America left behind

Of all the negative fallout from the GOP’s so-called One Big Beautiful Bill, or OBBB, signed into law last July, perhaps the most harmful to America’s long-term interests was the almost wholesale abandonment of the future of energy.
Here in the U.S., as well as globally, clean energy systems like wind and solar, combined with battery storage, aren’t just poised to dominate the future of electrical generation, they’re already there — and it’s all about economics. And those of us who live in the Eighth District need to ask ourselves why our current member of Congress — Pete Stauber — is happy to waste money on the technologies of the past while blocking investments that will generate many more jobs and provide less expensive electricity for consumers.
While the fight against climate change was the original impetus for the development of clean energy sources, these technologies are being adopted almost universally today because they are so much cheaper, more reliable, and more price-stable than traditional forms of electricity production, particularly coal. Yes, the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine but that issue has been largely addressed by the astonishing advances in industrial-scale battery technology that can store enormous amounts of renewable power. In the U.S. alone, battery storage capacity has jumped from four megawatts as recently as 2010 to nearly 17,000 megawatts, or 17 gigawatts, as of 2025.
Solar and wind aren’t just cheaper, they’re going to continue to get cheaper in comparison, in part because even as the cost of fossil fuels rises, the wind and the sun will always be free. That ensures price stability over the long term, which is another reason utilities are turning to renewable power like never before.
The explosion in solar energy, in particular, has created an enormous number of new jobs, with the industry now employing about 280,000 workers in the U.S., a number that’s more than doubled over the past 15 years. That’s more jobs than exist in oil and gas extraction and coal mining combined. And while solar jobs are projected to continue to grow globally by almost 15 percent a year, jobs in the fossil fuel sector continue to fall. During the first nine months of the Trump administration, for example, the oil and gas sector lost 4,000 jobs according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, despite the administration’s efforts to bolster the sector.
Rather than investing in the future, Stauber and his fellow Republicans canceled more than $500 billion in incentives for clean energy projects around the country, while pouring more money into tax breaks for oil and gas and coal mining that will generate higher profits for company owners even as more jobs disappear. Stauber has said nothing even as the Trump administration has sought to cancel major clean energy projects already partially completed, intentionally harming the companies working in the sector.
Meanwhile, other countries, particularly China, are investing heavily in clean energy, particularly solar, with the clear-eyed intention of dominating the world’s energy future. Reports from last week’s COP30 climate summit in Brazil noted that China’s delegation was in high demand from countries looking to make deals for renewable energy projects. As the for U.S., the Trump administration didn’t even send a delegation to the summit.
China has become the world’s leader, by far, in the production of solar photovoltaics and the OBBB virtually guarantees that America won’t be a significant player. It’s the fastest-growing industrial sector in the world and Stauber and his fellow Republicans have indicated in no uncertain terms they want no part of it. By surrendering to China, Europe, and the Arab Middle East, Republicans are virtually guaranteeing that the technology that dominates our energy future will be created elsewhere, robbing our country of jobs in innovation and manufacturing. Indeed, China and Europe are already attracting energy researchers from the U.S., who are being enticed to leave America, to further their research on energy alternatives.
This isn’t America First. It’s putting America dead last.
This is what happens when a nation’s policy is dictated by an ill-informed and impulsive president, who dominates a party afraid of its own shadow, unwilling to stand up for the nation’s interests.
This isn’t an issue of whether we need to join the fight against climate change. This is simply about economics. If we’re going to keep electrical rates affordable, we need to invest in renewable energy. In inflation-adjusted terms, wind and solar are now producing electricity at the lowest price per kilowatt that has ever been achieved. That’s right, they are now the cheapest form of electrical energy ever devised by humans. They are the world’s energy future. Sadly, Rep. Stauber and the rest of the GOP want America to be left in the past.