IBEW members across the country are speaking out about job loss, shuttered projects, and electricity shortages if Congress repeals clean energy investments.
Outside the U.S. Capitol, Government Affairs Director Dean Warsh said, if the Senate rubberstamps the House bill, tens of thousands of IBEW jobs will be wiped out “just to make room for tax cuts for the rich.”
“Every project abandoned because of this bill is a good job cut short, a retirement delayed, and a future held back,” said Warsh, alongside Baltimore Local 24 and Washington, D.C. Local 26 members. “Defending these tax credits is how the Senate can protect the voters that elected them, preserve the progress already underway, and demonstrate that the Senate’s priority is the American worker.”
Warsh joined members of Congress, labor leaders, and climate groups for press conferences on June 11 and June 12. They called on the Senate to reject a House bill that extends tax cuts for the wealthy passed during Donald Trump’s first term.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) said if the current bill passes, it will raise energy costs for consumers by $170 billion, kill nearly 2 million jobs, and shrink the economy by almost a trillion dollars.
“We need more energy in America,” Schumer said. “The best, quickest, cheapest way to get it is clean energy. And the House has sent us a bill that kills clean energy tax credits.”
In Massachusetts, Wisconsin, and Indiana, IBEW members are also sounding the alarm.
“Repealing these energy tax credits is a union job killer,” said Boston Local 103 business manager Lou Antonellis. “If you take those tax credits away, you’re pulling paychecks from working families, you’re pulling apprentices out of training facilities, you’re pulling opportunity straight out of our communities.”
“Skilled labor is not a commodity that can be purchased as needed,” said Green Bay Local 158 member Jesse Michalski at an event there. “We’ve spent years building up the workforce to meet this moment.”
Since 2022, IRA clean energy and manufacturing tax credits have created 7,400 jobs and supported more than $8.6 billion in private investment across Wisconsin.
In Indiana, the same tax credits sparked $7.8 billion in private clean energy investments have fueled the construction and manufacturing of EV battery plants and expanded wind and solar developments, according to Jim Clarida, business manager of LaPorte, Ind. Local 531. He spoke at a June 12 virtual town hall hosted by Sen. Schumer and attended by 8,000 people.
“In my home local alone, we have completed, or are working on, 2 GW of utility-scale solar projects,” Clarida said. “We also have another 1 GW of utility-scale solar projects that are in permitting or engineering. IBEW members in Indiana and around the country have been lobbying our members of Congress to protect the tax credits. We know now is a critical moment.”
Photo Caption: Dean Warsh, IBEW director of Government Affairs, appears at a press conference with New York’s Sen. Charles Schumer, right, and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.
