“Kiggans and Wittman voted to gut clean energy tax credits that are currently bringing $18.2 billion in investment and almost 11,000 jobs to Virginia”

New reporting from Inside Climate News details how Kiggans and Wittman’s votes could “threaten billions in clean energy investment in Virginia.” Virginia energy leaders warn that the vulnerable Republicans are “pulling the rug out” from projects across Virginia and that “if you pull back on these tax policies, it raises costs to consumers.”

Read the new reporting here:

• The One Big Beautiful Bill, President Donald Trump’s budget wishlist with tax cuts for the wealthy, could have an enormous impact on Virginia’s ability to address the climate crisis, produce renewable energy and generate economic activity for its communities.
• According to an analysis of information from various websites, including the Climate Investment Monitor, E2 and Weseley, almost 70 projects in the districts of Republican representatives from Virginia—worth $18.2 billion in investments and creating almost 11,000 jobs—have used those credits. The U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee found 21,642 jobs in Virginia had been announced as a result of the IRA.
• Mike Town, executive director of the Virginia League of Conservation Voters, asked rhetorically: “Will this bill, if passed by the Senate and signed into law, absolutely harm clean energy development and manufacturing across the country?” His answer: “Yes. Unquestionably.”
• [S]everal House Republicans, including U.S. Rep. Jen Kiggans, who represents the Norfolk area, signed a March 9 letter supporting the preservation of IRA tax credits. Any modifications, they wrote, “risk sparking an energy crisis in our country, resulting in drastically higher power bills for American families.”
• While the IRA spurred development of renewable energy around the country, Kiggans represents Virginia’s coastal area where Dominion Energy is constructing the nation’s largest offshore wind project, called Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, or CVOW. And, the state has spent more than a decade making the region an offshore wind manufacturing hub for the entire East Coast.
• LS Greenlink, a Korean company manufacturing subsea cables to connect offshore wind electricity to the grid, is planning on using IRA production tax credits as part of its investment of $680 million in the region, creating jobs and receiving cheers from Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a conservative Republican.
• Kiggans still voted for the One Big Beautiful Bill […]
• U.S. Rep. Rob Wittman, a Republican representing the Richmond suburbs, the Hampton Roads area and the so-called Northern Neck, pointed to an online statement and said “he continues to advocate for clean energy through his role as vice chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee,” according to a spokesperson (though the statement makes no specific mention of the investment tax credits). He, too, voted for the One Big Beautiful Bill.
• At a time when more electricity generation is needed for the grid, the ones that are “ready to go, the vast majority of those projects are advanced energy. They are solar, they are wind, they are battery storage,” said Harry Godfrey, managing director of Advanced Energy United.
• “The answer is unequivocal, if you pull back on these tax policies, it raises costs to consumers,” Godfrey said, referencing a Clean Energy Buyers Association analysis that found removing the tax credits provided under the IRA increases residential electricity costs in Virginia by 5.4 percent. “These are means of helping continue accelerate the development,” of the clean energy that’s more affordable than fossil fuels, “and lower the costs to consumers.”
• The One Big Beautiful Bill’s new timelines are a “big deal,” said Skyler Zunk, co-founder and CEO of Energy Right, a solar advocacy group rooted in conservative principles.
• “This essentially would make them all have to go back and refinance completely. That’s essentially pulling the rug out from under very mature projects that have just not started construction,” said Zunk. “This is very important for AI, advanced computing, advanced transportation growth. This bill would be bigger and more beautiful if it truly kept the incentives in place to produce more electrons domestically.”