Six State Priorities to Get Clean Energy Wins

This policy brief by RMI outlines six strategic priorities for U.S. states to optimize federal funding and accelerate clean energy deployment following the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). The document emphasizes the urgency of acting before federal incentives phase out, focusing on fleet electrification, permitting and interconnection reform, financial gap filling, energy affordability, home energy rebates, and cleantech manufacturing innovation.

• States are urged to immediately convert public and private fleets to electric vehicles (EVs) because federal tax credits for EVs are set to expire on September 30, 2025.
• Urgent permitting and interconnection reforms are needed because energy tax credits for solar and wind projects will be unavailable for those starting construction after July 2026 and placed in service after December 31, 2027. Currently, over 2,600 gigawatts of clean energy projects are delayed in interconnection queues, which is more than double the current electricity generating capacity in the United States.
• To fill financial gaps without large ongoing budget commitments, states can utilize public-private partnerships through 'green banks' or state energy financing institutions (SEFIs), and implement aggregate purchasing of equipment and installations, which can reduce costs by 10 to 40 percent.
• States should prioritize energy affordability to combat rising costs caused by wildfires, natural gas price volatility, and perverse utility incentives. Recommended actions include implementing utility cost controls, supporting efficiency and solar/storage systems, and removing unnecessary 'riders' from bills.
• States are encouraged to attract cleantech manufacturing and innovation in areas such as new battery technologies, virtual power plants (VPPs) with AI management, grid enhancing technologies (GETs), geologic hydrogen exploration, and solid state cooling.

APA

RMI (2025). Six State Priorities to Get Clean Energy Wins. https://rmi.org/resources/six-state-priorities-to-get-clean-energy-wins/

Chicago

RMI. Six State Priorities to Get Clean Energy Wins. 2025. https://rmi.org/resources/six-state-priorities-to-get-clean-energy-wins/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=RMI |title=Six State Priorities to Get Clean Energy Wins |date=4 August 2025 |url=https://rmi.org/resources/six-state-priorities-to-get-clean-energy-wins/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{rmi2025six, author = {{RMI}}, title = {{Six State Priorities to Get Clean Energy Wins}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2025}, month = aug, url = {https://rmi.org/resources/six-state-priorities-to-get-clean-energy-wins/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }