The Numbers Game

A contentious energy debate rages between clean and lean

A breaking announcement from the EPA compounded an already strained situation this week when EPA administrator Lee Zeldin announced Thursday that his branch plans to cancel roughly $7 billion worth of solar energy projects in the U.S.

This comes after a number of projects were reconsidered in 2025, sparking an argument in the energy sector that needed no kindling.

"Businesses canceled, closed, and scaled back more than $22 billion worth of new factories and clean energy projects in the first half of 2025 after cancelling another $6.7 billion in June alone," according to E2’s latest monthly analysis of clean energy projects tracked by E2 and the Clean Economy Tracker. E2 is a nonpartisan partner of the National Security Defense Council.

The latest wave of cancellations — affecting five battery, storage, and electric vehicle factories in Colorado, Indiana, Michigan, New York, and Oregon — follows growing uncertainty among businesses as Congress was making the final push to effectively end federal clean energy tax credits. More than 5,000 jobs were lost to the cancellations and scales backs in June, bringing the total number of jobs lost to abandoned projects in 2025 to 16,500, per E2's latest data.

June’s cancellations were led by major automakers scaling back electric vehicle production investments. General Motors cancelled a $4.3 billion plan to expand its Orion plant in Michigan to build new electric pickups and instead shift its investments there to build 8-cylinder gas vehicles. Additionally, Toyota scaled back a $2.2 billion plan to retool a manufacturing plant in Indiana that was going to build a new three-row electric SUV, consolidating production to its Georgetown, Kentucky plant instead.