Senate Budget Reconciliation Bill Will Dramatically Increase Federal Deficit, Kick Millions Off Medicaid While Making Them Sicker, Raise Our Energy Bills and Concede Our Global Clean Energy Leadership
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 30, 2025
Contact: Ashley Sullivan, 1(917) 837-1183, Ashley.Sullivan@weact.org
WASHINGTON – Today, the Senate will vote on a reconciliation bill that aims to destroy clean energy opportunities, skyrocket energy costs, and gut critical funding for environmental justice communities, all for the sake of handouts for polluting industries. The consequences of this bill will make people sick and prematurely die, leave millions without medical coverage, further unfair systems, sabotage clean energy economies, jobs, and global leadership, as well as worsen extreme unnatural weather driven by the climate crisis.
WE ACT for Environmental Justice shares deep concern and condemns both the contents of the bill, and the Senate Republicans’ disregard for transparency and public disapproval. The result will create a health and economic disaster for people across the U.S. The bill will have major negative impacts for job growth and will raise energy costs by ending clean energy tax credits and even instituting new, crushing taxes for solar and wind, electric vehicles, and other vital clean energy projects. Furthermore, it also removes unspent funds for crucial Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) programs that improve well-being and provide employment opportunities while reducing costs for people in both red and blue states. The included healthcare cuts would push 5.4 million more people into medical debt, and ordinary people’s collective annual energy bills would increase by a total of $170 billion.
Long overdue investments that are being targeted were also legally appropriated to environmental justice communities, including programs that would lower deadly climate pollution; support projects in neighborhoods to urgently clean their air, water, and land; and even grants that allow frontline communities and schools to monitor their air quality. While the EPA continues rollbacks of core environmental and health protections, and with 46% of Americans living in places with unhealthy levels of air pollution, it is inexcusable that this bill aims to both increase pollution while removing medical coverage for millions. Our communities demand justice to be fairly protected against hazards and deserve a chance to thrive alongside all people under the law.
Leslie Fields, Chief Federal Officer at WE ACT for Environmental Justice, responded:
“This bill is a big, beautiful scam, intent on exploding our Federal deficit, kicking millions off Medicaid while making us sicker, and raising our collective energy bills. Senate Republicans – driven by the Trump administration’s agenda – dropped new provisions in the dead of night on Friday, June 27th that are both dangerous and unpopular. This billionaire tax break bill would intentionally smash clean energy growth that was a lifeline for environmental justice communities to help remove decades of fossil fuel pollution and create healthier, safer industries.”
“This bill will cause very real devastation for people all over the country, with communities of color and low-income people facing the worst impacts. Decades of research have shown that communities of color and low-income are disproportionately and immensely harmed from every part of the gas and oil industry. By gutting historic progress on clean energy and long-needed investments to clean up, protect, and grow our communities, this bill betrays people of color and lower income by adding even more pollution, unaffordable energy bills, and countless hospital visits. It should not be normal that every single family in a community has someone suffering from asthma, heart and lung disease, cancer and/or premature deaths. But in many of our communities, this is the shameful norm – and that is not right.”
“Who does this bill serve? As we have said before, it does not serve the majority of people across the country. This bill cannot pass as we will not allow our elected representatives to sacrifice our lives, our children, and our future for the pockets of polluters. We – and all of the communities we stand together with – demand our tax dollars be used to protect our families and neighborhoods by reducing pollution and cleaning our water and air, investing in healthy, safe jobs, and fair opportunities for everyone.”
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WE ACT for Environmental Justice is a Northern Manhattan-based, membership-driven organization whose mission is to build healthy communities by ensuring that people of color and/or low-income residents are meaningfully included in the development of sound and fair environmental health and protection policies and practices. WE ACT has offices in New York and Washington, D.C. Visit us at weact.org and follow us on Facebook, Bluesky, and Instagram.