WASHINGTON — Long Island’s growing clean energy industry is at the center of a push by Reps. Andrew Garbarino and Nick LaLota to preserve Biden-era clean energy tax credits that would be phased out under the sweeping budget bill making its way through Congress.

Garbarino (R-Bayport) and LaLota (R-Amityville) recently urged Senate Republicans in a letter signed with 11 other House Republicans to make substantive changes to the provisions of the megabill passed by the Republican House majority in May. The bill would roll back most of the clean energy tax credits passed by congressional Democrats in 2022.

"Since January, over $14 billion in energy projects have been canceled or delayed, with $4.5 billion scrapped in April alone," the lawmakers wrote in the letter. "Without a clear signal from Congress encouraging continued investments and offering business certainty as these provisions are phased out, project cancellations will continue to snowball."

Garbarino, in a phone interview with Newsday, said that abruptly ending the tax credits would jeopardize pending solar and wind energy projects throughout Long Island, including six major projects in New York’s 2nd Congressional District which he represents.

"We can't do the stuff that we need to do when it comes to AI [artificial intelligence], data centers, manufacturing, if you only focus on one source of energy," said Garbarino, who serves as co-chair of the bipartisan House Climate Solutions Caucus. "We need to have an all-of-the above approach that includes solar, that includes wind, that includes everything."

New York State has drawn more than $5.5 billion in investments for clean energy projects since the tax credits passed in 2022, according to figures compiled by Garbarino’s office.

Long Island leads the state in solar energy production, according to the most recent data available from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. Over the past 25 years, Suffolk has launched 56,637 solar energy projects, and Nassau has installed 36,270 projects during that time frame. Those numbers dwarf other suburban counties in the state, with Westchester County installing 14,574 during the same period.

Long Island is also home to three major wind farm projects — the operational South Fork Wind project 35 miles off Montauk Point, the Sunrise Wind project in development whose cable will make landfall at Smith Point in Brookhaven Town, and the Empire Wind project in development 14 miles south of Long Beach.

The Trump administration in April suspended work on the Empire project, arguing that it was "rushed through" by the Biden administration. But in June the administration allowed work to resume after reaching an agreement with Gov. Kathy Hochul, who met with President Donald Trump at the White House to lobby on behalf of the project.

Garbarino said the alternative sources are necessary to help ease "the already strained grid that we have here in New York, especially when you have 100-degree days in the summer like we’re going to have here on Long Island."

LaLota (R-Amityville) said in an emailed statement to Newsday that "America’s energy future must include both American fossil fuels and renewables, with long-term certainty for developers to keep building in New York and nationwide."

He added that while he believes the clean energy sector "must eventually stand on their own without taxpayer subsidies, abruptly ending tax credits risks stalling the critical infrastructure our region and country need."

The tax credits were passed in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 — a massive bill of clean energy infrastructure projects and health care reforms that was shepherded by Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and passed by congressional Democrats who were then in the majority.

Schumer, in Senate floor speeches and news conferences, has repeatedly lashed out at congressional Republicans for attempting to eliminate the tax credits. He has also met with numerous clean energy industry leaders, urging them to call Senate Republicans to make the case for preserving the credits as both chambers look to pass a sweeping budget bill this summer stacked with Trump’s legislative priorities.

"The fight is far from over," Schumer said at a Monday news conference in Rochester, in front of a home that uses solar energy panels. "House Republicans' latest flip-flopping shows our pressure is working, and we have a real opportunity to get them to go back to the drawing board on this bill, and stop their attacks to totally eliminate these clean energy tax credits. And we are doing that by showing the real-world impacts, the jobs lost and lives devastated by their brutal cuts."

Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove), who voted for the Inflation Reduction Act, said abruptly ending the credits would cause private investors to pare back job-generating clean energy projects.

"Forget about the environmental issues, which I think are very important, this is a huge economic engine to make massive billions of dollars of investment in green energy projects. Now all this uncertainty is resulting in billions of dollars in projects being cut," Suozzi said.

Rep. Laura Gillen (D-Rockville Centre), who was elected last November, said in a statement to Newsday that "Gutting these clean energy tax credits will raise costs and hurt Long Islanders."

"I hope our GOP reps will stand strong for our region and vote against any legislation that contains these cuts when it comes back to the House," Gillen said.

The push to fully preserve the credits faces an uphill climb in both congressional chambers. Members of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus continue to assert they will vote against any bill that doesn't slash the credits, which they describe as a subsidy for "unreliable energy." In the Senate, several fiscal hawks including Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) have called for a quick phaseout of the credits which he argues cost the federal government "a gob of money."

Garbarino, who sits on the House Homeland Security Committee, called investment in multiple energy sources a homeland security issue, noting that if artificial intelligence and other tech sectors are not able to tap into reliable energy sources to power massive data centers, they may opt to build their operations in other countries.

"We're not living in a vacuum here," Garbarino said. "Innovation is going to continue somewhere else."