Trump clean energy rollbacks erase $68B in US investment

A new report finds that federal rollbacks of clean energy policy under the Trump administration have wiped out nearly 470,000 jobs and $68 billion in private investment nationwide. The nonpartisan group E2, working with BW Research, looked at 216 large solar, wind, battery storage, and EV projects that have been canceled, closed, or scaled back since January 2025. Those projects would have added over $90 billion to the economy during construction alone, plus $55 billion a year once running, along with billions more in wages and tax revenue for schools, roads, and other local services.

The canceled or downsized projects add up to about 10 gigawatts of solar, 3.75 GW of wind, and 9 GW of battery storage — roughly enough power for 3 million homes, comparable to every household in Massachusetts. Battery storage and solar took the biggest hit in construction jobs, while EV manufacturing saw the largest loss in long-term jobs, at nearly 255,000. The report ties the slowdown to tax-incentive cuts in Trump's recent budget bill and other administration actions that have slowed or blocked renewable projects.

None of this changes what individual homeowners can do on their own homes, like installing solar or a heat pump, but it does point to a slower national buildout of clean power and storage at a time when electricity demand is rising. That could mean less new generation capacity coming online in the years ahead, even as demand from data centers, electrified homes, and manufacturing keeps climbing.