Javier Sierra
Posted June 12, 2025
If any politician’s duty is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, the US Congress is doing the opposite.
The Senate is debating a budget bill—already approved by the House—that would end decades of energy and climate progress that have benefitted us all, by improving our finances, our job options, the quality of our environment and the health of our families.
The Fiscal Year 2025 Reconciliation Bill (HR 1) would benefit the wealthiest and most privileged, eliminate benefits and incentives that especially favor the most financially vulnerable households and add $2.4 trillion to the national debt. Likewise, the bill practically would eliminate the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), as part of budget proposals that would also gut the nation’s clean energy production capacity, raise costs for families, worsen air pollution, and eliminate hundreds of thousands of good-paying manufacturing jobs.
HR 1 is also in total contradiction with the priorities of Latino voters, as reflected in a recent national poll. The survey—conducted in states such as Arizona, California, Florida and Texas—revealed that one of their top five concerns is the rising costs of electricity, utilities, and home maintenance and repairs. The 2025 “First 100 Days Bipartisan Poll of the Hispanic Electorate” also found that Latino voters are especially troubled by the rising costs of living, inflation and basic living expenses.
Coincidently, two analyses by Rewiring America (RA) have found that incentives introduced or expanded by the historic IRA directly address these Latino concerns, as they can effectively counter past and future energy price inflation, while one of them is also essential to help meet the country’s growing energy demand.
Two key tax credits—the Energy Efficient Home Improvement Tax Credit (25C) and the Residential Clean Energy Tax Credit (25D)—are helping millions of families cut energy costs by making their homes more efficient and enabling them to generate their own energy, RA’s research found. In 2023 alone, these tax credits helped more than 3.4 million US households invest in energy efficiency upgrades that can reduce a family’s energy costs by $990 annually.
“These programs are working. Americans are saving money, making their homes more efficient and resilient, and supporting local jobs in the process,” said Ari Matusiak, founder and CEO of Rewiring America. “As energy bills continue to rise, and are set to worsen under this bill, Congress shouldn’t pull the plug on what’s delivering real results. We should be working hard to reach more families across the state to realize these savings.”
These tax credits are also eminently bipartisan, including initiatives approved by a Republican Congress in 2005. Another RA study revealed that every dollar in tax savings through the Energy Efficient Home Improvement Credit generates ten dollars in consumer demand. That demand supports over 240,000 American jobs.
HR 1 also would inflict a devastating blow to the US capacity to compete in the world economy of the future, based on clean and renewable energy, the best weapon to fight the climate crisis and its devastating consequences on the country’s communities, especially on mine.
In these times when consumers are afflicted by raising inflation, they deserve the comfort of benefits and incentives that save them money.
Javier Sierra is a Rewiring America spokesperson.
