The House and Senate reconciliation bills propose devastating cuts to federal climate and clean energy investment programs. These cuts would be especially harmful to Floridians living in a state that does not produce its own fossil fuels, and where the risk from extreme weather is growing fast, threatening further price increases to already-inflated utility, housing, and insurance costs.
Nationwide, estimates peg the total climate and energy cuts at over $500 billion. These cuts would effectively gut the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) passed by Congress in 2022, which, combined with the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, had already invested over $3.5 billion in Florida — with tens of billions more scheduled to come in the coming years. These programs — now at-risk — had just started to make investments designed to lower Floridians’ utility bills, improve resilience to flooding and extreme weather, and create more clean energy jobs. Should the reconciliation package go forward, tens of billions in federal investments and tax credits would be eliminated, driving up costs for individuals and businesses alike.
Here’s how the House and Senate proposals would impact Floridians:
1. Electricity prices would increase for Florida households and businesses, adding more price hikes to already-inflated utility bills.
Repealing the IRA clean energy tax credits would raise electricity prices by more than $110 per year for American households starting next year — and this is on top of significant rate hikes investor-owned utilities (IOUs) Tampa Electric Company (TECO), Florida Power & Light (FPL), and Duke Energy Florida have implemented since 2022.
Florida's IOUs provide electricity to 75 percent of Floridians. Since 2020, the three largest IOUs have increased utility rates by 43 to 74 percent. The House and Senate proposals would drive utility costs even higher. (See Figure 1 and Table 1.)
Imported natural gas, which supplies 78 percent of Florida’s energy market, has been the main driver of recent utility rate increases. From 2014 to 2020, natural gas prices were relatively stable; however, they spiked sharply in 2021 and 2022 and have remained volatile since. In response, average utility bills for investor-owned and municipal utilities surged in 2022 and 2023 and have remained elevated. The House and Senate proposals would eliminate the subsidies, credits, and investments aimed at transitioning Florida’s energy system away from costly imported gas toward more affordable, locally generated clean energy.
Florida’s solar production has skyrocketed in recent years, even as natural gas imports have grown, growing from less than 1 percent of Florida’s energy mix in 2017 to over 7 percent in 2025. Wind and solar are now the cheapest forms of energy to produce and the fastest-growing energy sources nationwide. Unfortunately, both the House and Senate proposals would gut tax credits that, for example, cover more than 30 percent of the cost for individuals, churches, schools, utilities, and other Florida entities to begin generating solar energy — tax credits that could insulate homes and communities from continued IOU rate increases. As a result of the cuts, Florida’s utilities sector alone could lose $29 billion in direct investment. The proposals would also eliminate dozens of grant programs aimed at lowering household energy costs and expanding rooftop solar in low-income communities — including programs that have already directed hundreds of millions of dollars to Florida utilities such as Seminole Electric Cooperative.
Duke Energy Florida reported in its recent rate case that it planned to use $50 million of federal clean energy tax credits to offset a rate increase in 2027, offering a clear demonstration of the way in which the credits would be passed along as cost savings to residents.
Finally, the state continues to sit on $346 million in IRA funds designated explicitly for low-income homeowners to address their growing energy burdens through energy efficiency upgrades. These funds would likely be returned to the federal government.
2. Schools would lose out on a significant opportunity to lower energy costs, exacerbating the school funding crisis.
The House and Senate bills would rescind unobligated funds from all new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) programs established under the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, including unspent funds in the EPA Clean School Bus Program, which awarded 12 Florida school districts $106.1 million for new fleets of electric, air-conditioned school buses. Countless other districts utilized clean electricity tax credits to reduce their electricity bills, thereby driving cost savings back into the school district.
After the Senate released its bill, the Senate parliamentarian ruled these clawbacks in violation of the Byrd rule, potentially stymying efforts to claw back funding appropriated by the IRA. However, the Administration continues to sit on — and explore ways to eliminate — $3.3 billion in unspent funds from the Clean School Bus program.
Dixie County in North Central Florida received a fleet of 23 new electric school buses along with funding for a charging station. Not only were these buses funded by the federal government, but they also featured air conditioning, a feature that most diesel-powered school buses lack. Thirty-seven children, on average, die each year of vehicular heat stroke, and extreme heat also negatively impacts school engagement and achievement. Moreover, the school buses will also now power the cooling systems in recreational centers and storm shelters during power outages and hurricanes, which is particularly important in a county where three hurricanes have struck in less than two years.
Already reeling from a $4 billion shortfall due to the state’s voucher expansion, cash-strapped public schools, which rely on clean energy tax credits, clean school bus grants, and energy efficiency funding to lower energy costs — their largest expense after teacher salaries — would face significant economic setbacks under the House and Senate reconciliation bills.
3. Homeowners would lose $1 billion per year in rooftop solar and energy efficiency tax credits. Individuals and local governments would lose much-needed funding for storm resilience.
The House and Senate proposals would cut programs to protect coastal communities from extreme weather impacts, phase out energy efficiency and clean energy tax credits, and eliminate funding to restore urban tree canopies and implement nature-based solutions that insulate communities from hotter, wetter storms that have inundated Florida homes and communities in recent years — and driven up insurance rates.
Florida homeowners received just under $1 billion in clean energy, clean vehicle, and energy efficiency home improvement tax credits in 2023 (2024 data has not yet been made available by the IRS). These tax credits have been in place since 2005 when George W. Bush established the Residential Energy Efficient Property tax credit, and were expanded by the Inflation Reduction Act. These tax credits subsidize improvements that decrease utility (by improving efficiency and subsidizing rooftop solar) and insurance costs (by subsidizing the cost of more efficient coastal impact windows and other mitigation measures that can lower rates). The Senate proposal would eliminate the rooftop solar credit 180 days after the bill is enacted.
The proposed cuts by the House and Senate reconciliation bills would exacerbate recent federal funding cuts for disaster recovery and home repair, including $292 million in cuts this year to flood mitigation and storm resilience projects across the state. This includes $144 million for the South Florida Water Management District to address flooding challenges in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties.
To make matters worse for disaster-prone states like Florida, the Trump administration has announced plans to wind down the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) by the end of the year and cut the funding states rely on for disaster recovery. Since 2015, Florida has received $14.3 billion from FEMA—more than any other state. FEMA typically covers 75 percent of recovery costs when a federal disaster is declared. But that's only part of the support now at risk. FEMA also provides funding for mitigation and long-term recovery. For example, it allocated $400 million to the Elevate Florida program, which pays for 75 percent of the cost to raise homes in flood-prone areas that have sustained at least one loss covered by the National Flood Insurance Program. In addition, the state received $4.1 billion from the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Disaster Recovery program to address damage from the 2023 and 2024 storms, with about half of that amount dedicated to home repairs.
Other cuts in the House and Senate bills target the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Coastal Communities and Climate Resilience Program and the Department of Agriculture’s Urban and Community Forestry Program. Both of these programs are focused on making America’s communities more resilient to extreme weather. NOAA invested tens of millions in coastline projects to address flooding and hurricane risks, while the Urban Forestry Program invested millions in restoring urban tree canopies to address flooding and extreme heat.
NOAA also operates the National Weather Service (NWS), which is responsible for issuing daily weather forecasts, severe storm warnings, and monitoring climate conditions. So far this year, the Trump administration has cut 600 jobs from the NWS. Local meteorologists have raised alarm going into Hurricane Season that NWS forecasts may be less timely and reliable.
