House Democrats are advancing legislation to resurrect Biden-era tax credits while another taxpayer-funded green energy company files for bankruptcy.

The One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBBA) cancelled or phased out billions in green energy tax credits, which the Trump administration celebrated as defunding the “green new scam.”

The Trump administration also clawed back billions in grants and loans to green energy initiatives. Since those cancellations, multiple awardees have signaled they are considering bankruptcy or have already filed.

Meanwhile, industries propped up by the government subsidies have struggled, with billions in investment vanishing since President Donald Trump returned to the Oval Office for his second term.

Last month, more than half of House Democrats moved to reinstate the Biden-era credits, pitching them as an affordability play. The proposed legislation, titled the Energy Bills Relief Act, would also give back “low-cost clean energy” grants terminated since Jan. 19, 2025.

Notably, when President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) into law in August 2022, he argued it would fight inflation and cut the deficit “by having the wealthy and big corporations finally begin to pay part of their fair share.”

However, Biden admitted a year later that the IRA had “nothing to do with inflation,” emphasizing the legislative package was “the single-largest investment in climate change anywhere in the world.”

Early estimates pegged the IRA’s tax credits’ total value at about $400 billion, though later projections from Goldman Sachs and the Cato Institute estimated the true cost of the credits would reach about $1 trillion in 10 years.

Struggling companies

Investors have fled IRA-backed industries since Trump reclaimed the White House, while several green energy nonprofits and companies recently deprived of their Biden-era awards – including Sunnova and most recently Ascend Elements – are considering or filing for bankruptcy.

An Ascend Elements spokesperson sent a statement from President and CEO Linh Austin to The Lion, which noted when he joined the company, he knew it “had a long history of fiscal and operational mismanagement, and that its future was very much in question.”

Austin was announced as the CEO in March 2025, after Ascend Elements and the Trump Department of Energy (DOE) in February 2025 “mutually agreed to cancel” a $316 million grant from the Biden-era Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Ascend Elements announced April 9 that it was filing for bankruptcy.

“Chapter 11 gives us a proven, court‑supervised framework to restructure our liabilities while continuing normal operations under our existing management team. It is a commonly used financial and legal tool to allow us to reset and move forward. It is not a signal that we have given up,” Austin continued.

Jason Isaac, CEO of the American Energy Institute, told The Lion the Ascend Elements “bankruptcy is yet another example of what happens when government tries to manufacture an energy industry instead of letting markets determine what’s viable.”

Isaac argued it “underscores a broader problem,” namely how the electric vehicle (EV) and battery recycling sectors are “heavily dependent” on subsidies.

“When federal dollars disappear, so do many of these projects,” Isaac continued. “Washington should take this as a warning, not a call for more spending, but a reminder that durable energy industries are built on reliability, affordability, and real market demand, not political mandates.”

Steve Milloy, a senior fellow at the Energy & Environment Legal Institute, credited Trump and Congress with bursting “the EV bubble.”

“Now, EV makers will have to succeed with consumers on their own merits and without the political favoritism of mandates and subsidies,” he told The Lion.

Under Biden’s energy policies, energy costs skyrocketed, with several estimates showing electricity prices outpaced inflation and increased by over 20%.

The national average cost of gas reached a record high of over $5 in June 2022 as Biden repeatedly enacted major restrictions on oil and gas development.

Electricity costs have continued to outpace inflation as demand grows because of artificial intelligence (AI), electrification and onshore manufacturing.

Gasoline prices fell from 2024 into 2025 and remained relatively low heading into 2026 before spiking after Operation Epic Fury commenced.

Critics of Biden-era policies argue the recent move by congressional Democrats will only exacerbate rising energy costs and rely on what they say are false promises.

James Taylor, president of the Heartland Institute, told The Lion, “It is no coincidence that electricity prices rose 22% during the Biden administration, which was easily the highest four-year stretch in recent history. Gasoline prices rose even more steeply than that. I’m pretty sure the American people will take a pass on reliving that nightmare again.”

Affordability

While costs keep rising at the pump as the conflict continues, the Trump administration touted its efforts to ease the financial burden on Americans on Tax Day Wednesday. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt argued the OBBBA ushered in “the largest tax cut in history for working and middle class Americans.”

White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers told The Lion in a statement that “tens of millions of working-class Americans have more money in their pockets thanks to President Trump’s signature provisions in the Working Families Tax Cuts: no tax on tips, overtime, or Social Security.

“On the other hand, Democrats are still pushing their costly and very unpopular so-called ‘green energy’ tax credits that sent electricity prices soaring more than 30 percent in just four years under Joe Biden.”

While tax breaks for average Americans may be diminished by cost increases brought about by the Iran conflict, they’re still bringing tangible benefits to Americans, says Nicole Huyer, senior research associate at The Heritage Foundation’s Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies.

“There are some price externalities from the Iran conflict, especially in energy and oil markets; however, that doesn’t negate the fact OBBBA tax cuts and deductions are putting more money in Americans’ wallets this tax season.”