher demand for batteries.

“When the federal government makes an investment, we get to the tipping point faster,” said Barbara Humpton, CEO of Siemens USA, adding that the company has invested $260 million in battery or battery storage projects in recent years.

The law also encourages more of the type of batteries that feed electricity to the grid when the wind is slack, or at night when the sun isn’t hitting solar panels. It could put the storage business on the same upward trajectory that solar blazed a decade ago, said Michael McGowan, head of North American infrastructure private markets for Mercer Alternatives, a consulting firm.

Derrick Flakoll, North America policy associate at Bloomberg NEF, pointed out that sales at the largest manufacturer of solar panels in the U.S., First Solar, skyrocketed after the law passed, creating a big backlog of orders.

“This is years and years of manufacturing capacity that is already booked out because people are bullish about the U.S.-produced solar market,” he said.

The IRA is also helping technologies that are expensive, but promising for near-term decarbonization.

Jason Mortimer is senior vice president of global sales at EH2, which makes large, low-cost electrolyzers — machines that split hydrogen from water. Hydrogen as clean energy is still in its infancy. “The IRA accelerates the implementation of hydrogen at scale by about four to five years,” making the U.S. competitive with Europe, he said.

But these changes, significant as they are, may just be the beginning, experts say.

“I think we’re about to see a quite a flood of investment in wind and solar-related manufacturing in the U.S.,” Jenkins said, adding that 2026 to 2028 is when the country will see the law’s full impact.

Other countries, some of them ahead of the U.S. in addressing climate change, have enacted their own further efforts to speed the changeover to clean energy. Canada has announced a matching policy and Europe has its own measures to attract manufacturing, similar to the IRA.

“European and Japanese automakers are trying to think about how to change supply chains in order to try and compete,” said Neil Mehrotra, assistant vice president and policy advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and contributor to a report about the U.S. law published by the Brookings Institution.

The Congressional Budget Office initially estimated the IRA’s tax credits would cost about $270 billion over a decade, but Brookings says businesses might take advantage of the credits far more aggressively and the federal government could pay out three or four times more.

The law is supposed to reduce the emissions of the U.S. — the country most responsible for greenhouse gases historically — by as much as 41% by 2030, according to a new analysis by Princeton researchers. That’s not enough to hit U.S. goals, but is a significant improvement.

But those crucial greenhouse gas cuts are partially at risk if the U.S. electric grid cannot grow enough to connect new wind and solar farms and handle new demands, like mass vehicle charging.

Despite the new investment in red states, not everyone likes it. Republicans recently proposed repealing major elements of the law. And Frankfort resident Jessie Decker, whose neighbor has solar panels, said he wouldn’t consider them, and doesn’t think the federal government should be “wasting money” on dubious climate programs.

Nor does the law mean climate-warming oil and gas are going away.

“Frankly, we are going to be using fossil fuels for many decades to come,” said Fred Eames, a regulatory attorney with the law firm Hunton Andrews Kurth.

Up on Baggett’s roof, Nicholas Hartnett, owner of Pure Power Solar, is pleased that business is up and homeowners are opening up to solar once they see how they can financially benefit.

“You have the environmental side, which handles the left, and then you have the option to use your own tax money that the gove

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