U.S. Reps. Adriano Espaillat and Nydia Velazquez, both New York Democrats, speak to the media opposite the Jacob K. Javitz Federal Building, where they unsuccessfully attempted to gain access to Immigration and Customs Enforcement holding facilities to observe on June 8, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Adam Gray/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The massive tax and spending cuts package signed into law by President Donald Trump earlier this month will affect not only Latinos using federal safety net programs but also those living in communities vulnerable to environmental pollution, Democrats and advocates said during a Tuesday virtual press conference.

The president’s domestic policy agenda bill that congressional Republicans passed without Democrats’ approval, through a process known as reconciliation, made permanent the 2017 tax cuts and provided billions of dollars for immigration enforcement by cutting funds for clean energy, environmental justice grants, food assistance and Medicaid, a health care insurance program for low-income people.

The bill will add $3.394 trillion to deficits during the next decade and lead 10 million people to lose access to health insurance, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Adriano Espaillat, Democrat of New York, said the bill passed through reconciliation reduces spending on “Medicaid dramatically and (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) dramatically.”

He said Democrats in their messaging should focus on the changes coming for Medicaid and how the cuts will impact people across the United States. Republicans’ numerous changes to health programs, predominantly Medicaid, will reduce federal spending during the next decade by $1.058 trillion.

“It’s really a conversation about life and death, because if you’re on Medicaid and now they’re cutting your benefits, the treatment that you receive to save your life could be in jeopardy,” Espaillat said. 

Rural hospitals and Latinos

Rep. Raul Ruiz, a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said the cuts to Medicaid are “devastating,” especially to hospitals in rural communities.

“First, what hospitals will do is they will close services that aren’t the money-making services for a hospital, like pediatrics, labor delivery and mental health, and then beyond that, they’ll eventually just close their hospital,” said the California Democrat, a former emergency room doctor.

“This is devastating because usually these rural hospitals serve a high Latino population, medically underserved, resource-poor areas,” Ruiz said. “If you have a medical emergency and you don’t have a local emergency department or hospital to go to, chances of your survivability during an emergency greatly drops.”

Antonieta Cádiz, the executive director of Climate Power En Acción, said that most of those effects, such as new reporting requirements for Medicaid patients that could result in people losing coverage, won’t be felt until after the midterm elections in 2026, when those changes go into effect.

Climate Power En Acción is an arm of the clean energy advocacy group Climate Power that focuses on reaching out to Latinos about the impacts of climate change.

$170 billion for immigration crackdown

Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of the immigration advocacy group America’s Voice, said the bill will also affect Latino communities because of its more than $170 billion increase for immigration enforcement.

She said Democrats should lean into immigration policy and push back against the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown and plans for mass deportations.

“Democrats need to take this opportunity and need to be able to bring people in to share in their vision of what a functional immigration system is,” she said. “It is very frustrating that we are not seeing again, more Democrats really leaning in on this issue.”

Espaillat acknowledged that Democrats’ communication strategy on immigration “has been one of our weaknesses.”

“We at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus have done a good job at first, exposing the inequities and irregularities and discriminatory practices of immigration to the degree that now we’re seeing,” he said.

“In addition to that, I think it’s important that we message on Medicaid …  SNAP, and then, of course, environmental justice is one that’s also a real path for which we are working on having a very structured and disciplined message,” Espaillat continued.

Higher energy bills

Cádiz said the bill Republicans passed will lead to a loss of clean energy jobs and it also lessens incentives for energy efficient appliances, which will lead to higher energy bills for Latinos. Compared to the average U.S. family, Latino households pay roughly 20% more in energy costs, according to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.

“It guts clean energy programs crucial for savings amid rising heat and energy demand, leaving us with higher bills,” she said of the bill. “This is a direct attack on Latino families, workers and every person struggling with rising costs to meet essential needs.”

She added that environmental justice grants totaling $300 million were eliminated, while roughly 15 million Latinos live in communities with high levels of air pollution.

Espaillat said that the cuts to clean energy programs provided by the Biden administration’s massive climate and clean energy bill, which also passed through the process of reconciliation but under Democratic control, benefited local communities.

“Now there’s going to be a major disinvestment for these programs,” he said. 

 

The roof of the Hotel Verdant in Downtown Racine received federal tax credits for installing solar panels. Labor and environmental advocates are attacking the Congressional Republicans' tax cut megabill for rolling back clean energy programs enacted in the Biden administration. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

The tax cut megabill in Congress with a historic rollback on Medicaid also includes provisions reversing U.S. clean energy policies, advocates warned Wednesday, harming not only the environment but the economy.

“This legislation will kill economic growth and jobs, raise energy prices, and cede clean energy technology manufacturing to other countries,” said Carly Ebben Eaton, Wisconsin Policy Manager for the Blue Green Alliance, a coalition of labor unions and environmental groups.

Eaton took part in two online news conferences Wednesday to draw attention to the federal budget reconciliation bill and its repeal of key portions of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.

The budget bill has been the top priority of the Republican majority in Congress as well as the administration of President Donald Trump. It was drawn up to extend tax cuts enacted in 2017 during Trump’s first term that will expire at the end of 2025.

The package returned to the U.S. House for final action after a tied vote in the U.S. Senate that required Vice President JD Vance to pass the measure on Tuesday.

Steep cuts to Medicaid and federal nutrition programs have drawn the most attention during debate on the bill, along with the Congressional Budget Office finding that the wealthiest taxpayers will benefit most from its tax cuts.

The bill also includes measures that would undo several provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), one of the signature pieces of legislation enacted during President Joe Biden’s four years in office. After its passage the act was lauded by environmental advocates for provisions to address climate change by encouraging clean energy through tax credits as well as federal investments.

The House version of the GOP bill “already dealt a serious blow to clean energy tax credits and investments,” Eaton said Wednesday, “but the Senate took it even further, doubling down on cuts that will cost jobs, stall progress and raise energy costs.”

Consumer, business renewable energy incentives

The IRA’s tax breaks were designed to encourage consumers to move to energy-efficient and clean energy appliances and vehicles and encourage utilities and other businesses to increase their use of renewable resources such as solar energy and wind power.

Eaton said Wednesday that clean energy tax credits are supporting more than $8.6 billion in private investments in Wisconsin.

Garrik Harwick, assistant business manager of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union Local 890 in Janesville, said that over the past three years more than 300 members have worked on solar projects in Southern Wisconsin. He spoke at a news conference with Eaton and several other union leaders.

The IRA tax breaks have encouraged those developments, Harwick said, and the investments have included increased apprenticeship slots, bringing in new trainees.

“These investments don’t just deliver clean energy,” Harwick added. “They create good paying union jobs that strengthen our local communities.”

He warned that repealing the tax credit will likely reduce the use of clean energy technologies and increase energy costs by 6% for homeowners and more than 9% for business customers.

The IRA’s provisions that encouraged apprenticeships helped “open doors that many didn’t even know existed,” said Andy Buck, government affairs director for the Wisconsin and Upper Michigan district of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades.

He said the union has added a number of jobs, including apprentices, installing energy-efficient glass in buildings on projects that were facilitated by the Inflation Reduction Act.

“When someone enters a registered apprenticeship program, they aren’t just learning a trade,” Buck said. “They’re building a career, gaining self-respect, and finding a path to a better life.”

Another provision of the 2022 law opened up tax credits for renewable energy to nonprofit organizations and government agencies, allowing them to receive direct payments to the federal government comparable to the value they’d receive from the tax credit if they paid taxes.

A new middle school being built in Menasha will include solar panels and energy storage, said Matt VanderPuy, a business agent for the Sheet Metal workers union in Sheboygan. The direct pay program will reimburse the district $3 million, he said, while the energy savings is projected at $190,000 per year.

“This is money that they can reinvest into the students, the teachers and the school district,” while saving on property taxes, VanderPuy said.

‘Very ugly impacts,’ says advocate

At another news conference, former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes observed that more than 90% of the jobs that IRA incentives helped create are in Republican congressional districts — although no Republicans in the state delegation voted for the bill. Barnes leads Forward Wisconsin, a nonprofit established during Biden’s term in the White House to inform people about the Biden administration’s infrastructure and climate investments and to defend them.

But business uncertainty this year, which Barnes blamed on GOP positions including Trump’s tariff executive orders, has led nationally to the cancellation of projects worth $15.5 billion, he said.

“The so-called big beautiful bill is going to have some very ugly impacts in Wisconsin, ripping away tax incentives for wind and solar farms, for rooftop solar, for farm sustainability programs, for clean cars and school buses,” said Amy Barrilleaux, communications director for Clean Wisconsin, at the event with Barnes. “And giving more tax breaks to big oil and gas companies does absolutely nothing to create jobs here or any opportunities here — it’s a gift to big oil at the expense of Wisconsin families and at the expense of our environment.”

Heather Allen, policy director for Elevate, an energy efficiency nonprofit, said as many as 11,000 clean energy and manufacturing jobs in Wisconsin could be at risk.

Plans for a $2.5 billion network of electric vehicle charging stations in the state have stalled, Allen said, and Wisconsin manufacturers that would have supplied components “are going to lose that opportunity now.”

“This legislation is going to strangle our solar businesses with red tape,” Allen said. “What you have here is an attack on small businesses that are delivering clean energy solutions to help families save money on their energy bills. And that includes solar installers, but it also includes other home energy contractors, other construction jobs.”

In four recent polls, a majority of those surveyed disapproved of the Republicans’  megabill — making it “more unpopular than any piece of major legislation that’s been passed since at least 1990,” Barnes said.

At the labor news conference, Emily Pritzkow, the Wisconsin Building Trades Council executive director, said advocates are urging people to contact their members of Congress.

“The polling on this is abysmal, and as long as people continue to call and deliver that message , that is what we need to do right now,” Pritzkow said. “Now is the time to weigh in, not once it’s coming to your front door, impacting you, your community, and people you care about.”

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