The largest U.S. solar industry association has included key Trump promises in its new top 10 priorities as a new and radically different administration will be taking over from Democrat Joe Biden in January.
The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) has just unveiled its priorities, and they all play on President-elect Trump’s pledges of American energy dominance and job creation in America’s heartland, while downplaying the fight against climate change.
The top solar industry group is not referencing climate change or emissions anywhere in the ten-point list of priorities, unlike it did in its 2020 policy ahead of President Biden’s inauguration. Back then, SEIA mentioned climate change several times, Reuters notes.
The priorities for the Trump administration are all formulated to play on key campaign messages, beginning with ‘American energy dominance’, ‘eliminate dependence on China’, boost American manufacturing, meet demand for AI and crypto, and continuing with ‘cut red tape in the energy sector’ and ‘regulatory reform and certainty’. The other priorities include keeping taxes low, supporting energy choice and energy freedom, bringing more jobs to America’s heartland, and protecting private property rights.
In the ‘bring more jobs to America’s heartland’ priority, SEIA references numerous Republican states, including swing states that Trump won in the presidential election. The organization said that “solar project developers are incentivized to build new power plants in rural areas with local workers. Today, the biggest states for solar include Texas (#2), Florida (#3), North Carolina (#4), Arizona (#5), Nevada (#6), and Georgia (#7). We owe it to these workers and communities to keep their economies strong.”
The solar industry, and anyone in clean energy, is concerned that Trump would repeal many of Biden’s climate and green energy policies, including a possible repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), although the landmark legislation benefits red states the most.