--- title: How Trump Is Trying to Undo the Inflation Reduction Act description: Since his first day in office, President Donald Trump has been quick to attack climate initiatives and the green energy transition. canonical: https://time.com/7262600/how-trump-is-trying-to-undo-the-inflation-reduction-act/ author: Simmone Shah article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2025-02-27T23:03:21.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-10T23:51:55.641Z article:section: Climate og:title: How Trump Is Trying to Undo the Inflation Reduction Act og:description: Since his first day in office, President Donald Trump has been quick to attack climate initiatives and the green energy transition. og:url: https://time.com/7262600/how-trump-is-trying-to-undo-the-inflation-reduction-act/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt42213cebaa081b53/6998c47ac8dcb43d50b4fe8a/IRA-Trump.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: President Biden Speaks In Baltimore On His Investing In America Agenda og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Trump Is Trying to Undo the Inflation Reduction Act twitter:description: Since his first day in office, President Donald Trump has been quick to attack climate initiatives and the green energy transition. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt42213cebaa081b53/6998c47ac8dcb43d50b4fe8a/IRA-Trump.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How Trump Is Trying to Undo the Inflation Reduction Act > Sponsored content. 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Anna Rose Layden / Getty Images  by [Simmone Shah](https://time.com/author/simmone-shah/)  ## Simmone Shah Reporter Feb 27, 2025 11:03 PM UTC Since his first day in office, President Donald Trump has been quick to attack climate initiatives and the green energy transition. The Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University has identified [more than 50](https://climate.law.columbia.edu/content/climate-backtracker) actions made by the administration to scale back or wholly eliminate federal climate mitigation and adaptation measures since the end of January. Among the biggest targets was the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a multi-billion dollar investment into climate and clean energy, which the Trump administration quickly paused funding on. The move has brought uncertainty to the clean energy industry. “The biggest effects of the Trump administration on clean energy…has been to introduce massive chaos,” says David Victor, professor of innovation and public policy at UC San Diego. ## **What is the Inflation Reduction Act?** The IRA was passed by Congress in 2022, and aimed to reduce the country’s budget deficit while investing in domestic energy production and manufacturing. It was considered the largest investment in climate action in American history, earmarking $369 billion to clean energy and climate projects with the goal of getting the U.S. to net zero emissions by 2030 and boosting American industrial production in the process. While some of the money was allocated to building up established clean technologies, like solar and wind, some funding went to new technologies that might not have been financially feasible without government subsidies, like carbon capture and storage. “Across the board, it was a huge spending bill that basically made clean energy cheaper, and then put on steroids the adoption of clean energy technologies in the United States.” says Victor. It also brought in a boost of private funding into clean energy. “The risk was reduced by that upfront capital provided by the government,” says Ewing. “It made large infrastructure projects more possible, and this in turn, crowded in a lot of private investment.” The IRA was also established to make the United States more globally competitive in clean energy industries. “It would have allowed the United States to try to catch up with China in key industries, particularly in batteries for energy storage and electric vehicles,” says Joanna Lewis, associate professor of energy and environment at Georgetown University. “If these investments aren't made in the next few years, then we will essentially be ceding these industries to China and others.” ## **How Has the Trump Administration Targeted It?** On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order called the “Unleashing American Energy,” which called for the revocation and revision of several Biden-era climate actions. The order froze distribution of IRA funds for clean energy and bipartisan infrastructure law—both of which invested hundreds of billions of dollars in energy technologies like wind and solar projects and electric vehicles. In late January, a federal judge [ordered the Trump](https://www.npr.org/2025/02/10/nx-s1-5292342/trump-federal-funding-freeze-restraining-order) administration to restore paused payments, though they were later found to have continued to freeze funds despite the court order. Areas of the IRA the Trump administration is expected to target next include energy efficiency standards on appliances and a methane emission fee, says Ewing. But despite the pause, much of the funding, which was allocated through tax credits, just might emerge unscathed given that it largely benefits Republican districts. “Most people's expectation is that a lot of the IRA is going to survive ultimately, because it's giving subsidies to technologies that are being deployed in places that that the Trump administration cares about,” says Victor. Of the $289 billion invested in the construction and installation of clean tech manufacturing facilities since late 2022, districts currently represented by Republicans received $223 billion of that total—almost 80%. How much the Trump Administration is able to roll back remains to be seen. “What they're able to do is partly an open question, but what they're attempting to do is fairly clear,” says Jackson Ewing, Director of Energy and Climate Policy at the Duke University Nicholas Institute. “It's an attempt to deprioritize the energy transition in favor of scaling up oil and gas production in the United States, both for domestic use and for exports.” Scaling up fossil fuel production has been another goal of the administration—on Feb. 14, Trump [signed](https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/02/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-establishes-the-national-energy-dominance-council/) an executive order to create a new “National Energy Dominance Council,” aimed at increasing the country’s oil and gas production— already at an all-time high under the Biden Administration. ## **What Happens Next?** Given that the funding was congressionally allocated, freezing it will not be an easy task, says Ewing. “There's no doubt that if existing grant monies are attempted to be clawed back by the Trump administration, that a number of those project developers will sue.” But even if they do survive, the government pullback means that clean energy initiatives might falter in the coming years as private investors get skittish. “The overall message behind the executive orders does have immediate market effects,” says Ewing. “There's going to be more reticence to invest in some of these energy transition and climate focused sectors, because the political environment is clearly less appealing for those investments now compared to what it was a year ago or six months ago during the Biden administration.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/7262600/how-trump-is-trying-to-undo-the-inflation-reduction-act/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/7262600/how-trump-is-trying-to-undo-the-inflation-reduction-act/"},"headline":"How Trump Is Trying to Undo the Inflation Reduction Act","datePublished":"2025-02-27T23:03:21.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-10T23:51:55.641Z","description":"Since his first day in office, President Donald Trump has been quick to attack climate initiatives and the green energy transition.","url":"https://time.com/7262600/how-trump-is-trying-to-undo-the-inflation-reduction-act/","keywords":["U.S.","climate change","News","News Desk"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt42213cebaa081b53/6998c47ac8dcb43d50b4fe8a/IRA-Trump.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Simmone Shah","jobTitle":"Reporter","url":"https://time.com/author/simmone-shah/"}],"articleSection":"Climate","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt42213cebaa081b53/6998c47ac8dcb43d50b4fe8a/IRA-Trump.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"President Biden Speaks In Baltimore On His Investing In America Agenda","caption":"U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks on his administration's Investing in America agenda at the Port of Baltimore on October 29, 2024 in Baltimore, Maryland. 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