Maybe you heard earlier this summer on July 4th, Donald Trump signed the so-called one big beautiful bill into law. Except there was nothing, literally nothing beautiful about this bill. It lowers taxes for billionaires while stripping health care from millions of Americans. It militarizes immigration enforcement while cutting funding to Planned Parenthood. The list goes on. Project 2025's fingerprints are all over it. The bill cements much of the far-right manifesto into law. And as our listeners probably remember, Project 2025 was no friend to the planet or to anyone who lives on it. I'm Dr. Leah Stokes. And I'm Dr. Katherine Wilkinson. And this is a matter of degrees. The Inflation Reduction Act, or the IRA as it's sometimes called, that was a law that kicked off a clean energy renaissance in this country, led by American workers with American-made products. Between when that law passed in 2022 and when Donald Trump entered office earlier this year, over $170 billion in private investment was put into clean technologies. And that created 167,000 jobs. A lot of that job creation happened in my home state of Georgia, which, perhaps to some people's surprise, became the number one state for new clean energy jobs in the country. But Trump's big, ugly bill took a sledgehammer to all of that progress. The funding to help communities improve their infrastructure and cut pollution, a lot of it was abruptly clawed back. And the IRA Clean Electricity tax credits, which were adding wind and solar energy to the grid faster than we have ever seen before, they will end years earlier than they were supposed to. Trump's bill also adds a mountain of red tape that will make the credits harder to claim, even while they're still around. And one of the personal things for me is that it ends the home electrification credits, which were incentives that I worked a lot on that helped make it cheaper for everyday Americans to buy an electric vehicle, install a heat pump, or add solar panels to their roof. And that is what we are here to talk about today. Because those credits, they have not expired yet. Right now, there is a brief window where you can still get a discount on new clean technologies that will cut pollution and save you money at the same time. So we're excited to share this special Electric Home Shopping Network edition of A Matter of Degrees. For the next few months, there's a fire sale on Cleantech. Tune in to listen to the amazing deals you can take advantage of right now. Grab your shopping cart. Let's get out there and get some credits. There's tax credits for electric vehicles and they're instant rebates. So you can get up to $7,500 off a new EV, $4,000 off of used EV, and $7,500 off of leases. That's Ingrid Malmgren. She's Senior Policy Director for Plugin America, a nonprofit that helps people get into electric vehicles, or EVs, as we'll call them throughout the episode. These tax credits are ending way too soon. They're ending on September 30th. So this is the summer of the EV. If you're on the fence, if you're thinking about getting an EV, thinking about trying one out, now's the time to lease and now's the time to buy. Ingrid could not let this deal pass by. So she went out and she got herself an EV. Last week I went out and I got myself a Ford F-150 Lightning because we live on a farm and we live on a dirt road. It's a really good, strong, sturdy utility truck. And in the event of a power outage, we can even power our house with it. You know, sometimes people who haven't tried or owned an EV, they might think it's like a sacrifice for the environment. And that's pretty backwards because EVs are just better. They're cheaper to own and operate. They don't brake almost ever. And they're even fast, if you like that kind of thing. They're also, frankly, just more fun to drive. And Ingrid agrees. They're amazing cars to drive, but they're also far less expensive. Fueling your ride with electrons versus paying for gas is probably going to cost about half as much. I live in California, which has famously high electricity prices. And even here, I pay way less to drive my EV than I would a gas car. Across the country, it's like the equivalent of a dollar or two dollars a gallon to fill up your EV. So think about that. Over the course of a year or a lifetime of owning a car, you're going to save thousands and thousands of dollars. Ingrid says that you can chalk all of those savings up to more advanced technology under the hood. EVs are roughly three to four times more efficient than a gas car. Instead of using that energy to generate heat, which makes your engine hot in a gas car, all of that energy is used to give you power at the wheel. The thing about EVs is they let you skip all of that annoying stuff that comes with cars that burn fuel. They're super convenient, unless you really like hanging out on the weekends at Jiffy Lube. And I personally love them because I hate going to gas stations. I don't like the smell of gas. I don't like getting gas on my hands. And who wants to go out in the freezing cold or in the rain to stand in a gas station and pump your car? Listen, it is a pain to have to take these cars in for maintenance all the time. And things break and they need stuff. And, you know, it's not exactly how I want to spend my day. Or your money. It's quite expensive to do all that maintenance. It's pretty much maintenance-free if you've got an EV. And there's another often overlooked advantage of EVs, and that's how much safer they are. EVs are built like a skateboard, and they have the battery packs in the bottom, which gives them a really low center of gravity. It's fantastic for handling and a lot safer with risk of rollover. Gas vehicles are also called internal combustion, which means essentially you're lighting a flammable liquid on fire under your hood and hoping that it propels you to where you need to go. With EVs, it's pretty great. You don't need to start a tiny bonfire to push your car forward. I've got two toddlers at home, and I gotta say, I feel a lot safer driving them around in my EV. So EVs are cheaper to fuel. They are easier and cheaper to maintain. They are more fun to drive. They are safer. Truly, you have to ask, why would anyone at this point buy a gas car? Let me make a just wild guess here, Catherine. Range anxiety? Ding, ding, ding. People truly believe that they drive hundreds of miles a day. Like, I can't tell you how many people have been like, oh, yeah, 300 miles. I don't know if that's going to do it for me. I drive a lot. But the average driver drives about 40 miles a day. So for the vast majority of drivers, EVs are more than enough, if not enough for the whole week. And people also worry about finding a place to charge. But Ingrid says that's actually overblown, too. I do think that we have a public awareness issue because people don't know where chargers are. The vast majority of people charge their EVs at home. And there is nothing more convenient than driving into your garage, plugging in, walking away, forgetting about it, just like your cell phone. You don't think about it. And in the morning, it has a full charge. People might not think that charging stations are everywhere because unlike a gas station, they don't have really tall signs shouting from the highway, stop here, gas station here. But there are actually a lot of EV chargers. If you drive an EV, you have probably a navigation system that shows you where all the chargers are. And you're like, wow, there's a ton of chargers. Ingrid also says that people in colder climates sometimes shy away from EVs because they just think they not going to work as well there I live in Vermont I drive my EV with four studded snow tires and I live on a dirt road I trust that vehicle so much more than I ever trusted a gas car And finally, some people think EVs are way too expensive or that they're only for rich people. Looking at the used EV market right now, that is absolutely not the case. Especially with a tax credit, there are incredible vehicles out there, two or three-year-old vehicles with over half their warranty left that are under $20,000. Look, I'm sold on EVs. They're incredible cars. And until the end of September, the federal government will still give you a discount up to $7,500 off of a new EV and $4,000 off of a used EV. So the question that I'm sure our listeners have is, how can they get these credits before they expire on September 30th? Ingrid was the right person to ask. So if you're interested in an EV, make sure you meet the income limits. That's important. If you're in the market for a new EV, that limit is $300,000 a year for married couples, $225,000 for heads of households, and $150,000 for individuals. Income limits for the used EV credits are exactly half of those. And even if you don't qualify for those income levels, you can also check out leasing an EV, and you might still be able to see some savings. And also double-check that the model you're interested in qualifies for the credit. A whole bunch of EVs do, and a quick internet search should be able to tell you. Then you're ready to hit the dealership. It's super important that the dealership is registered with the IRS. You can call them, you can check their website. Definitely make sure of that. If you do a lease, make sure that $7,500 is factored into your lease payment. and then if you buy a vehicle, do not leave the dealership without a copy of the successfully submitted seller report because you're going to need to submit that with your taxes next year and it will show that you already received your $7,500 or your $4,000 tax credit up front. What we did at PluginAmerica is we put together a really simple checklist that you can access on our website and you can just go in and see exactly what steps you need to take to be able to take advantage of these tax credits. Let's just zoom out here for a second. EVs, I think we've been clear, they're great cars to drive. But these incentives, they're really about cutting pollution from the transportation sector. So it's a fair question to ask, are these tax credits making it easier for people to buy clean cars? And are they working? We asked Ingrid. So they've been really, really successful at increasing the number of EVs and the models on the market and just getting more EVs on the road. She's right. U.S. EV sales increased over 60 percent in the last two years. Last year, in 2024, 1.3 million EVs were sold. It really gave a signal to automakers that this country was committed to clean transportation, was committed to clean vehicles. And the good news is those automakers are making clean cars here in America. Since these credits were revamped in 2022, companies building EVs have announced over $100 billion of investment and created almost 100,000 jobs. It sounds great, right? But not everyone is on board. So electric vehicles are an existential threat to the oil and gas industry. The vast majority of oil and gas sales in the United States go to fuel transportation. So if you switch transportation over to electricity, it's really going to eat into oil and gas's bottom line. And they don't want to see that. One of the industry's favorite talking points is that EVs aren't actually any better for the environment than gas cars. Ingrid says, and Leah and I agree, this is just plain wrong. EVs are so much better for the environment because unlike gasoline cars, you don't have to continuously drill and extract and refine and process and burn in order to power your vehicle. EVs require manufacturing and they definitely require mining for minerals. But once those minerals are in the battery and once that vehicle is manufactured, it's all savings, especially if you drive on clean energy like solar or wind or hydro. Even in the states with the dirtiest grids, EVs produce far less emissions over the course of their lives. And the thing is, in every single state across this country, driving an EV is cleaner than driving a gas-powered car. It doesn't matter if you're in West Virginia, where there's still some coal, or even Hawaii, where they are burning oil to make electricity. It's just that EVs are so efficient, and so they're less polluting, even as the electricity system still has some fossil fuels in it. And that is only going to get better as the grid continues to get cleaner and cleaner. And as with so many climate solutions in the United States of America, the fossil fuel industry is trying to confuse us about how effective EVs are. So we asked Ingrid, what does this all look like outside the U.S.? The global market is very different. There hasn't been these big misinformation and disinformation campaigns. So globally, EVs have really taken off. This year in 2025, we expect one in four vehicles sold globally to have a plug. We love EVs here, but we would be remiss if we didn't mention another technology, and that's the e-bike. They're a lot cheaper than a car. They can get you around town. Young people are using them all across the country. And there might even be some state and local incentives available to help you get riding. And of course, some of our listeners might already own an EV. If that's the case for you, talk to your friends, talk to your neighbors, tell people how great EVs are. So EVs are amazing vehicles. They're super reliable. They'll save you money. They require far less maintenance. They're far more efficient. So now is the time to get one before the tax credits end on September 30th. That is right around the corner, folks. Deals this good, rather unfortunately, don't last forever. So what are you waiting for? Get your questions answered, reach out to PluginAmerica, operators are standing by, and go get your EV. And you know how to make this good deal even better? You can install solar panels on your roof to power your EV and the rest of your home with cheap, clean energy. And if I'm not mistaken, Leah, there are some incentives for that too. That's right, Catherine. Right now, there is a solar sale happening. There's a tax credit that will give you back 30% of what you paid to install solar panels and battery storage at your home. But let me guess, this is also a limited time only kind of deal. Yep, that's right. Trump's bill got rid of this incentive for homeowners after December 31st of this year. So we've got another expert to break down how to go solar soon and how that can save you money. There are a lot of benefits to going solar. The most amazing part of having rooftop solar is that you can generate your own electricity at home. You're creating a foundation of solar and energy that is local, clean, and community powered. Solar helps lock in fixed energy rates, which protects you from utility rate hikes. And a lot of folks find that predictability makes it easier to budget for big life goals like college tuition, home repairs, or even a vacation. That's Sarah Gracia. She is a senior associate at the Solar Help Desk for the nonprofit Solar United Neighbors. We work across the country to connect families and communities to solar energy. Some of the resources that we provide at the Solar Help Desk are free roof reviews, proposal reviews, and bill reviews, and a whole lot more. Last I checked, about 7% of households in the U.S. had installed solar. That's not that many households. So let's talk about why it's not more common here. The short answer is even though solar saves you lots of money over time the systems are expensive to install Right now the average upfront cost of rooftop solar is around After this year, that price will jump another 30%. But if you can get your system online before the tax credit expires, the average American household will save $52,000 over the next 25 years, even factoring in those upfront costs. Here in sunny California, it's even higher. You'll save $124,000 over a 25-year period. And that's because you're getting power from your own roof instead of paying your utility for it every month. It must feel incredibly good to get a negative power bill. And as electricity rates continue to spike across the country and more people need more air conditioning, solar can help keep your bills low and steady. And it even makes your home worth more money. A study done by Berkeley Labs said that folks who sell a solar home on average are able to add about $15,000 onto the value of their home. And did I mention that home battery storage is also covered in that same expiring tax credit? Pairing your solar with home battery storage means that your power doesn't go out when the grid does. That's especially important in climate-vulnerable places where outages are more common. For example, we see a lot of states in the U.S. are impacted by hurricanes like Texas, Louisiana, and Florida. So being able to have that battery backup and keep your appliances running, like your fridge, is really important. So let's say I want to make sure I can lock that tax credit in, get that good 30% back on my upfront costs for solar and battery storage. What are the steps I need to take? We asked Sarah. You have until December 31st, 2025, to have your solar installed and quote unquote placed in service, which is a term that's a bit of a gray area. But our conservative interpretation would be that when your system is ready to be connected to the grid, you want to make sure that is completed by the end of 2025. The first step would be to find an installer. We always recommend getting at least three proposals so that you can get an idea of the market in your area. The next step would be to review all of the proposals, see what you'll get in costs, savings, incentives. Some installers offer rebates, different financing options. After that would come permitting and interconnection. connection. That would be something that the installer does. The installation, which is typically the shortest part of the whole process, that will take one to two days depending on the system size. You are going to get an inspection done to make sure that your solar was installed correctly. Everything locally is safe and sound. And then after that, you are able to flip the switch and get started saving. This all sounds like it could take a long time. Do I actually have enough months between now and the end of the year to get the credit before it goes away? On average, it takes two to three months from that first call to a solar company to having an operating system on your roof. I would say for anyone who does want to make sure that they get that tax credit, by the end of the year, that they're cognizant of the fact that, yes, the install takes two days, but to pad it out with some time for that paperwork to go through and the inspections and the permission to operate. Rooftop solar isn't just about powering your own EV or your toaster. If you generate more than you use, that extra energy can go to your neighbors because it's more than just energy. It's about community care. It's about safety. It's about mutual aid. all powered by the sun. And again, I bet some of our listeners already have rooftop solar. So in that case, what can they do? I found myself in exactly that situation. I put solar on my roof a couple of years ago and that was great. I got to use the incentives. But when the law passed this summer, I knew that they would soon be going away. So what I did was I just made a simple Google form And I sent it out to a bunch of my friends who I thought might be interested in putting solar on their roof. And I introduced them to a local solar company that had good reviews and said, hey, they'll help you go solar if you want to. And I got more than a dozen of my friends and neighbors to sign up. Anybody can do that. We need community right now. So I think that spreading the word and talking to people and sharing that solar is actually a really positive thing is really important. So get these solar hotcakes while they're still on the market before the end of the year. If you're not sure how to get started, call Solar United Neighbors Help Desk. You might just reach Sarah. Last but not least, listeners, we bring you one more technology that can save you money during this big electrification blowout sales event. And that is, drumroll please. Heat pumps! To tell us about the magic of heat pumps, we called up an old friend of the podcast who gives Leah a real run for her money when it comes to being heat pumps' biggest fan. I'm Saul Griffith. I'm an energy climate entrepreneur and a founder of Rewiring America, Rewiring Australia, Rewiring New Zealand. And Saul is quite an expert when it comes to home electrification. He just published a new book on it, a kind of how-to guide on how to electrify your home. It's called Plug In, and it came out this summer. Okay, Leah, before we dive further in with Saul, let's just unpack once again for our listeners, what exactly is a heat pump? A heat pump is a device that can both heat and cool your home with no fossil fuels necessary. It's kind of like an air conditioner and a furnace, but it moves thermal energy around rather than burning things. The way I think about it is that in the summer, a heat pump is moving heat from inside out, and in the winter, it's grabbing heat outside and pulling it in. So even though I'm a true heat pump nerd, it's still kind of just mind-expanding the efficiency of a heat pump. The efficiency of burning gas to make heat is about 90-95%. The efficiency of using a heat pump to make heat is three or four or even 500 percent. This is what makes the cost of heating your home and heating your hot water lower when you use a heat pump. So not only do heat pumps clean up pollution in your home by electrifying your heating system, they also use way less energy than your standard air conditioner. And that saves you money on your electricity bill. This isn't just a small change. We're talking about cutting a household annual energy pollution. by one third to two thirds just with heat pumps. That's like several metric tons of climate pollution for people who are in the metric ton mood. And it will also save the average homeowner hundreds of dollars a year. That's a great combo of less climate pollution and cutting your bills. And you can also get heat pumps to replace your hot water heater. Heat pump water heaters are even more efficient again. And you know, this is where you get the four, five, 600% efficient hot water heaters. So without doubt, the cheapest way to heat your water is with a heat pump. You can make it even cheaper if you have rooftop solar. And if you combine solar and heat pumps, they're even greater than the sum of their parts because you're basically using clean power from your roof and you're storing it in your hot water tank, in the rooms, in your home, through heating or cooling. And that's making that solar power go even farther. And this is really key. You can still get up to $2,000 in a tax credit. So act fast and get your hands on the latest and greatest in home temperature control. So heat pumps are tripling, even quadrupling the efficiency of heating your home and heating your hot water. This frankly seems like a total no-brainer. So Leah, you have a particular love of heat pumps. Why doesn't everyone have these already? Well, Catherine, you're right. I have a heat pump water heater and a heat pump HVAC, and I'm kind of known as a little bit of a fanatic when it comes to the heat pumps. But as we discussed with Saul, there are still a lot of barriers to bringing this amazing technology into homes across America. Finding an installer is one of the problems who will do the job There whole swaths of this country where the contractors will pretty much only do gas The other is upfront costs You know what is it Roughly 40% of Americans only have $400 in cash. Their hot water heater goes, they probably don't have access to credit. And this is like a decision they need to make today because their partner is cold and needs a shower. Partly because the IRA hadn't existed long enough, it only just started to get out through state programs, but we hadn't yet really figured out how to bring forward those incentives. So you felt those discounts at the minute you were making that purchase decision. That $2,000 credit, it can really help people pay for the upfront cost of a heat pump. So let's zoom out from the specifics of the technologies and the credits. Like, where does all this leave us, this big, not-so-beautiful bill change to all of the clean energy incentives? It's going to slow everything down. It's not going to stop everything happening. I think a lot of people do this for non-economic reasons. They're doing it for their children, so that will continue to happen. It means we won't get workforce development. We won't be doing this in low- and middle-income communities. A lot of that was built into the IRA. That's going to go away. Electrification saves you money over the lifetime, but they cost you a little bit more up front. And so that means for a lot of American households, they need access to financial instruments. So with those things going away, they're going to see a significant slowdown in the U.S. I think it's even worse than that because I think it's building in more cultural resistance that's going to have to be undone in the future. As we think about new solutions that are needed, I think it's important for us to take a step back and ask ourselves, What actually are the biggest roadblocks to electrification now? One of the biggest challenges is high electricity prices, which cuts into bill savings from electric cars and appliances. Right now, electricity demand is going up across the U.S., especially with the rise of AI and data centers. And that can make electricity prices go up more, which makes home electrification more expensive than it would otherwise be. In most of the country right now, electrification is still cheaper than using fossil fuels. But we've got to keep making progress here. We've got to make it even more affordable. These are the things that concerned climate people should be focused on, because if you make the electricity that's going to power all of this electrifying of everything much cheaper, and so you make the economics just a slam dunk. so there are obvious headwinds facing electrification in the u.s we have rising electricity prices at the same time as these ira incentives are being repealed how can we keep moving forward that's a question we put to sol i think you need to do a lot more than just have tax credits and consumer facing tax credits let's be honest the The reason rooftop solar in Australia is $0.55 a watt to install, and in the U.S. it averages over $2.50 a watt, is regulatory and permitting problems. A lot of the soft costs in installing all of these electric appliances in America are made much higher because of regulatory and liability and permitting problems. We don't need to wait for a new presidential administration to keep electrifying America. We just need to be smart about our strategy. It takes weeks to get permits for rooftop solar in the U.S., sometimes months. In Australia, it takes 15 minutes. So fast that the contractor does it on his or her cell phone while they're selling it to you. Oh, I got your permit, mate. When do you want the solar in? Tomorrow? Oh, sure. Right, it can be that easy. Sol says cheap rooftop solar is the key to unlocking everything else. You need to know the rest of the world is succeeding. the electrification gender is going great. You know why? Because rooftop solar is really cheap. It can be really, really, really cheap. I would love my gift to America to be cheap rooftop solar. Even with giant tariffs against Chinese solar, you should still be able to install Chinese solar on an American rooftop under one US dollar. It will deliver five or six cent per kilowatt hour electricity directly to your home. You could easily in much of the US get one quarter to three quarters of your electricity from that rooftop solar and that would drastically lower your electricity bill. And then the agenda gets super easy. At Australian rooftop solar prices, electricity costs you two or three cents a kilowatt hour. You put two or three cent kilowatt hour electricity in your electric car and it's one cent, two cents a mile. That's a really cheap commute. Making permitting faster and more efficient will help us get more energy on the grid. That helps consumers and businesses get the energy they need quickly and cheaply. And this is something that we can realistically push for, even under the current administration. Because a lot of that regulation is happening at the local and state level. And if you go get a heat pump and an EV right now while those IRA tax credits are still available, then you've hit the jackpot because you're saving money by electrifying and you're cutting your electricity bill. You know, reading the news every day, seeing the Trump administration dismantle so much climate progress, it can be a bit of a bummer, but that's not the only way of seeing this moment. I can't help but imagine, Leah, if everyone took this as a real fire under the fanny, so to speak, to get out there and move on the technologies that they've been thinking about, but maybe thought they had more time on. We could make this a banner year for EVs, for heat pumps, for rooftop solar. We could really see a lot of durable change in the next few months. You should do your patriotic duty and do your duty for climate. everyone should rush out there and use all of these incentives up before they expire as fast as possible. If these tax credits are going away, let's go out with a bang. A lot of people, your friends, your family, maybe they've just been talking about solar. Well, help them get that contract signed. Maybe somebody's been thinking about an EV. A lot of people want to do the right thing, but they got other stuff going on in their lives. maybe this is a deadline to help make a lot of progress fast. And if you jump on the bandwagon, be sure you tell your friends and neighbors about it. We can make this a collective effort that flies in the face of what this administration is trying to do to climate progress in America. In our next episode, we'll be talking to Bill McKibben about a big day of action coming up called Sunday happening on September 21st. It's an opportunity to learn more about putting solar on your roof or an EV in your driveway or a heat pump in your garage by checking out what your neighbors are doing and organizing with your friends. If you want to get involved, you can go to sunday.earth and then tune in to our next episode. A Matter of Degrees is co-hosted by me, Dr. Leah Stokes. And me, Dr. Katherine Wilkinson. We are a production made in partnership with the 2035 Initiative at UC Santa Barbara and the All We Can Save Project. Thanks to our funders and supporters who make this show possible, including the 11th Hour Project. Special thanks to Fossil Free Media and the Make Polluters Pay campaign, which is working to hold big oil accountable for the damage they're doing to our climate and our communities. Find out more at makepolluterspay.net. Additional music came from Blue Dot Sessions and Epidemic Sound. You can find us online at degreespod.com and on YouTube. And stay tuned for more stories for the climate curious. I've had an EV, I think, since 2017, and I can count the amount of maintenance stops I've had to do on one hand. It's something like a window. I can't even remember what I had to fix, honestly, so this is not helpful. It's riveting. But it's basically nothing. never breaks. Leah is grasping for a story. No, but true, because it doesn't break. So there's like, it's a non-story.
