Rural America Is Already on Board with Clean Energy

NRDC | Shelia Hu, January 16, 2025

In Cleveland, solar arrays are rising over former landfills. Down in the state’s rural Highland County, farmers are experimenting with agrovoltaics, blending sheep and energy production. And the largest solar project east of the Mississippi, built by Ohio labor unions, just came online as of the last few weeks.

America’s renewables revolution has a solid foothold in the historically coal-reliant Buckeye state. Ohio ranks fourth in the country for anticipated renewable development and was ranked fifth for new solar added in 2023. And like many other rural states throughout the country, its clean energy economy received a major boost from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). How the future of that sector will play out is now an open question. 

Throughout his election campaign, Donald Trump promised to gut the IRA and to halt clean energy projects. But advocates say that pulling the plug on renewables would buck up against his goals for “unleashing American energy,” as well as the “all-of-the-above” energy philosophies of many in his orbit, including Doug Burgum, nominee to serve as Secretary of the Interior. It would also threaten jobs in regions where clean energy has helped revitalize the workforce, like Appalachian Ohio. 

“The IRA and other clean energy policies are bringing record investments, factories, and job opportunities to communities in the Midwest and beyond, including many that were bypassed by previous economic transitions,” says Daniel Sawmiller, NRDC’s director of local power initiatives in Ohio. “If new lawmakers indeed care about what voters say they care most about—creating jobs, driving economic growth, and making America competitive and great again—they shouldn’t roll back the policies that are already doing exactly that.”

The value is not lost on those whose constituents are benefitting from these investments. Last summer, 18 House Republicans signed a letter to Speaker Mike Johnson, urging him to reconsider his efforts to repeal or reform the IRA. A full repeal would be the worst-case scenario, they stated. They also acknowledged that the clean energy tax credits have “spurred innovation, incentivized investment, and created good jobs in many parts of the country.” 

Just how politically exploitable an issue is renewable energy, though? Results of a Fox News voter analysis released after the 2024 presidential election showed that most respondents think the country should be prioritizing clean energy over fossil fuels. Nearly two-thirds also noted they feel concerned about climate change. Given this predominating public opinion—and the technological advancements propelling renewables around the globe—it may be too late to turn back the clock. 

How sunny farm fields and windy plains welcomed renewables

Wind turbines have been spinning and solar farms have been cropping up in rural America for decades. Wide-open spaces are a natural fit for these projects, especially when it comes to large-scale utility developments. 

The nation’s longest-serving governor, Iowa Republican Terry Branstad, has been one of wind’s fiercest proponents since the early 1980s. He signed the state’s pioneering renewable portfolio standards (RPS) back in 1983, during the first of his six terms, directing Iowa utilities to incorporate renewables into their energy mix. The policy came on the heels of the 1970s oil shocks—two separate energy crises that caused fuel shortages and price hikes—and became a model for other states in the heartland to follow. Iowa, Kansas, and Oklahoma, together with Texas and Illinois, would go on to become the top five wind energy producers by 2023. Notably, South Dakota (home state of John Thune, the new Senate majority leader) has also become a major player in the wind industry: In 2023, wind supplied 55 percent of its power mix, a larger share than in all other states except Iowa.

Throughout these rural states, the economic argument is easy to embrace: Host communities for solar and wind energy projects can expect to receive development fees and taxes from developers, which in turn put people to work building out infrastructure, like roads and buildings. Local landowners can also profit—in 2022, for example, wind energy developers spent around $935 million in lease payments. Not to mention, Sawmiller points out, “tax revenue for local communities that put more cops on the beat and more teachers in schools.”

Down in the country’s southeast corner, Georgia has also been experiencing a clean energy boom. There, it’s largely been propelled by the state’s strong record in new business development. “Georgia has been the number one state to do business in the past 10 years, and the primary focus for both legislators and residents is jobs—and the ability to land those jobs,” says NRDC’s Georgia Climate & Energy policy director Patrick King II. “It just so happens that renewables is one of the largest growing sectors within the state.” 

While it may not be a common talking point for the state’s legislators, the environment is a regular beneficiary of the policies, programs, and businesses they support, King notes. Residents have also embraced the clean economy’s other tangible benefits, he adds—“reducing costs as it relates to energy bills.”

A jump start from the IRA

Despite misgivings on the IRA from members of Congress in rural America (from Texas senator Ted Cruz’s statement that it would “kill manufacturing jobs” to South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham’s opinion that it would “disincentivize investment in factories and equipment”), the evidence points to the legislation’s overwhelming success. Indeed, just two years after its passage, about two-thirds of the law’s $369 billion in clean energy investments have been spoken for, with funds going to everything from climate-smart agriculture initiatives to the rehabilitation of shuttered auto plants into EV manufacturing facilities to tax credits for clean energy projects.

Last summer, E2, a group dedicated to making the business and economic case for climate and clean energy, released a review quantifying the clean energy projects, jobs, and investments related to the IRA that have impacted communities across the map. At least 334 major projects are in the works, spanning 40 states. If completed, they’re expected to create an estimated 109,278 new jobs and bring in $126 billion in private investments. 

The top five states, with 20 or more clean energy projects in the works, are Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas. 

The 19 large-scale planned projects just in Georgia could generate more than 31,000 jobs and $10 billion in wages and add a whopping $14 billion to the state’s gross state product. For example, new solar panel factories being developed by Qcells are expected to bring 2,000 jobs to the small city of Cartersville, home to just under 25,000 people. Qcells is already operating a solar plant in neighboring Dalton, where the company focused on training and hiring local workers. It’s given a boost to a city that is still recovering from industrial decline and looking to diversify its reputation as the “carpet capital of the world.” 

One business paves the way for another. Take Solarcycle, another project funded by the IRA, based about 70 miles southwest of Dalton. The combo solar panel recycling and solar glass factory, expected to create 600 jobs, builds off the new Qcells plants: It will receive decommissioned solar cells from those new factories to recycle.

In Southern entrepreneurial hubs like these, among others in rural America, it’s increasingly clear that an IRA repeal would be bad for business. In an E2 survey of 930 executives in clean energy development, construction, and manufacturing, more than a quarter of respondents added 25 or more employees as a direct result of IRA funding. And more than a third said at least half of their revenue came from projects that were funded by the IRA. Two dozen new businesses that opened within the last three years did so expecting to receive IRA funding in some capacity. 

With their futures at risk, some of these businesses would likely shrink and others would fare worse: About 21 percent said they’d have to lay off workers if the IRA was repealed; about 11 percent of surveyed businesses said they would need to close down entirely. The survey noted that the most at-risk companies are in rural areas and near smaller communities—the same places that have seen the largest uptick in renewable projects in the last two years. 

Wind behind their backs

But the economy might have the final say in the fate of America’s renewables revolution. “The clean economy today is not the same clean economy from when Trump took office last time,” Sawmiller says. “The momentum is there, the technology is there, the desire is there. It’s a totally different landscape.” In many places, wind and solar are cheaper than coal or gas, even without the tax credits. 

Public opinion also favors accelerating renewables over fossil fuels. A recent study by the Pew Research Center shows that more than 60 percent of Americans believe it’s a priority to expand our renewable energy capacity. 

Advocates like Sawmiller and King will continue to work with local businesses to help educate policymakers on the economic importance of the renewables industry as the IRA faces a new round of threats from the incoming Trump administration. “There shouldn’t be anything political or partisan about this,” Sawmiller says. “We’re talking about jobs, economic growth, and making the U.S. competitive in a market where we, frankly, couldn’t compete before.”

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