Over the course of 900 pages, H.R. 1 – the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” which President Trump signed into law on the Fourth of July – pulls off a tremendous trick. Billionaires and corporate polluters win, while the rest of us lose.
In short, the bill gives the wealthiest and the fossil fuel industry massive tax breaks, while forcing the rest of us to face cuts to Medicaid, increased food insecurity, more pollution, and accelerating climate devastation.
It’s hard to overstate how damaging this bill truly is. It manages to increase the deficit at the same time that it cuts safety net programs; exacerbate inequality by rewarding the wealthiest with tax cuts and snatching benefits from the poorest households; pour fuel on the climate crisis by offering give-aways to the fossil fuel industry and abolishing investments in clean energy solutions; and ramp up outrageous and immoral efforts to round up and deport immigrants (or anyone else they target) by increasing funding to ICE by tenfold.
It’s critical to note that this bill is deeply unpopular. Americans already do not like this bill, and the more they learn about it the more unpopular it gets.
This gives us an opportunity to fight back by building power from the ground up and reverse direction on where we’re going as a country. Join us to mobilize the moral might and people power of the American Jewish community.
The tragic consequences of climate denialism in real time
At nearly the exact moment that President Trump signed the bill, devastating floods tore through Central Texas, killing over 110 people (with many more missing) and destroying whole communities. It was yet another shocking illustration of the way the fossil fuel industry has knowingly altered our climate to be more susceptible to catastrophic weather events. Warmer air, water, and land result in more extreme floods, storms, droughts, fires.
The bill will make climate disasters like the Texas floods more frequent and more severe.
Throughout the reconciliation process, both the House and the Senate took a wrecking ball to dozens of programs that make energy affordable for households, reduce toxic pollution, combat the climate crisis, provide life-changing healthcare, and nourish families with food assistance.
Among the provisions in the final bill:
- It phases out clean energy tax credits.
Impacts: skyrocketing energy prices, loss of good jobs, increase in grid unreliability.- The bill terminates tax credits that were aimed at helping homeowners perform energy audits, upgrade their insulation, buy electric heat pumps or more efficient water heaters and install rooftop solar panels at the end of this year.
- This bill slashes tax breaks for wind and solar power and electric cars while maintaining some federal support for sources like nuclear reactors and geothermal plants.
- Wind and solar projects will likely need to start construction within the next year — roughly by July 2026 — to have the best chance of getting the full credit. After that, the subsidy becomes harder to get and swiftly expires.
- It abolishes electric vehicle credits.
Impacts: reduction in American manufacturing, job losses, increases in deadly emissions.- Tax credits for electric cars (up to $7,500 for new and $4,000 for used) will end by September 30, 2025. (Those credits were previously available until 2032.)
- Also expiring is a loophole that allowed companies to pass tax savings on to people who leased vehicles. Incentives for businesses to buy electric trucks will also vanish.
- It rescinds vehicle emissions standards.
Impacts: vehicles burning billions of extra gallons of gasoline, leading to greater pollution and increased health risks, and higher costs. - It guts the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund and Environmental Justice Block Grants.
Impacts: loss of a historic wave of investments, especially in overburdened communities. - It loosens the reins on the fossil fuel industry, making it easier to start new projects, plunder our public lands and waters, bypass permitting processes, and export LNG (which even the DOE has shown will raise prices at home and drastically increase pollution).
- The bill dismantles many of the biggest actions the federal government has ever taken to fight climate change. It mandates oil and gas lease sales on public lands and lowers the royalty rates that coal companies pay to mine on public lands. It delays for ten years a hefty fee on oil and gas companies that leak methane (a potent greenhouse gas) from their operations.
How we mobilized Jewish climate activists to take action
Together, we ramped up pressure on policymakers to convey the urgency for climate action, and the common sense need for clean energy solutions.
Dayenu activists sent hundreds of emails to Congress – both Representatives in the House and Senators – that articulated the need for clean energy investments, and underscored the benefits to working people across the country.
We organized virtual meetings with Congressional office staffers, conveying our people power and our sense of urgency.
And all year long, we’ve been holding Chutzpah phonebank shifts ahead of critical elections, doing our best to ensure that climate voters get to the polls.
To be clear: this bill happened precisely because the fossil fuel industry invested in campaigns and in lobbying. It spends billions to elect candidates who will do its bidding, and it continues to spend billions to lobby for policies that enable wild profits, unleash new projects, and kill the clean energy sector.
The industry needs to do this in order to stay alive – because the future is clearly written for the clean energy industry. Renewables have become more cost-efficient, affordable, feasible, and vital to our survival.
Join us to fight back and to win power that will result in investment in our communities, our children, our future.