Mike Hersh, PDA Communications Director

Mike’s views are his own, and do not represent PDA’s official positions

What the Trump regime will do to us, unless we vote in a massive Blue wave

In February, the EPA repealed the endangerment finding, the legal foundation for regulating climate pollution. The agency has cut nearly 23 percent of its staff and eliminated its main research arm. Trump’s so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” ended Electric Vehicle tax credits and phased out wind and solar credits. Who knows what they’d do in the next two years?

The BlueGreen Alliance counts about $83 billion in canceled or delayed clean energy and manufacturing projects. The administration also clawed back $7 billion from Solar for All and tried to halt offshore wind, wasting time and resources while losing again and again in court.

Since the Iran war began, gasoline has topped $4 a gallon, up 29 percent from last year, and an estimated $100 billion in extra fuel costs for American consumers. Meanwhile clean, renewable energy gets more affordable every day.

Vote to stop subsidizing dirty energy and invest in clean energy instead

Oil Change International estimates we waste at least $34.8 billion a year in federal fossil fuel subsidies. That’s not even counting the harm to our health, climate, and environment. Our addiction to dirty energy costs us even more in lives and dollars. 

Clean wind and solar energy keeps getting more efficient, reliable, and affordable all the time. Even as dirty energy keeps getting more expensive and less reliable, especially when accounting for massive subsidies, tax breaks, guaranteed loans, etc. that prop up toxic and radioactive energy production, and limit any and all new construction of data centers.

Bipartisan support for nuclear power is a problem, but Trump’s unhinged war on clean energy and the Republicans’ fanatical and stubborn support for massive resource-hungry data centers are already forcing us toward a dangerously radioactive and toxic future. Unless we vote to stop them.

Instead of letting them continue endangering our lives and health, and raiding our bank accounts, we must vote to control data centers. We must vote for Democrats who will force them to pay their own way, and run on 100% clean, renewable power.

Nukes are a non-starter.

Georgia’s Plant Vogtle finished seven years late at $36.8 billion, against roughly $14 billion expected and drove up residential utility rates by more than 20 percent. New nukes will cost exorbitant amounts of money to build and operate. We can’t afford them and we don’t need them anyway.

At Michigan’s Palisades nuclear plant, a fuel assembly tipped over putting the restart is on hold. If it resumes operations, some experts fear it will break down, risking irradiating the surrounding region including Lake Michigan. Costs of such an accident is incalculable, but we’d have to pay most of them. Under the Price-Anderson Act, the nuclear industry is liable for only a small percentage of the costs of any catastrophe. For context, damages from the Fukushima nuclear fiasco topped $90 billion.

The infamous Three Mile Island, home of the 1979 meltdown, and other nuclear plants are planned in order to feed the insatiable hunger of massive new data centers. Data centers are already hitting us hard financially and adversely impacting our quality of life by depleting water, noxious pollution, loud noise, and more. For  example: Ratepayers across the PJM grid are paying $9.3 billion more in a single year because of data center demand, about $16 a month more in Ohio. 

Some oligarchs are planning mega data centers that dwarf entire cities in size as well as demands on resources. We can’t afford these leviathans. We must vote against all the Republicans on the ballot to halt new construction and ensure we effectively regulate existing data centers.

To friends on the left, center, and right—including independent and swing voters

Grievances with many elected Democrats are important. Too many fossil fuel permits, an “all of the above” energy policy that goes easy on polluters, too little action to control data centers and dirty energy. Those are all legitimate concerns. We will keep pushing Democrats on every one of these issues and more.

Trump promised you lower costs. Is your electric bill lower? Are you feeling pain at the gas pump? Do you trust a gutted EPA to keep your kids’ and grandkid’s water and air safe? Why does Trump continue to surrender progress on clean energy to our rivals like China when clean energy means good, well-paying jobs. Sen. Jon Ossoff’s solar law brought $2.5 billion and 2,500 jobs to Georgia, but Trump’s cuts put 42,000 clean energy jobs at risk.

Thanks to Trump’s folly, we’re falling further and further behind China and other rivals in exciting expanding new sectors we need to remain economically competitive. Every solar panel or wind turbine factory Trump and Republicans cancel or close, every clean energy innovation they block, and every emerging new industry they defund, is one our rivals will build or develop instead. We can’t afford this backwards thinking.

We can pressure and move an “all of the above” Democrat toward better policies, but we cannot expect anything reasonable from science-denying, climate disaster accelerating extremists like Trump and his cult of Trumpists. This is a do-or-die crisis for our environment, our climate, and our democratic republic. 

An unfettered Trump and lockstep Republicans would continue to threaten our way of life and could do permanent damage. This is not the time to use your vote to register disapproval. Your vote is too important to sit out this election or use it as a protest. 

Right after the election, Progressive Democrats of America will you ask for your help demanding people-first policies from the new Congress, but before that we need to elect a Democratic majority and Democratic officials at every level. We must defeat every single Republican candidate up and down the ballot. We have no other choice.

Where your vote counts most—everywhere!

Who will control the U.S. Senate? Sherrod Brown in Ohio, Jon Ossoff in Georgia, Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, Josh Turek in Iowa, and Angie Nixon in Florida are running against an array of Republicans from Trump enablers to outright crooks and far right wing extremists. 

In Texas, James Talarico faces the comically corrupt Ken Paxton, who as attorney general repeatedly sued the EPA over clean air and climate rules. In Maine, Troy Jackson faces Susan Collins, who scored just 31 percent on the League of Conservation Voters’ 2025 scorecard and loyally supports Trump whenever needed.

Your vote in state and local elections matters too.

In Ohio’s governor’s race, Amy Acton faces Vivek Ramaswamy, who joined Elon Musk’s DOGE attacking environmental protection. That was before even Elon Musk found him too extreme and erratic to work with. Ramaswamy’s campaign paid $4 million to re-traumatize child sex abuse survivors, and his disgusting tactics won praise from Trump, J.D. Vance and other hateful abuse enablers.

Attorneys general like Minnesota’s Keith Ellison do a lot of good, fighting for all of us. He sued ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, and the American Petroleum Institute for their climate deception. If and when he’s reelected, he can and will work with other Democratic AGs to hold reckless and negligent corporations accountable for the damage they do, and deter further destructive policies.

Vote Like Your Air, Your Water, and Our Planet Depend on It

Those are just a few key contests. Many House, governor, state, and local races are competitive too. We need huge Democratic majorities in Congress and state legislatures, as well as Democratic governors, attorneys general, and others to rebalance power and rein in the Trump regime’s reckless and malicious abuses. 

As mentioned, we won’t agree with everything any Democratic candidate says or does, but we can’t let that stop us from acting decisively to protect our climate, our environment, and our planet’s future. 

Immediately after the election, Progressive Democrats of America will step up our organizing with our allies to demand the environmental policies we need to survive. For now, we have no choice but to vote out as many Trumpist extremists as possible, and replace every one of them with a Democrat. Vote for and work to elect all Democrats as if our lives depend on it. Because they do.

For more information see:

• EIA weekly gasoline and diesel prices (government data)
• IEEFA: data centers and PJM capacity prices
• Grist: new fossil fuel subsidies in the megabill
• Inside Climate News: what Vogtle cost Georgia ratepayers
• Beyond Nuclear: the Price-Anderson Act renewal
• The National: Palisades reactor incident
• PBS NewsHour: EPA staff cuts and the end of its research office