One day after urging her U.S. Senate colleagues to renew support for energy efficiency and clean energy tax credits, New Hampshire Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen lamented how these are not widespread priorities among her fellow legislators.
“There’s a sentiment in Washington that we shouldn’t be subsidizing alternative forms of energy, but we’ve been subsidizing the oil and gas industries as long as I can remember,” said Shaheen Wednesday. She spoke to town officials, business leaders and green energy advocates at a forum at Peterborough Town Library.
A day earlier in the Senate, she asked her colleagues to support her amendment to the Trump administration’s “Big Beautiful Bill” to preserve tax credits and energy efficiency initiatives.
“A vote for this amendment is a vote to make energy and housing more affordable and support American jobs and businesses. Last year, these credits helped build 350,000 new efficient homes that save families about $450 a year on energy,” said Shaheen July 1.
Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska were the only two Republican senators who voted for her amendment, and it did not pass. After the Senate passed the bill, the House of Representatives passed it Thursday, and President Donald Trump signed it the next day.
“For the many Granite State families who are worried about energy costs, the ‘Big Beautiful Betrayal’ only promises more pain. To give tax breaks to billionaires and corporations, Republicans are cutting highly effective tax credits that help people save money on their utility bills by making home energy efficiency updates,” stated Shaheen. “I heard from businesses and town leaders about so many successful energy projects that are already delivering cost savings for taxpayers. Now, future projects are on the chopping block, and good paying jobs will be lost because of this bill.”
In Peterborough, Shaheen said that the lack of support for these initiatives showed not only a lack of understanding of environmental realities, but also of economics.
“These credits create good jobs in a sector that is growing at twice the rate of jobs in the overall economy. If we vote to adopt this amendment, we can keep that job creation going,” she said prior to the vote on her amendment.
Specifically, her proposal would have maintained four tax incentives: the Energy Efficient Home Improvement Credit, the Residential Clean Energy Credit, the New Energy Efficient Home Credit and the Energy Efficient Commercial Building Deduction. They are in current law, and were created with bipartisan support.
“The (Republican) majority in the Senate and the administration have not been responsive,” she said when asked about garnering bipartisan support for such programs.
Lindsay Bourgoine of ReVision Energy, a solar and heat pump firm in northern New England, called having tax credits for solar installations pulled “devastating. I’m based in Maine, but we employ 100 Granite Staters,” she said, explaining the end of the credit will prompt some people to refrain from installing solar in their residences.
Shaheen told a personal story of how tax credits helped her family build a green home in 1979.
“We installed a triple-pane window and a furnace that could burn wood and garbage as well as oil, thanks to tax credits,” she said.
Peterborough Town Administrator Nicole MacStay said that the defeat of Shaheen’s amendment is “very disappointing” at the municipal level.
“Losing tax credits will hinder our development of alternative energies. We’re reliant on outside sources for it, and not developing our own will keep us from being energy independent,” said MacStay.
Dori Drachman of the Peterborough Renewable Energy Project said that concerns about the political process nationally prompt concerns over green efforts to address climate change.
“We’re facing two crises here; if we can’t fix our democracy, we’re not going to be able to fix the climate,” said Drachman.
In response, Shaheen said that any approach to generating support for initiatives must be widespread.
“My new mantra is ‘call everybody’ — local officials, people at the state level, business leaders, even people in other states,” she said.
Shaheen noted how efforts at the state level can make a difference.
“When Maine Gov. Janet Mills came into office (in 2019) both her state and ours were using 1% of alternative energy statewide. Now Maine is at 11%, and we’re still at 1%. Leadership matters,” she said.
The impact of the Republican-sponsored legislation will have a clear and specific impact in New Hampshire, Shaheen said.
“Under the Senate-passed version of the budget bill, 17 million Americans would lose health care coverage including more than 46,000 Granite Staters,” she said prior to the reconciled version of the bill clearing the House Thursday.
“This bill doesn’t mostly benefit the top 1% of income earners in the nation, but the top 0.1%,” she said, adding that its lack of inclusion of green initiatives could hurt New Hampshire manufacturers. “Our biggest export is aerospace-related. I was at the Paris Air Show last month, and we heard that firms there were looking at Europe for industrial partners, not us.”
Shaheen is also pushing legislation for energy circuit riders that “help small towns and rural communities make improvements to become more energy efficient, reduce emissions and lower their energy bills.”
She offered a hint of optimism for those opposing the administration’s priorities.
“In some cases of history, governments have experienced no backlash from their efforts. But here last month, you had between four and six million people at ‘No Kings’ rallies across the country,” she said.