Author: Ronald Bethea Published: 12/24/2025 PCPC Online Ditigal Podcast Radio TV Network
2025 Year End Review Talking Points
Quick Recap
Brown, Raskin Introduce Bill to Codify Civil Rights-Era Anti-Discrimination Protections Revoked by Trump
Washington, DC – Congresswoman Shontel Brown (OH-11) and Congressman Jamie Raskin (MD-08) have introduced legislation to codify critical anti-discrimination protections revoked by President Trump last month. On January 21, President Trump issued an executive order revoking the Equal Employment Opportunity Executive Order 11246, a bedrock civil rights protection first issued by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965. The Equal Employment Opportunity order prohibited employment discrimination by federal contractors on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin.
Brown and Raskin’s legislation, H.R. 989, would codify the Equal Employment Opportunity Executive Order into federal law, restoring these important anti-discrimination protections for Americans employed by federal contractors, which represent one-fifth of the national workforce. To date, 25 members of the House have cosponsored the legislation.
“For 60 years, Republican and Democratic presidents alike have agreed that taxpayer money shouldn’t bankroll workplace discrimination. President Trump’s reckless rollback of equal opportunity protections turns back the clock on six decades of civil rights progress,” said Congresswoman Brown. “My new bill restores critical safeguards for contractor employees, ensuring they don’t face illegal discrimination in hiring processes and the workplace. Federal contractors who receive taxpayer funds and execute government programs should set the standard for equal opportunity.I will not stand by while this administration undermines the rights of women, Black Americans, and marginalized communities. The fight for fairness in the workplace is far from over.”
“By flooding the zone with dozens of illegal executive actions, outrageous suppression of the media, vicious scapegoating rhetoric, and nonstop administrative chaos, President Trump has tried to lose his directive to roll back Civil Rights-Era antidiscrimination protections in the crowd and noise,” said Congressman Raskin. “But we’re paying close attention and taking action on behalf of the people. I’m proud to join my friend Rep. Brown in introducing this crucial legislation codifying President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Executive Order ensuring equal opportunity for Americans employed by U.S. government contractors. This has been a basic precept of American life for more than half-century, but Donald Trump and Elon Musk are swinging a sledgehammer at it. We need to codify.”
Harrisburg, PA – Today, Governor Josh Shapiro announced he has reached an agreement with PJM Interconnection on a plan to resolve his recent lawsuit and to save consumers over $21 billion over the next two years. In December, Governor Shapiro filed a complaint with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)(opens in a new tab) against PJM Interconnection, criticizing flaws in PJM’s capacity auction design that threatened to impose significant new price increases. The agreement will avoid historic price hikes on consumers across all 13 states PJM serves, including Pennsylvania.
Left unaddressed, PJM’s next capacity auction scheduled for July 2025 would have resulted in billions in unnecessary energy costs for 65 million people across the region. The Governor worked with PJM to significantly lower the capacity auction price cap – from over $500/Megawatt-Day to $325/MW-Day – averting a runaway auction price that would have unnecessarily increased energy bills.
The Commonwealth is a leading producer of energy and the nation’s largest exporter of electricity – nearly a century ago, Pennsylvania helped to found PJM, and today still serves as a generation backbone for the region. At the same time it has led this fight against unnecessary price increases on consumers, the Shapiro Administration is committed to meeting the need for new generation by getting more power projects built in Pennsylvania as part of an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy to create jobs, reduce emissions, and ensure safe, reliable, affordable power for Pennsylvanians for the long term.
“When PJM’s next auction was set to result in historic price hikes, I filed a lawsuit to stop this price hike on consumers and defend Pennsylvanians,” said Governor Shapiro. “PJM did the right thing by listening to my concerns and coming to the table to find a path forward that will save Pennsylvanians billions of dollars on their electricity bills. My Administration will continue to work to ensure safe, reliable, and affordable power for Pennsylvanians for the long term.”
PJM operates a capacity market, which means that operators are paid to commit to providing energy in the future. Over the last several years, demand for energy has risen rapidly but PJM has been slow to allow new power sources onto its grid – and as a result, PJM capacity prices have skyrocketed. PJM’s 2025/26 capacity auction, held in July 2024, resulted in costs of $14.7 billion – an over 800 percent increase from the prior year.
The Governor pushed PJM to reduce their price cap, and a diverse coalition came together support the Governor’s message, including four governors(opens in a new tab), energy and consumer advocates, and the Organization of PJM States (OPSI). The Shapiro Administration’s energy leadership promises to save the PJM region over $21 billion on utility bills in the next two years.
PJM and the Shapiro Administration have agreed to a path forward for the complaint, subject to consultation with PJM members and the PJM Board of Managers. In order to avoid further delays to the auction schedule, PJM will soon seek a FERC order by proposing a cap and floor mechanism through an FPA section 205 filing with the FERC.
This resolution follows over a year of engagement with PJM. Governor Shapiro continues to repeatedly(opens in a new tab) press for long-term solutions that address increasing costs, urging PJM to:
- Reopen their closed interconnection queue(opens in a new tab) to get new projects online, like the restart of Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania;
- Rely on member states to help determine which projects are ready(opens in a new tab) and to speed up project approvals like the Governor has done in Pennsylvania;
- Implement new best practices established by FERC(opens in a new tab) in order to be better prepared in extreme weather scenarios and ensure affordable, reliable power year-round; and
- Reform the capacity market(opens in a new tab) to more accurately reflect real world conditions, ensuring grid reliability while saving consumers money on their utility bills.
3. Governors Pan PJM for Putting Profits Over People Amid Price Spikes
Gov. Murphy: “PJM has lost the plot.”
Gov. Moore, “I am angry.”
Gov. Shapiro: “I do not think PJM is serving the good people of Pennsylvania well.”
In new interviews with The New York Times, the governors of New Jersey, Maryland, and Pennsylvania called out PJM Interconnection, the largest electric grid operator in the U.S., as one of the “main reasons utility bills have soared” for the 65 million Americans who depend on it. Even though it’s the cheapest and fastest energy to build, PJM has been “slow to add” renewables while prioritizing more expensive, more polluting gas plants.
Despite PJM’s claim that it “has no profit motive,” the governors pointed to PJM’s governance system, which allows profit-driven interests to shape critical decisions. Decisions such as “whether to make it easier or harder for new power projects to join the grid,” ultimately benefit entrenched players who profit from artificial scarcity and inflated prices.
The Times also debunked PJM’s claim, noting that most of its 1,000+ voting members, including utilities, power plant companies, transmission line owners, and energy traders, have a “direct financial stake” in the grid operator’s decisions. Skyrocketing energy bills are not inevitable—they are the result of policy failures that prioritize corporate profits over ratepayers.
BALTIMORE, MD – Attorney General Anthony G. Brown today joined a coalition of 22 attorneys general suing to stop the implementation of a new Trump administration policy that orders the withholding of trillions of dollars in funding that every state in the country relies on to provide essential services to millions of Americans.
5. U.S. Solar Manufacturers Seek to Match Rhetoric With Reality
Author: Anne Fischer Published: 6/25/2025 pvmagazine
Executives from Qcells, Talon PV and Solar Manufacturers For America (SEMA) say extending the Section 48E tax credit with the domestic content bonus levels the playing field so US manufacturers can pay off factory investments made in good faith under the credit.
Solar manufacturing in the United States is currently supporting 75,400 jobs across 90 facilities, $5.9 billion in earnings and $11.5 billion in GDP, according to a recent report by the American Clean Power Association. However, it wasn’t always that way. An effort to on-shore U.S. solar manufacturing industry began in 2018 during the first Trump administration with the Section 201 trade tariffs.
Those tariffs encouraged the buildout of solar manufacturing in the United States, with First Solar and Qcells adding to its module manufacturing capacity, and others, like Talon PV, entering the market to make solar cells, filling a critical gap in the domestic supply chain.
Qcells has embraced the challenge of building out almost the entire solar supply chain on U.S. soil. In a recent press conference, Scott Moskowitz, vice president of market strategy and industrial affairs at Qcells said that the company is building the only factory in North America that will build “all the key inputs for solar panels, namely ingots, wafers and cells.” The company has invested over $3 billion into onshoring the supply chain, he said, discussing the irony of the Senate Finance Committee’s version of the One Big Beautiful Bill that “directly undercuts the administration’s aims to re-industrialize the American economy.”
Moskowitz said “if [the Senate doesn’t] get it right, it’s going to be a massive blow to domestic solar manufacturing and potentially forfeit the sector right back to China.”
6. US solar tax credits cut electricity bills by $51 billion per year, says SEIA
Author: Ryan Kennedy Published: 6/27/2025 pvmagazine
US federal solar tax credits cost the United States $25 billion per year, but deliver $51 billion in electricity bill savings, along with $12 billion in federal tax revenue and $3.7 billion in state and local taxes, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), the Brattle Group, and the University of Louisiana.
As US Congress negotiates the new federal budget, it is seeking to make drastic cuts to clean energy tax credits to fund extension of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
However, the cost savings of cutting solar tax credits far outweighs the benefits, found analysis from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), the Brattle Group, and the University of Louisiana.
SEIA estimated solar tax credits cost about $25 billion per year. But the benefits to US ratepayers far outweighs this cost, it found. NERA Economic consulting found that cutting energy tax credits would raise average utility bills by 7% for residential customers and 10% for small businesses. Analysis from the Brattle Group found that solar tax credits lower electricity costs for US ratepayers by a combined $51 billion per year, more than double the cost of the credits.
What’s more, analysis from SEIA and the University of Louisiana found that the solar industry generates $12 billion in federal tax revenues and $3.7 billion in state and local tax revenues each year.
As US Congress negotiates the new federal budget, it is seeking to make drastic cuts to clean energy tax credits to fund extension of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
However, the cost savings of cutting solar tax credits far outweighs the benefits, found analysis from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), the Brattle Group, and the University of Louisiana.
SEIA estimated solar tax credits cost about $25 billion per year. But the benefits to US ratepayers far outweighs this cost, it found. NERA Economic consulting found that cutting energy tax credits would raise average utility bills by 7% for residential customers and 10% for small businesses. Analysis from the Brattle Group found that solar tax credits lower electricity costs for US ratepayers by a combined $51 billion per year, more than double the cost of the credits.
What’s more, analysis from SEIA and the University of Louisiana found that the solar industry generates $12 billion in federal tax revenues and $3.7 billion in state and local tax revenues each year.
All told, SEIA estimated that US ratepayers in total save $2.67 per $1 in solar tax credit spending.