The Department of Energy announced an $861 million loan guarantee for two solar farms in Puerto Rico on Tuesday. The project is the latest by the Biden administration as part of the Investing in America program creating green jobs.
Through the Loan Programs Office, DOE has backed private investments totaling more than $900 billion. The new solar facilities in the Puerto Rican municipalities of Guayama and Salinas, expected to power more than 43,000 homes, will create approximately 750 construction jobs and 50 full-time positions upon completion. The project is a joint venture between Clean Flexible Energy LLC, a subsidiary of AES Corporation AES , and TotalEnergies Holdings USA Inc. TTE .
The U.S. presidential election is nearing its final stretch, with former President Donald Trump pledging to dismantle President Joe Biden’s renewable energy initiatives if he retakes the White House.
Politically, as the Republican presidential candidate, Trump’s commitment to fossil fuels presents a challenge for GOP congressional candidates down the ballot due to an inconvenient fact: Most energy transformation jobs created by Democratic programs are in red and battleground states.
According to data compiled by Cipher, only four of the top 15 states for job creation tied to the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) are Democrat-leaning. Three of the top five are key swing states: Georgia, Michigan, and North Carolina. Bloomberg data shows that the single largest project to receive federal funding due to the IRA is the massive Toyota TM factory in Liberty, North Carolina, located 20 miles south of Greensboro.
The facility, which spans over 150 acres, will employ 5,000 workers to produce electric vehicle (EV) batteries. It is situated in Randolph County, which has a population of fewer than 150,000.
Liberty is part of the 9th Congressional District, where Republican incumbent Richard Hudson is expected to win re-election. He is one of many GOP congressional candidates who voted against the IRA but are now grappling with messaging in districts experiencing a rise in clean energy employment.
After attacking and voting against the IRA, Hudson argued that “This bill would raise taxes, throw money at woke climate and social programs that won’t work — including over $350 billion for ‘Green New Deal’ initiatives — and make the inflation crisis worse.”
Hudson, who sits on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has been largely silent on the Toyota factory. Instead, he is making opposition to EPA regulation of amateur car racing a signature issue of his campaign.
An ardent supporter of Trump, Hudson’s stance on green energy has softened somewhat since the Toyota battery project was announced. “I believe that a balanced and responsible approach is the future of energy. This requires developing more of America’s own energy resources, including wind, solar, clean coal, hydropower, biofuels, nuclear energy, as well as oil and natural gas,” Hudson states on his congressional website.
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