Letters from an American - August 30, 2025

Episode Date: August 31, 2025

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Hello, this is Michael Moss. Heather Cox Richardson is traveling today, and her travel arrangements did not allow her time to read today's letter, so I will be reading it in her place. August 30, 2021. Just days before Labor Day, a holiday designed to celebrate the importance and power of American workers in the United States. Transportation Department canceled $679 million in funding for offshore wind projects, and the Department of Energy announced it is withdrawing a $716 million loan guarantee

to complete infrastructure for an offshore wind project in New Jersey. These cancellations reflect President Donald J. Trump's apparent determination to kill off wind and solar power initiatives, and to force the United States. states to depend on fossil fuels. He refers to climate change as a hoax, says that windmills cause cancer, and falsely claims that renewable energy is more expensive than other ways to generate power. Former President Joe Biden made investing in clean energy a central pillar of his administration. Trump often seems to construct policies mostly to erase the legacies of his predecessors. Reversing the shift toward renewable energy not only attacks attempts to address

the crisis of climate change and boosts the fossil fuel industry on which some of Trump's apparent allies depend, but also undermines a society based on the independence of American workers. In 2023, about 3.5 million Americans worked in jobs related to the renewable energy sector, and jobs in that sector grew at more than twice the rate of those in other sectors in what was a strong U.S. labor market. The production of coal, which Trump often points to as an ideal for American jobs, peaked in 2008. Between then and 2021, employment in coal mining fell by almost 60% in the east and almost 40% in the West, leaving a total of about 40,000 employees. Another cut last week sums up the repercussions of the administration's attack on renewable energy.

On August 22nd, the Interior Department suddenly and without explanation stopped construction of a wind farm off the coast of Connecticut and Rhode Island that was 80% complete and was set to be finished early next year. As Matthew Daly of the Associated Press noted yesterday, Revolution Wind was the region's first commercial scale offshore wind farm. It was designed to power more than 350,000 homes, provide jobs in Connecticut and Rhode Island, and enable Rhode Island to meet its goal of 100% renewable energy by 2033. The Board of Directors of the Chamber of Commerce of Eastern Connecticut expressed their dismay at the decision, noting that Revolution Wind employed more than a thousand local union workers and is part of a $20 billion investment in

American energy generation, port infrastructure, supply chain, and domestic shipbuilding and manufacturing across 40 states by Erstead, a Danish multinational company. Stopping this fully permitted important project without a clear stated reason not only seriously undermines the state's efforts to work toward a carbon-neutral energy supply, but equally important, it sends a message to investors from all over the world that they may want to rethink investing in America. The message resulting from the president's action is a lack of trust, uncertainty, and lack of predictability, they wrote. Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont and Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee, both Democrats, are working together to save the project. In his statement, Lamont said, we are working closely with Rhode Island

to save this project because it represents exactly the kind of investment that reduces energy costs, strengthens regional production, and builds a more secure energy future. The very goals President Trump claims to support, but undermines with this decision. It is an attack on our jobs, McKee said. It's an attack on our energy. It's an attack on our families and their ability to pay the bills. The Trump administration launched this attack on renewable energy at a time when electricity prices are bouncing upward. According to Ari Natter and Noreen S. Malick of Bloomberg, electricity prices jumped about 10% between January and May and are projected to rise another 5.8% next year. Trump has tried to blame

those rising costs on renewable energy, but in the country's largest grid, with stretches from Virginia to Illinois, nearly all the electricity comes from natural gas, coal, and nuclear reactors. More to the point is that the region also has the highest concentration of AI data centers, driving power demand, and costs upward. At the same time, according to Nader and Malik, the infrastructure for transmission is too outdated to handle the amounts of electricity the data centers will need. Trump's cuts are adding stress to this already overburdened system. Over the next decade, they are projected to reduce additions to the electric grid by half

compared to projections from before his cuts. In July, Ellen Nilsson of CNN reported that cuts to renewable power generation, as well as to the tax credits that encourage the development of more renewable power projects, are exacerbating the electrical shortage and driving prices up. The Trump administration claims that relying on fossil fuels will jumpstart the economy, but higher costs for electricity are already fueling inflation, and in the longer term, more expensive power will slow economic growth. In contrast, China has leaped ahead to dominate the global clean energy industry.

Cheaper electricity there is expected to make it more attractive for future investment. Renewable energy is crucial to addressing the existential crisis of climate change, but as former President Joe Biden emphasized, developing the sector was also key for building a strong middle. class. Well-paying jobs, in turn, help to protect democracy. Historically, a system in which local economies support small businesses and entrepreneurs promotes a wide distribution of political power. In contrast, extractive industries support a system that concentrates wealth and power in the hands of a few individuals. The extractive systems in the pre-Civil War, America, American South, where cotton concentrated power and wealth, and later in the American West,

where mining, cattle, and agribusiness did the same, nurtured political systems in which a few men controlled their regions. As President of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, Chrissy Lynch said in July, after the Republicans passed the budget reconciliation bill cutting clean energy tax credits, working families shouldn't have to purchase energy from billionaire oil tycoons and foreign governments or let them set the price of our energy bills. Her observation hit home earlier this week when Joe Wallace, Costas Paris, and Colin Eaton of the Wall Street Journal, reported that the comments of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump at their meeting in Alaska on August 15th,

in which they talked about doing more business together were not vague goodwill. ExxonMobil and Russia's biggest energy company, Ross Neft, have been in secret talks to resume a partnership to extract Russian oil, including in the Arctic, that had been severed by Russia's attack on Ukraine in 2022. Lou Antonellis, the business manager of the Massachusetts International Brotherhood of electrical workers, Local 103, added that the cuts to renewable energy projects in the US were not just cuts to funding. You're pulling paychecks from working families. You're pulling

apprentices out of training facilities. You're pulling opportunities straight out of our communities. Every solar panel installed, every wind turbine wired, every EV charger connected, that's a job with wages, health care, and a pension that stands for dignity for the American worker. You don't kill that kind of progress. You build on it. Letters from an American was written by Heather Cox Richardson. It was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dead in Massachusetts. Recorded with music composed by Michael Moss. This is

This is my own