Opinion: Don’t turn off federal funding for clean energy initiatives in PA

It’s a bit of well-funded gaslighting that we can’t address climate change without disrupting the economy. Special interests want us to think that transitioning away from fossil fuels means paying more for energy, that investing in clean energy means wasting taxpayer dollars, and that cutting climate pollution means killing blue-collar jobs in working-class communities like mine. But none of that is true.

In the Pennsylvania General Assembly, my colleagues and I continue to address climate change in ways that also create good-paying jobs. We want our commonwealth to show America that we don’t have to choose between reducing pollution and growing the economy. We can do both. In fact, I believe that doing one requires doing the other; building a strong economy from the bottom up and the middle out requires investing in job-creating, clean-energy technology. 

This idea motivated the creation of the Blue-Green Caucus, an alliance of lawmakers who insist on a both-and approach to climate change. Together we championed policies like Pennsylvania’s new Solar for Schools program, which gives grants to schools to lower the cost of installing solar panels on campuses by 50%. 

This program was also championed by Gov. Josh Shapiro, who ensured that it was included in the budget – a cause for celebration not only among environmentalists but also among labor groups. Labor’s enthusiasm is easily explained: Solar panels do not install themselves. For every panel that gets installed, someone must do the installing, and the Solar for Schools program requires that these workers be paid a fair wage.

It’s a great example of how climate action and economic development go hand in hand. It also shows how investments in clean energy can lower costs and save taxpayer dollars, not waste them. In my district, four schools – Drexel Hill Middle, Westbrook Park Elementary, Primos Elementary, and Hillcrest Elementary – were awarded a total of $1.7 million under the Solar for Schools program. Once their solar panels are installed and running, these schools will pay less for electricity, because they’ll be generating more of their own. This leaves more money available for what the school district does best: educating children.

Students and teachers win. Workers win. Pollution decreases; air quality improves. Taxpayer money is spent more efficiently. But who loses? Anyone invested in the lie that enjoying a good economy requires accepting a worsening climate crisis. 

There are powerful people in the nation’s capital who are deeply invested in that lie. Late last month, U.S. House Republicans passed the budget reconciliation bill – the “Big Beautiful Bill” that contains President Donald Trump’s second-term agenda, including tax breaks for billionaires and corporations. To pay for those cuts, House Republicans are trying to gut – among other programs – Medicaid, food assistance for the poor, Pell grants for college students and federal incentives for clean energy.

If the Senate passes the House version of the bill, these cuts will cause significant harm to the country. Millions will lose their health coverage. Children will go hungry. A college education will become even harder to afford. However, let’s focus on how the elimination of clean-energy tax credits and other incentives will harm Pennsylvania and its economy.

One selling point of the Solar for Schools program is that, while it covers up to half the cost of a new solar array, federal incentives cover an additional 30% to 50%. Together, that amounts to an overall cost reduction of 80% to 100%, allowing schools to stretch their dollars even further, making the switch to solar power almost a no-brainer. But now these benefits are in jeopardy. The bill’s passage would gut clean-energy incentives on a party-line vote, leading to fewer schools investing in solar energy. And an even greater share of the cost burden will fall to the commonwealth and to cash-strapped school districts. 

For all the reasons that the Solar for Schools program has been celebrated by workers, the proposed cuts to federal solar incentives are staunchly opposed by labor. Despite all the talk of how Pennsylvania is coal country, clean energy employs more than 100,000 Pennsylvanians, almost eight times the number of coal-industry jobs in the commonwealth. Over the past few years, thanks in no small part to federal clean-energy investments, the number of jobs in clean energy grew almost four times faster in Pennsylvania than overall employment – the kind of economic comeback that Pennsylvanians have long awaited. 

Pennsylvanians – everyone from students and teachers to workers and taxpayers – benefit from federal support for clean energy. For the future of the commonwealth and its residents, federal support for clean energy must continue and expand.