Trump’s Visit to Nevada Highlights What’s at Stake in November: 15,938 Clean Energy Jobs and Hundreds of Environmental Protections

LAS VEGAS  — On Sunday, Donald Trump told a rally full of supporters in Las Vegas, “I don’t care about you, I just want your vote,” while more than twenty of them were treated as medical patients and as six were hospitalized as a result of temperatures of more than 100 degrees. 

Nevada stands to lose 15,938 clean energy jobs and $12.2 billion in clean energy project investments if Trump wins the presidency in November. These clean energy jobs and investment funds were created by President Biden’s clean energy plan, which congressional Republicans have already voted to repeal more than 30 times. According to recent polling, 66% of Nevadans say climate is important to their vote. 

Unfortunately, Trump doesn’t agree—he’s called climate change a “hoax” and “bullshit”. During his disastrous first term, he rolled back more than 100 environmental protections, imposed tariffs on solar, tried to eliminate the electric vehicle tax credit, and slow-walked the leasing and planning processes for renewable energy projects. His actions cost Americans 1.1 million clean energy jobs. 

Last Thursday, June 6th, climate and environmental advocates joined progressive leaders in Nevada to discuss Trump’s visit to Las Vegas. 

“Donald Trump is a threat to our democracy, our environment, and our public health. Despite extreme temperatures in Las Vegas that reached 111 degrees this week, Trump has repeatedly called climate change a ‘hoax’ and promised oil executives he would roll back President Biden’s environmental regulations in exchange for a $1 billion campaign donation,” said Assemblyman Howard Watts III. “Time and time again, we see that Trump’s corrupt actions prioritize profits over people, while Joe Biden stands up for the greater good. Donald Trump is wrong for Nevada.”

“Not only is Donald Trump a twice-impeached and felony-convicted former president, but a dangerous threat to Nevada’s working families. Today, he called his supporters to an outdoor rally at Sunset Park in the middle of a heatwave putting all attendees’ health at risk of the effects of triple-digit temperatures,” said Jarrett Clark, Communications Director at For Our Future Nevada. “Nevadans have not forgotten Trump’s record of showering corporate polluters with giveaways and tax breaks at the expense of working families.  His intentions for a second term are clear – unilaterally rolling back environmental protections, erasing good-paying clean energy jobs, and padding the pockets of Big Oil. Nevadans don’t want a dictator who will sell them out to the fossil fuel industry.”

“Donald Trump, a now convicted felon, has been clear about who he is and what he’ll do if he takes office — that he’ll be a dictator on day one. His Project 2025 will double down on his extreme and dangerous record as the most anti-environment, pro-polluter president in history,” Angelyn Tabalba, consultant for Nevada Conservation League on the Clean Energy Plan, said.  “Trump wants to eliminate the Clean Energy Plan and use his Project 2025 to drive up costs for hard-working families and keep us hooked on dirty, dangerous, and costly fossil fuels, so we can keep lining the pockets of his best friends in Big Oil.”

Months out from the 2024 election, Trump and his allies are already putting the White House up for sale. Weeks before becoming a convicted felon for his actions in the 2016 election, Trump offered Big Oil companies a “deal”: $1 billion to sign off on their agenda of crushing clean energy while Big Oil price-gouges consumers and rakes in billions.

• • BIG OIL IS ALL-IN FOR TRUMP: Trump gave $25 billion in tax breaks to Big Oil when he was president. Now, they’re financing his legal defense and his campaign. So it’s no surprise they’re literally writing up orders for him to sign on day one.
    • Donald Trump and his allied groups have already raised over $7.8 million from the oil and gas industry so far in the 2024 cycle. They received nearly $15 million from the oil and gas industry in the 2020 election.
  • PRESIDENT BIDEN STANDS UP TO BIG OIL: 63% of voters say they want the president to stand up to Big Oil, not cozy up to them. President Biden stood up to Big Oil with a clean energy plan that represents the most significant climate investment in American history, all while creating more than 270,000 good-paying jobs—jobs that Trump will likely kill if elected in November. 

• TRUMP GETS AN F IN NEVADA: As president, Trump decimated Obama-era climate policies that would have helped families save billions on health care costs and protected thousands from climate-linked medical problems

• • FAIL: Trump imposed tariffs on solar, tried to eliminate the electric vehicle tax credit, and slow-walked the leasing and planning processes for renewable energy projects. This slowed down access to clean energy sources in Nevada, which has the highest solar power potential of any state and currently ranks sixth in the country for total solar capacity and generation.
  • FAIL: In 2020, Trump weakened regulations for cleaning coal ash and toxic heavy metals from coal power plant wastewater. Nevada is home to the country’s second-most contaminated coal ash site at NV Energy’s retired Reid Gardner plant, located northeast of Las Vegas. The site’s groundwater has a lithium concentration 243 times greater than safe levels and an arsenic concentration 121 times greater than safe levels.

A second Trump term promises to be, in the words of Politico, “an all-out war on climate science and policies” in which Trump would be, in his own words, a “dictator on day one”.  Since the passage of President Biden’s clean energy plan, congressional Republicans have voted to repeal it more than 30 times. If Trump wins in November, he’s all but guaranteed to gut the plan, killing 270,000 clean energy jobs and devastating Nevada’s clean energy economy. 

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