2 Millions Jobs at Risk if Republicans Repeal Clean Manufacturing Tax Credits – CleanTechnica

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For the past few weeks — or months — we’ve been covering the risks of Congress and Donald Trump repealing the the Clean Manufacturing Tax Credits from the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. In the past week, now that a Republican House bill repealing them has been passed to the Senate, a number of reports and press statements have come out highlighting how many jobs could be lost in different sectors and how much economic harm the repeals could do. Now we’ve got another big one to share.

The analysis from the BlueGreen Alliance shows that “more than two million jobs across the manufacturing employment footprint are at risk if the budget reconciliation bill recently passed by the U.S. House of Representatives becomes law,” the Alliance writes. “The House bill introduces provisions that would effectively kill tax credits for clean and advanced manufacturing by making them unusable and sunsetting them early.” Naturally, when you kill the tax credits, you kill projects, you kill jobs, and you kill whole companies.

Just directly influenced manufacturing jobs alone, the bill puts nearly 300,000 jobs at risk. Then, another one million plus indirect jobs related to the supply chains of these factories are also at risk. Going further (because that’s how the economy work), another ~643,000 induced jobs are also at risk. Therefore, in total, more than 2 million jobs are determined to be at risk.

Regarding the direct job losses, the Alliance notes: “These numbers are drawn directly from company announcements and exclude job creation connected to projects that have already been cancelled.”

Perhaps 2 million isn’t the actual number in reality. Perhaps some mistakes were made in the analysis. But, even if that was the case, without a doubt, numerous jobs will be lost. The economic harm will be immense.

“These numbers make it even more clear, if this bill becomes law, workers are the ones who will pay the price,” said BlueGreen Alliance Executive Director Jason Walsh. “As this administration blusters about its support for American manufacturing, this bill tells an extremely different story, openly selling out workers to pay for a billionaire tax break.”

The BlueGreen Alliance also highlighted that there are seven states that have more than 100,000 jobs at risk from the Republican bill. Those are a mixture of “blue” and “red” states: California, Georgia, Michigan, Illinois, Tennessee, Arizona, and South Carolina. “Notably, President Trump won five of those seven states with the greatest number of jobs at stake in the 2024 election,” the BlueGreen Alliance adds. Here are more details on how those numbers break down:

• California – 329,131
• Georgia – 258,517
• Michigan – 226,610
• Tennessee – 140,985
• Illinois – 138,214
• South Carolina – 135,510
• Arizona – 100,170

Manufacturing facilities aren’t built overnight. They require long-term planning and development. With Inflation Reduction Act only passed about two and a half years ago, we’re still at the baby stages of what could be created from it. Unfortunately, that also means that, because the big positive effects haven’t sprouted yet, it’s easier for Republicans to stomp on the seeds and prevent factories and jobs from being created rather than trying to shut them down in future years.

“Additionally, the brief finds that in several states the manufacturing sector is at the precipice of massive growth under the tax credits,” the BlueGreen Alliance states. “With the tax credits in place, New Mexico, Nevada, and Georgia could all see manufacturing employment grow more than 10%. Arizona, Kentucky, Michigan, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia could all see at least a 5% boost. Without the credits, that future is uncertain.”

To close, the Alliance puts out one more appeal for common sense, just as more than a dozen Republicans in the House have done (despite also letting the bill get to the Senate as it is). “The job-creating track record of the clean manufacturing tax credits is undeniable and the changes to them included in the House bill threatens all of that progress,” said BlueGreen Alliance Vice President of Manufacturing and Industrial Policy Ted Fertik. “Every bit of data shows clearly that repealing these credits will hurt working Americans. We hope the Senate will see reason and reverse these damaging provisions.”

It just doesn’t make sense that one of our major political parties would be so adamant about hurting the US cleantech industry and economy, but that’s where we are thanks to the party being slaves to the fossil fuel industry.

You can read more details about the new analysis here and here.