Trump’s Anti-Greentech Counter-Revolution
President Trump signed the “One Big Beautiful Bill” (OBBBA) into law on July 4, 2025. The law rolls back many parts of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act by ending tax credits for wind and solar energy, removing incentives for electric vehicles and home energy efficiency, and increasing support for fossil fuels, nuclear energy, and traditional agriculture. Photo credit: The White House, Public Domain
The Greentech revolution includes ways of producing energy like solar and wind power; ways of distributing it in time and space like energy storage and energy grids; and ways of using it like electric vehicles (EVs) and carbon neutral buildings. The Greentech revolution is a dagger pointed at the heart of the fossil fuel industry and the political, social, and economic ecosystem in which it is embedded. Donald Trump, MAGA, and the fossil fuel industry are conducting a systematic counter-revolution to halt and destroy the Greentech revolution in all its forms.
The roots of opposition to climate protection and fossil free energy in particular run deep. The fossil fuel industry has spent large sums trying to debunk the reality of climate change and fossil fuel burning as its leading cause. Political forces – left, right, and center — have long seen the expansion of fossil fuel extraction and burning as a key to prosperity and national power. With the rise of fascist-style movements, parties, and governments around the world, denial of climate change and attacks on climate protection became ubiquitous, promulgated by forces far beyond the fossil fuel interests. Trump’s anti-Greentech campaign is backed by an army of economic and ideological allies who are attempting to block the Greentech revolution at every level, from municipalities and states to corporations and the public mind.
While Donald Trump vacillates on many fronts, his personal climate denialism and hostility to fossil free energy have been consistent for much of his career. In his first term, Donald Trump withdrew the US from the Paris climate change agreement; authorized leasing federal land for new coal mines; unblocked nearly the entire American continental shelf for offshore drilling; and opened the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and national monuments such as Bears Ears in Utah to fossil fuel extraction. By the end of 2018, Trump had eliminated 76 environmental regulations, most related to climate.
The second Trump administration represented a new phase in the attack on climate safety and fossil free energy. Of course, like most presidents before him, Trump is trying to increase fossil fuel extraction and burning. But beyond that he is trying to restrict and if possible, abolish Greentech industry. Trump portrays his energy policy as a search for energy dominance for the US. But the facts belie that claim. In fact, Trump’s efforts to destroy Greentech energy are systematically reducing America’s energy resources and thereby decreasing US power.
Trump’s intent is not primarily to augment US power, but to reverse the Greentech revolution and the global transition to fossil-free energy. It is first and foremost devoted to eliminating the existential threat that the Greentech revolution poses to the fossil fuel industry and the entire economic, political, and social ecosystem that depends on it and on which it depends. If the Greentech revolution is a dagger pointed at their heart, then it is a matter of survival for these forces to attempt in turn to stab it to death. That is the attempt we are seeing from MAGA, the Trump administration, and their allies.
(Left to Right) Chris Wright, U.S. Secretary of Energy (Photo credit: Donica Payne, United States Department of Energy, Public Domain); Jessica Kramer, head of the EPA’s Office of Water (Photo credit: Congress.gov, Public Domain); Audrey Robertson, head of the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (Photo credit: Energy.gov, Public Domain)
While Trump often seems to be flying wild, it would be a mistake to think that his administration doesn’t know what it is doing. Its key energy and climate related positions are held by top fossil fuel executives and lobbyists who are well aware of the Greentech threat to their industry. Trump’s energy secretary Chris Wright is a longtime fossil fuel executive and a former director of an oil-industry lobbying group. Jessica Kramer, head of the EPA’s Office of Water, previously represented major energy companies, mining companies, and a water trade group working against regulations under the Clean Water Act. Audrey Robertson, head of the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, was the co-founder of fracking company Franklin Mountain Energy and served on the board of three other fossil fuel companies, including Liberty Energy, founded by Energy Secretary Chris Wright. As Matthew Davis of the League of Conservation Voters put it, “Nominating another oil and gas executive continues the Trump administration’s actions to effectively ban clean energy like wind and solar, and advance dirty energy only policies across the board.”
On day one of his presidency, Trump issued an Executive Order freezing unspent funds from the Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. It aimed to halt every form of Greentech, from production of solar and wind energy to domestic manufacture of EVs. In February 2025, the Army Corps of Engineers halted approval of renewable energy projects on private land; out of about 11,000 pending permits it singled out the 168 that focused on renewable energy. In March, Trump signed an executive order rescinding a Biden-era proclamation permitting the Department of Energy to fund production of renewable technologies through the Defense Production Act.
There followed a series of actions specifically designed to block solar and wind energy production. The Treasury Department issued new guidance limiting wind and solar energy projects’ eligibility for federal tax credits. Then the Interior Department issued a new “project density” policy requiring wind and solar energy projects on federal land to match the energy output per acre of fossil fuels, disqualifying many renewable projects from receiving permits. In June, Trump signed an executive order directing the Treasury to severely restrict the eligibility of wind and solar projects to qualify for tax credits. According to Bloomberg NEF, the removal of federal subsidies means that over the next five years new wind energy will be 50% lower and new solar energy 23% lower than previously projected.
The attack on Greentech energy mobilized departments across the government and obscure opportunities for bureaucratic obstruction. On August 7, the New York Times reported,
“The Trump administration has sharply escalated its attacks on wind and solar power in recent days, issuing a barrage of policies that could halt the construction of renewable energy projects on public and private lands across the country. The Interior Department is now requiring dozens of formerly routine consultations and approvals for wind and solar projects to undergo new layers of political review by the interior secretary’s office, a policy that is causing significant permitting delays. The agency is also opening investigations into bird deaths caused by wind farms and withdrawing millions of acres of federal waters previously available for leasing by offshore wind companies.
At the same time, the Transportation Department is recommending minimum setback requirements for wind farms near federal highways and railroads, requiring them to be placed 1.2 miles away. And it ordered the Federal Aviation Administration to re-evaluate whether wind farms pose a danger to aviation, a potentially momentous step since nearly every wind farm in the country requires height clearance approvals from the agency. Taken together, the policies amount to a far-reaching crackdown on wind and solar power.”
Bureaucratic obstruction has become ubiquitous for solar projects. Late in 2025, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) revealed that more than 500 solar projects in the pipeline across the country are in danger of delays or cancellation “as a result of political attacks.” One planned solar facility on private land in the Upper Midwest is currently delayed because federal agencies have halted all discussions over a needed water permit. Another large solar farm on private land in the West is being held up because it must now undergo three layers of political review.
Donald Trump’s well-known personal antagonism to wind power goes back to the time he unsuccessfully tried to stop an offshore wind farm from being built in view of one of his Scottish golf courses. On a recent trip to Scotland, he called wind turbines “ugly monsters” that “destroy the beauty of your fields, your plains and your waterways.” On inauguration day, he issued a sweeping executive order halting all leasing for new wind farms on federal lands and waters. On July 30, the Interior Department revoked over 3.5 million acres of federal waters previously designated for offshore wind development, effectively eliminating federal offshore wind leasing. Then the Trump administration ordered a halt to Revolution Wind, a nearly-completed wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island.
But that was just a love tap. Just before Christmas, the Trump administration announced that it would “pause” leases for five East Coast wind farms, “essentially gutting the country’s nascent offshore wind industry.” Together the projects were expected to power more than 2.5 million homes and businesses across the Eastern United States. The reason given was national security concerns, but those concerns were never stated. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum said in a statement that “the prime duty of the United States government is to protect the American people.” He said the decision “addresses emerging national security risks” as well as “vulnerabilities created by large-scale offshore wind projects with proximity near our East Coast population centers.” Nobel-prize-winning economist Paul Krugman described Trump’s wind policy as “an effort to shut down 10 percent of U.S. electricity production — even as electricity prices are soaring.”
The overall objective of the Trump administration is clear – to reverse the Greentech revolution. As the New York Times summed up with considerable understatement, “Instead of simply lifting restrictions on fossil-fuel development and removing subsidies for renewable energy, the Trump administration is creating new roadblocks for wind and solar projects.”
CATL batteries power many electric vehicles in China and internationally. Photo Credit: Matti Blume, Wikipedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.
Trump’s attack on Greentech does not just aim to dismantle fossil free energy; it also aims to undermine the innovations that are making energy consumption greener and more efficient.
The rapid development of energy storage technology has been central to the Greentech revolution. Trump has taken direct aim at the attempt to develop a domestic battery industry in the US.
In 2024, China made 99 percent of the world’s lithium phosphate cells, the kind most often used for energy storage. It also made more than 90 percent of the main battery components like cathodes and anodes and dominated the refining of raw materials like lithium and graphite. Batteries are essential not only for Greentech, but also to provide electricity for AI and to manufacture drones and other weapons of modern warfare.
Soon after coming into office, President Trump froze billions of dollars in Biden-era federal grants for battery manufacturing. His animus to anything he associated with Greentech was such that he lumped batteries in with electric vehicles, solar farms, wind turbines, and other clean energy technologies, notwithstanding their critical role in both military and industrial production. He boasted that by ending the “Green New Scam” his budget cancelled over $15 billion in Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act “Green New Deal” funds. That included ending “taxpayer handouts to electric vehicle and battery makers” and canceling $6 billion in Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act funds for “wasteful and ineffective EV charger programs.” So much for an energy policy purported to increase America’s power!
The attack on Greentech also includes blocking transmission lines for renewable energy. For example, the Department of Energy had granted a conditional loan guarantee for an $11 billion transmission line in the Midwest, known as the Grain Belt Express, which would transport electricity generated by wind farms in Kansas to more densely populated regions in Indiana and Illinois. It would have been the largest privately funded transmission line in the country’s history. In July, the DOE cancelled the loan guarantee, halting the project just as it was ready to begin construction.
A particular objective of the war on Greentech consumption is the multifaceted destruction of the electric vehicle industry. Less than a month after Trump’s inauguration, a Transportation Department memo ordered the suspension of $5 billion in federal funding, authorized by Congress under the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program, for states to build electric vehicle chargers. The budget proposed by congressional Republicans eliminated tax credits of up to $7,500 for electric vehicle buyers, clawed back money for fast chargers, and phased out subsidies for companies that set up battery factories and lithium mines. According to the New York Times, “Killing those programs would endanger more than $200 billion that auto companies, battery makers, mining companies and others have invested to create a U.S. electric vehicle supply chain not dependent on China.” In December, Trump reduced the average gas milage automakers are required to achieve by 3031from 50 miles per gallon to 35 miles per gallon and thereby, as the New York Times wrote, “threw the weight of the federal government behind vehicles that burn gasoline rather than electric cars.”
The attack on Greentech went into many corners of energy production and consumption. For example, agrivoltaics, which combine energy production with agriculture, is an emerging form of Greentech. the US Department of Agriculture issued a report calling for disincentivizing solar development on farms. It then announced that it will stop funding wind and solar energy on farmland.
The Trump administration has particularly targeted Green New Deal-style programs that combine Greentech and social justice goals. For example, in its first month in office, Trump’s EPA halted $7 billion in contractually obligated grants for Solar For All, an Inflation Reduction Act program that delivered clean energy and lower prices to vulnerable communities. Arizona attorney general Kris Mayes, who sued to block cancellation of the program, said it would affect 900,000 low-income households nationwide; 11,000 low-income households in Arizona would face a 20% spike in energy bills. And in June the Department of Agriculture announced the termination of $148.6 million in federal grants related to environmental justice and DEI, including funds for disadvantaged farmers using conservation practices.
Trump has not limited his anti-Greentech counterrevolution to the domestic economy; he has also taken it global. Early in the administration Energy Secretary Wright told an international conference that net zero carbon emissions was a “sinister goal” and criticized a British law to reach net zero by 2050. In his first month as president, Trump ordered tariffs against trading partners, “with severe implications for the supply chains for wind turbines, solar panels, and electric vehicles.” Then Trump used tariff threats to demand that US exports be exempt from the EU law requiring that importers report on the carbon footprint of their factories overseas and pay a fine for each unit of carbon emitted before the product gets to the EU. The Trump administration demanded that the EU exempt US companies from a law that requires them to monitor and report methane emissions and to repair methane leaks in their facilities. More recently, the US has demanded that the EU cut back or repeal its new “corporate sustainability due diligence directive” which provides substantial fines for companies exporting gas to the EU unless they show they protect human rights and are cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
Gas prices in Sonoma, California April 7 2026. Photo credit: Sarah Stierch, Flickr, CC0 1.0.
Even as Trump’s war on Iran initiated the most severe energy crisis in world history, he continued his war on fossil free energy well into 2026. Consider these examples from April alone:
- Trump released his 2027 budget request proposing tens of billions of dollars in cuts to energy and environmental programs, including everything from electric vehicle chargers to prosecution of environmental crimes. At the same time, he proposed increased funding for oil and gas production, mining, manufacturing, and AI development. A White House fact sheet titled “Ending the New Green Scam” said, “President Trump is committed to eliminating funding for the globalist climate agenda while unleashing American energy production.”
- When several federal judges overruled Trump’s blockage of offshore wind farms, Trump did the almost unimaginable and paid roughly $1.8 billion to companies to abandon leases for four offshore wind farms in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
- The US “Department of War” began blocking more than 150 onshore wind farms across the United States by delaying military reviews that were once considered routine. According to Jason Grumet, chief executive of the American Clean Power Association, “The Department of War is currently making it almost impossible to build a new wind project in the United States.” Trump had stated in January that “My goal is to not let any windmill be built.”
- And Donald Trump released a series of memos that doubled down on his support of increased domestic fossil fuel production for purported “defense readiness.” The memos said US-based oil, coal, and natural gas production must expand “to avert an industrial resource or critical technology item shortfall that would severely impair national defense capability.” Invoking the Defense Production Act, the memos authorized “making necessary purchases, commitments, and financial instruments to enable these projects.”
The Greentech revolution can provide enormous benefits to the American people. The US system of fossil fuel energy production and consumption is, conversely, a dead man walking. Trump, MAGA, and the fossil fuel industry are making extraordinary efforts to keep fossil fuels alive by destroying all Greentech alternatives. But, as we will see in subsequent commentaries in this series, this fossil fuel counter-revolution is bound to fail.
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