Rough road to “energy dominance” after GOP kneecaps wind and solar

Summary

Samantha Gross, director of the Brookings Institution’s Energy Security and Climate Initiative, said that while she isn’t concerned about whether the U.S. will build enough electricity generation to meet the needs of massive consumers like data centers and AI, she is worried that the bill pushes the next generation of that growth further towards fossil fuels. “I don’t think energy dominance—not just right this instant, but going forward—is just in fossil fuels,” Gross said. Even beyond the One Big Beautiful Bill, Gross said that many of the administration’s actions run counter to their stated objectives on energy. “You hear all this talk about energy dominance, but for me it’s just a phrase, because a lot of things that the administration is actually doing are pushing against energy dominance,” Gross said. “If you think about the tariff policy, for instance, ‘drill, baby, drill’ and a 50 percent tariff on pipeline steel do not go together. Those are pulling in completely opposite directions.” Aside from domestic energy needs, Gross also worried that the pullback from renewable energy will harm America’s position on the global stage. “It’s pretty clear which way the world is going,” Gross said. “I worry that we’re giving up … I don’t like the term ‘energy dominance,’ but future leadership in the world’s energy supply by pulling back from those.” “We’re sort of ceding those technologies to China in a way that is very frustrating to me.” Yet even in the wake of the bill’s passage, some experts see hope for the future of renewable energy in the U.S. Kevin Book, managing director at the research firm ClearView Energy Partners, said that the bill “sets up a slower, shallower transition” toward renewable energy. However, he added that he doesn’t think it represents the end of that transition. “Most of the capacity we’re adding to our grid in America these days is renewable, and it’s not simply because of federal incentives,” Book said. “So if you take away those federal in...