The letter that 21 House Republicans sent to the Ways and Means Committee in defense of energy tax credits on Sunday wasn’t built in a day; it’s “part of the momentum” that solar advocates have been working to build in meetings with members of Congress over the last few weeks, Jon Powers, president of clean energy investment firm CleanCapital, told Tech Brew.
It all started before the 2024 election, when Powers said the clean energy industry “became way more organized than they have in the past and were engaged in really advocating for [their] policies and [their] politics,” specifically energy tax credits and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), regardless of the incoming administration.
“We need[ed] to tell our story as an industry better,” Powers, who previously worked as the chief sustainability officer under President Barack Obama, said. “When the president gives an executive order on American energy dominance, how do we make sure that we’re part of that story?” (The order excluded many types of renewable energy from its definition of energy.)
The Solar Energy Industries Association organized a group of more than 150 clean energy executives, including Powers, to meet with members of Congress on Capitol Hill in February.
Powers said the business leaders “literally divided into teams” to talk with Democrats and Republicans supportive of the IRA and Republicans who have clean energy projects in their districts that have created new jobs and economic opportunity. Those conversations included educating representatives about how energy tax credits benefit their districts and reminding them that solar is “no longer a nascent industry”—it’s one with “hundreds of thousands of employees,” Powers noted.
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After those meetings last month, Powers said he felt there was certainly support for clean energy markets, and continued that momentum by returning to the Hill with others from CleanCapital last week to talk with members again—this time specifically “moderate Republicans to MAGA Republicans” to drum up support for Representative Andrew Garbarino, a New York Republican, who led the letter to the Ways and Means Committee.
“There’s a process underway on the Hill, and that letter aligned with the process: To make sure there was clear support for the tax credits,” Powers said. “And 21 Republicans speaks very loudly to that, but it also speaks really loudly to the message that the industry has been bringing to the Hill about where we are [and] the role we have in American energy dominance.”
And that message was clear in the House Republicans’ letter:
“The United States continues to produce energy from a myriad of sources that are cleaner and more efficient than anywhere else in the world,” they wrote. “As our conference has long believed, an all-of-the-above energy approach, combined with a robust advanced manufacturing sector, will help support the United States’ position as a global energy leader.”
Correction 03/13/25: This story has been updated to reflect the correct name of the Solar Energy Industries Association.