For Immediate Release: May 14, 2025
IBEW International President Kenneth W. Cooper issued the following statement after advancement of the GOP tax bill to the full House of Representatives:
“The GOP’s tax bill will not only stop renewable energy development at exactly the moment the country needs these investments the most; it will kill tens of thousands of good-paying energy jobs, many of them for IBEW members, all in the name of tax breaks to billionaires like Elon Musk.
“Thanks to tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act, energy sources like wind, solar, nuclear, and geothermals have seen massive growth, putting Americans to work across the nation harvesting domestic sources of power.
“The rise of AI and the data center boom means that the demand for reliable, domestic energy will only continue to explode.
“This legislation takes a sledgehammer to the progress the country has made in clean-energy technology and manufacturing, weakening our economic competitiveness and handing advantage over to nations like China.
“Clean-energy tax credits are putting IBEW members to work in nearly every state, and there are still hundreds of billions of dollars worth of projects on the way. Repealing these credits is a job-killer, pure and simple. Some will unconvincingly point to preservation of the IRA’s labor standards as a win for workers, but if there are no jobs left to protect, working people still lose.
“The irony is that Republican congressional districts have the most to lose by killing the IRA, which has spurred the most investment in GOP-held districts.
“Americans want more jobs and secure, affordable energy, not more tax-breaks for billionaires. This GOP tax bill reverses these priorities.
“On behalf of 860,000 active and retired members of the IBEW, I call on Congress to reject any efforts to gut the IRA and get back to work investing in American workers and American energy.”
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The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) represents approximately 860,000 members and retirees who work in a wide variety of fields, including construction, utilities, manufacturing, telecommunications, broadcasting, railroads and government.
