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President Biden once promised to lift up American workers by creating good jobs in clean energy. The U.S. committed a lot of money to that. President Trump's distaste for renewables scrambled that plan, but the effort is still alive in Illinois. NPR's Andrea Hsu reports from Chicago.
ANDREA HSU, BYLINE: Asante McKinney's first job out of school was as a dental assistant. For a while, she thought, this might be my calling.
ASANTE MCKINNEY: I enjoyed it. Like I always tell people, good health starts at the mouth.
HSU: But in the back of her mind lingered a long-held dream - getting into the skilled trades.
MCKINNEY: You know, they say that's hard labor, but I like to use my hands. I like thinking. I just didn't know how to go about doing it until I found HIRE360.
HSU: HIRE360. That's a nonprofit that recruits people from underserved communities for good-paying jobs in construction. I meet McKinney inside their training center, a converted warehouse. Through a nine-week program, she refreshed her math skills, earned safety certifications and landed a spot as a trainee with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Already, she's on job sites installing high-voltage wiring.
MCKINNEY: I'm very hands-on - more than what I thought I would be allowed to be, which is really good for me.
HSU: Now McKinney is hoping, striving for a career as a union electrician, and she has the state's backing. In 2021, Illinois passed the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act, a landmark bill talked about as a model for the country. It set a goal for Illinois to get to 100% clean energy by 2050 with a workforce that includes those deemed equity-eligible. That includes people like McKinney, who live in communities that have long faced discrimination and heavy pollution. Pat Devaney of the Illinois AFL-CIO took part in negotiations.
PAT DEVANEY: So equity and making sure our workforce was diverse around clean energy was very much a top priority of labor.
HSU: If that sounds familiar, it's because the Biden administration would later advance those same goals. The administration allocated billions of dollars in federal grants and clean energy tax credits to encourage contractors to use union labor and seek a diverse talent pool. The hope was those incentives would create millions of middle-class jobs, but President Trump isn't a fan.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It's a green new scam, greatest scam in history - the greatest in history.
HSU: So now tax credits for wind and solar projects are getting phased out within a few years - far sooner than planned - and the vision for pulling historically disadvantaged workers into clean energy jobs has gotten murky. In a statement to NPR, White House spokesman Kush Desai wrote, instead of DEI boondoggles that accomplish nothing, the Trump administration is laying the groundwork for Americans of all backgrounds to help build our next golden age. Still, in Illinois, Pat Devaney says the work is getting results.
DEVANEY: I don't see Illinois changing course one bit in how we're approaching renewable investments, climate change, and certainly how we approach DEI and promoting diversity in our workforce.
HSU: He says Illinois is still pouring hundreds of millions of dollars of its own into the transition to clean energy. The problem is, contractors were anticipating those generous federal tax credits on top of state investments. Devaney fears the early sunsetting of those tax credits will lead contractors to cancel planned projects, costing Illinois tens of thousands of jobs. What's more, they may not plan new projects.
DEVANEY: I still don't think people can wrap their mind around the massive amounts of investments that they were going to make and the positive impact that was going to have on our country in terms of job creation.
HSU: Now, not everything has come to a screeching halt. In fact, right now there's a rush to get renewable projects going while the tax credits are still available. Asante McKinney is excited about her new career and what it will mean for her family. She and her wife live on the south side of Chicago with their 2-year-old son.
MCKINNEY: You know, he's an amazing kid, but I always ask myself, can I see my son walking to school from over here? No.
HSU: She's already imagining the day when she can buy a house elsewhere.
MCKINNEY: That was a big part of why I wanted to get into the trades - is for better living.
HSU: And also to be able to point to projects and tell her son, I had something to do with that.
Andrea Hsu, NPR News, Chicago. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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