Climate Progress Is Still Going Strong When Workers Take the Lead

The first year of this Trump administration has dealt significant blows to the advancement of clean energy and efforts to lower energy prices. The federal government has cut clean energy funding, repeatedly disrupted construction on in-progress wind energy projects, and shut down energy affordability programs. For workers on solar and wind energy projects, there’s been no shortage of bad news.

And yet, there’s also been undeniable progress. In the absence of federal leadership, state and local governments have picked up the slack, and labor unions have taken action.

To see what I mean, just take a closer look at my home state of Maine. In 2025, we had one of the most successful legislative sessions for climate and workers in our history. We passed landmark bills that expanded the state’s ability to build new clean energy projects and committed the state to achieve 100% clean electricity by 2040. Strong labor standards throughout this legislation help ensure every clean energy project we build in Maine creates high-quality, family-sustaining jobs while protecting ratepayers from rising costs. Policies like this are how we can insulate ourselves from harmful federal actions and continue to deliver real benefits. Other states could take note.

Across the country, energy demand is rising for the first time in decades, and we’re not building enough new energy to keep up. This supply and demand imbalance is pushing energy bills to unaffordable prices for working families, who are already struggling to stay afloat. At the same time, we’re experiencing the impacts of climate change with more and more frequency—extreme cold and devastating storms in the winter; scorching heatwaves, wildfires, and smog in the summer.

If we want climate policy to be popular and durable, it needs to do more than reduce emissions. It needs to materially deliver for working people.

This moment of high costs, worsening climate impacts, and a lack of good-wage jobs requires us to build more clean energy, urgently. We simply cannot bring down energy prices without more energy. Labor unions understand this, and we understand that clean energy will and is already creating thousands of job opportunities.

That’s why we so ardently fight for strong climate legislation in our state. It’s why our members were some of the first to speak up against federal cuts to clean energy tax credits. And throughout it all, we’re still building solar panels, installing heat pumps, erecting wind turbines, and upgrading building efficiency—work that makes our communities cleaner and safer.

Labor’s work for climate action will continue on, both in Maine and across the country. If we want climate policy to be popular and durable, it needs to do more than reduce emissions. It needs to materially deliver for working people—with good jobs, higher wages, and lower bills. It’s both possible and necessary to do all of this at once.

This year in Maine, we’re working to push the envelope even further to win bold, worker-led climate policy while driving down costs for ratepayers.

For example, we are advancing legislation that would streamline permitting of utility-scale clean energy projects built in Maine with high-road labor standards, accelerating the pace by which Maine brings clean energy online that is cheaper and lowering our exposure to global energy price volatility through greater energy independence.

The onus has certainly shifted to states to lead on climate and affordability; it’s not coming from the federal level. But that hasn’t deterred us in Maine, and it shouldn’t deter the rest of the country either. Even in red states like Texas, our brothers and sisters in labor have pushed for and won local climate progress.

Labor is proud to be advocating for and building clean power that provides affordable energy and good jobs for our communities. With working people at the table, we can drive meaningful climate action and pocketbook benefits for working people—all at once.

Let us not be afraid or resigned in this moment. Maine is proof that we can still create union jobs, lower costs, and build domestic clean energy, but only if we keep fighting for it.