Maine businesses and residents and Wabanaki Nations benefited from an unprecedented $2.2 billion in federal clean energy spending and private investment incentivized by Washington, an environmental group said Monday as it warned of what’s at stake if President Donald Trump follows through on promises to scuttle Biden administration initiatives.

The largest share, $866.3 million, is for distributed energy, according to the report by the Natural Resources Council of Maine. Distributed energy is the use of smaller generation units on the consumer’s side of the meter such as rooftop solar panels and battery storage.

Solar energy has been the second largest recipient of federal support, at $623.4 million, followed by zero-emissions vehicles, at $485.6 million, according to the report. About $64 million in federal backing has supported wind energy, and heat pumps have benefited from nearly $22 million in federal support.

The report analyzed data from the MIT/Rhodium Group Clean Investment Monitor.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act have supported at least $2.2 billion in direct and “induced public and private investments” in Maine, the report said. They take the form of direct federal investments, including tax credits for home energy and home energy efficiency, zero-emission vehicles and grant programs.

Business and household investments in heat pumps, electric vehicles and other clean energy totaled nearly $1.4 billion, while larger-scale solar, wind and energy storage spending was $842.1 million.

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Congress and Biden in 2021 approved the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, authorizing as much as $1 trillion to rebuild roads and bridges, and to finance electric grid resilience and broadband initiatives. A year later, the Inflation Reduction Act promised to spend another $1 trillion over 10 years on energy efficiency, storage batteries and a range of other programs and projects.

The two pieces of legislation were signature measures of  the Biden administration, committing the federal government to direct spending, loans and tax credits to fight the impacts of climate change. Many programs are at risk if Congress repeals major provisions of the measures through expedited budget legislation as Trump and Republican leaders in Congress have promised.

“We see that the new administration and congressional leadership are considering rolling this back and we want to make sure people understand what impact this is having on people in Maine,” said Jack Shapiro, the NRCM’s climate and clean energy director.

The benefits far outweigh costs to U.S. taxpayers, advocates say. Tax credits paid by the federal government are received as benefits by motorists who purchase electric cars, homeowners who install heat pumps and investors who build factories and power plants to equip and fuel the clean energy transition, the Biden administration’s Treasury Department said last year.

Critics, including Republican state lawmakers, have opposed Maine’s offshore wind initiative, calling it environmentally harmful. They also say state efforts to broaden electric vehicle use constitute government overreach and interfere with consumers choice of vehicles.

Andrew Price, president and chief executive officer of Competitive Energy Services, a Portland consulting group, said EVs and heat pumps are more efficient than gasoline-powered cars and oil and gas boilers. Citing Trump’s pledge to impose a 10% tariff on energy from Canada, higher efficiency options such as EVs and heat pumps “will look better, all else equal,” he said.

“This is especially true in geographic regions that have few alternatives to Canadian imports for energy, like northern Maine,” Price said. “A tariff on Canadian energy imports could therefore reduce carbon emissions by improving the economics of switching away from using fossil fuels.”

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