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The order reiterates measures included in the recently passed budget reconciliation bill, leading renewable energy advocates to question its significance. By Dan Gearino for Inside Climate News President Donald Trump issued an executive order on July 7 that he said will “end taxpayer support for unaffordable and unreliable ‘green’ energy sources” such as wind and solar. But it’s not clear whether the order will have much of an effect other than to underscore the president’s antipathy for those power sources. Some observers speculate this action is fulfilling a promise to hardline conservative House members in order to win their votes last week for the massive budget reconciliation bill. The order is titled “Ending Market Distorting Subsidies for Unreliable Foreign Controlled Energy Sources.” It directs the Treasury department to “strictly enforce the termination of the clean electricity production and investment tax credits” as specified by the bill. Related | Trump thinks ‘windmills are killing our country’—yes, really The legislation, called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Trump signed on July 4, says that projects must begin construction by mid-2026 or be placed in service by the end of 2027. This is a rapid phaseout compared to the previous law that had a phaseout that was to begin in 2032. The executive order advises the Treasury department to allow no wiggle room on the new deadlines. It also says the department must take prompt action to follow the bill’s new limits on tax credits going to entities with ties to China. In addition, it says the Department of the Interior must revise any policies or practices that give solar and wind power preferential treatment compared to other energy sources. A solar array atop a parking structure in Scottsdale, Ariz., in Jan. 2015. The Treasury and Interior departments also must make reports within 45 days about how they are complying with the order. Analysts, lawmakers and officials from renewable energy industry groups had mixed reactions about the significance of the order. But they do not downplay the effects of the bill that has become law. It is a gutting of incentives from President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act that will reduce federal government support for renewable energy, electric vehicles and manufacturing of those products and related components. The result, according to reports from Rhodium Group, Princeton University’s REPEAT Project, the think tank Energy Innovation and the Clean Energy Buyers Association, is likely to be a decrease in U.S. jobs and an increase in electricity prices. And yet, the executive order is likely to have minimal additional effect, said Pavel Molchanov, a managing director for the investment firm Raymond James. “Contrary to the EO’s headline, the EO does not abolish any tax credits,” he said in an email. “To state the obvious, only Congress can change tax law—which, in fact, is what Congress did last week via the budgetary megabill.” He expects little or no practical effect from the Interior department provision “It is worth noting that, under the Federal Power Act, the government cannot favor one type of power generation over another,” he said. “Thus, the EO simply restates existing law in that regard.” Derrick Flakoll, a senior policy associate for BloombergNEF, sees much greater potential for harm to the wind and solar industries. “It’s a big deal, but how big a deal it is we don’t know,” he said. He explained that the order is attempting to create uncertainty around the 2026 deadline, which is a crucial deadline for projects to have a smooth path to qualifying for tax credits. “It could push a lot of projects out of eligibility or into such an uncertain state of eligibility that it becomes hard to build and finance them,” he said. Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association, offered this statement: “This executive order appears to target long-standing and well-established tax standards that allow for realistic financing timelines for all sorts of energy projects—including solar, wind, carbon capture and hydrogen projects,” she said. “We will continue to make the case that business certainty, predictability, and even-handedness are bedrocks of federal policy that cannot be undone by the stroke of a pen. We expect the Treasury Department to follow the law.” Datawrapper Content Rep. Sean Casten (D-Illinois), who has a background running clean energy businesses, said the order is about helping the market for fossil fuels by harming competing sources of electricity. “Donald Trump doesn’t hate renewable energy because it is clean,” he said in an email. “He hates it because it’s cheap. His latest executive orders are about making it harder for Americans to access cheap and reliable energy to ensure he keeps profits up for his friends in the fossil fuel industry.” Taylor Rogers, an assistant press secretary for Trump, pushed back on concerns that the president’s actions would lead to higher energy prices. “No one takes disingenuous cost concerns seriously from ‘clean energy’ groups that supported a $200 billion tax hike on the American people to fund the Green New Scam,” she said. “The One Big Beautiful Bill will continue to unleash America’s energy industry, dropping electricity costs that increased dramatically due to Joe Biden’s climate agenda.” She listed the many aspects of the bill that increase oil and gas production and reduce regulations, which she said will cut costs for consumers. Her response to questions did not include any comment about whether the executive order was part of a commitment made to Congressional Republicans. The budget bill passed the House on Friday, 218-214, with all Democrats and two Republicans voting against it. Several fiscally conservative House members initially balked at the spending levels in the bill, but most of them ended up voting for it after meeting with Trump. Related | We’re getting coal, whether we want it or not Asked about how Trump had earned their votes, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) told CNBC on Friday that the president had told members he would use executive powers to stop renewable energy sources from being able to use subsidies. “A lot of these subsidies won’t

One of the most complex current issues in sports can be traced back to a track meet in Germany in 2009, when an unknown 18-year-old from South Africa blew away a field of the best female runners on the planet to win the world title. The teenager was hardly out of breath when she flexed her muscles at the end of it. What quickly became clear is that sports faced an unprecedented dilemma with the arrival of Caster Semenya. Caster Semenya sits in the European Court of Human Rights before its decision over sex eligibility rules in sports on July 10 in Strasbourg, eastern France. Now a two-time Olympic and three-time world champion in the 800 meters, the 34-year-old Semenya has been banned from competing in her favored event since 2019 by a set of rules that were crafted by track authorities because of her dominance. They say her natural testosterone level is much higher than the typical female range and should be medically reduced for her to compete fairly against other women. Semenya has refused to artificially alter her hormones and challenged the rules claiming discrimination at the Court of Arbitration for Sport court in Switzerland, then the Swiss Supreme Court and now the European Court of Human Rights. A ruling Thursday by the highest chamber of the European court — Semenya’s last legal avenue after losing at the other two — found that she was denied a fair hearing at the Swiss Supreme Court. It kept alive Semenya’s case and reignited a yearslong battle involving individual rights on one hand and the perception of fairness in sports on the other, with implications across the sporting world. A complex issue Semenya is not transgender and her case has sometimes been inaccurately conflated with that of transgender athletes. She was assigned female at birth, raised as a girl and has always identified as female. After years of secrecy because of medical confidentiality, it was made public in 2018 that she has one of a number of conditions known as differences of sex development, or DSDs. They are sometimes known as intersex conditions. Semenya was born with the typical male XY chromosome pattern and female physical traits. Her condition leads to her having testosterone levels that are higher than the typical female range. Caster Semenya competes in the Women’s 800m race during the Prefontaine Classic in Stanford, Calif., in June 2019. World Athletics, the track governing body, says that gives her an unfair, male-like advantage when racing against other women because of testosterone’s link to muscle mass and cardiovascular performance. It says Semenya and a relatively small number of other DSD athletes who emerged after her must suppress their testosterone to below a specific level to compete in women’s competitions. The case has transcended sports and reached Europe’s top rights court largely because of its core dispute: Semenya says the sports rules restrict the rights she has always known as a woman in every other facet of life and mean she can’t practice her profession. World Athletics has asserted that Semenya is “biologically male.” How the rules work Track and field’s regulations depend on the conclusion that higher testosterone gives rise to an athletic advantage, though that has been challenged in just one of the many complicated details of Semenya’s case. To follow the rules, DSD athletes must suppress their testosterone to below a threshold that World Athletics says will put them in the typical female range. Athletes do that by taking daily contraceptive pills or using hormone-blocking injections and it’s checked through regular blood tests. Track first introduced a version of its testosterone regulations in 2011 in response to Semenya and has made them stricter over the years. The current rules require athletes affected to reduce their testosterone for at least two years before competing and throughout competitions, effectively meaning elite DSD runners would be constantly on medication to stay eligible for the biggest events like the Olympics and world championships. That has troubled medical experts and ethicists, who have questioned the “off-label” use of birth control pills for the purpose of sports eligibility. Semenya is not alone While Semenya is the only athlete currently challenging the regulations, three other women who have won Olympic medals — Francine Niyonsaba of Burundi, Margaret Wambui of Kenya and Christine Mboma of Namibia — have also been sidelined by the rules. The issue came to a head at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, when Semenya, Niyonsaba and Wambui won the gold, silver and bronze medals in the 800 meters when the rules were temporarily suspended. Supporters of the ban cited that result as evidence they had an insurmountable advantage over other women. World Athletics is now considering a total ban on DSD athletes like Semenya. Its president, Sebastian Coe, said in 2023 that up to 13 women in elite track and field fell under the rules without naming them. What Thursday’s decision means Caster Semenya and her lawyers on July 10 after their partial victory at the European Court of Human Rights in her seven-year legal fight against track and field’s sex eligibility rules. Track’s DSD rules became a blueprint for other sports like swimming, another high-profile Olympic code that has regulations. Soccer is considering testosterone rules in women’s competitions. Sex eligibility is a burning issue for the International Olympic Committee and new president, Kirsty Coventry, who was elected in March. It was brought into urgent focus for the IOC after a sex eligibility scandal erupted at last year’s Paris Olympics over female boxers Imane Khelif of Algeria and Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan. Most sports will watch the direction of Semenya’s case closely as it is sent back to the Swiss Supreme Court, and possibly to sport’s highest court, even though that could take years. The ultimate outcome — whether a victory for Semenya or for World Athletics — would set a definitive precedent for sports because there has never been a case like it.