Two months ago in this space, I called the Republicans’ budget bill “The Great Betrayal” of working people.

It was true then, and it’s true today. Decisions made by this administration and this Congress are having disastrous effects already on our work outlook, on the developers and contractors we rely on for work, and on our everyday expenses as working Americans.

I wish I were coming to you today with better news, but the hits keep coming. And right now we’re dealing with the reality of another series of shortsighted and half-baked decisions, this time on wind power.

I don’t need to tell you, North America needs power. If we want to compete in the global economy, electrifying our buildings, homes, ports, factories, and cars and trucks has to be a priority. At a minimum, we need to double our generation, transmission, storage and distribution capacity and reduce carbon emissions — all at the same time. And we were on track to do it. Until this summer.

Donald Trump put his hand around the throat of a significant source of clean energy jobs, and he is squeezing the life out of it.

With the other hand, he is reaching into your wallets and taking out hundreds of millions of dollars in lost wages.

The question I keep asking is “Why?”

What makes him so angry about union workers building clean energy projects? What justifies killing billions of dollars of projects that are permitted, under construction or, in the case of Revolution Wind in Rhode Island, nearly complete?

One in every 10 watts generated in the U.S. today comes from wind. Iowa gets 60% of the power it uses from wind. Combined, onshore and offshore wind is one of the fastest and cheapest ways to bring new generation onto the grid.

Various laughable justifications have been presented to oppose wind, from preposterous “national security” worries to bizarre health claims to merely silly concerns for the health of birds.

Donald Trump and his millionaire and billionaire friends have a long history of opposing offshore wind projects, mostly with claims that they don’t like the looks of them from their expensive waterfront properties.

Trump has called wind turbines “disgusting looking” and trotted out conspiracy theories about their effects. None of that is true, of course, and most of the current crop of offshore wind farms are invisible from land.

But I’m sure it’s a great comfort to our brothers and sisters on the unemployment line that rich men get to keep pretty views at one of their houses.

I have no special attachment to wind power. I have an attachment to IBEW jobs.

The IBEW has long backed an all-of-the-above approach to meeting the electricity demands of this century, advocating for building everything from renewables to nuclear and gas. And we had a national strategy for that when we helped write and pass the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act.

Now tariffs are sending prices up, erratic economic decisions from the president are drying up investment in new construction, and we are once again seeing drops in manufacturing employment.

It doesn’t have to be this way. America could have a comprehensive national energy strategy backed by experts and the men and women of the IBEW who will bring it to life.

Instead, policy is being driven by the irrational biases of one man, who is single-handedly killing off an industry that has already delivered thousands of IBEW jobs and was set to deliver many more.

Whatever your political leanings, I think we can all agree that’s not what we voted for last November.