The House passed the “one big, beautiful” reconciliation bill advancing President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda Thursday, paving the way for the Senate to deal a crushing blow to former President Joe Biden’s climate bill and Democrats’ green energy agenda.
The package that passed the House places stricter limits on new Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) tax credits solar and wind, though it stopped short of a wholesale repeal of the subsidies as Republican lawmakers compromised to move the bill forward. While the reconciliation bill moves some of the Trump administration’s energy priorities forward, the Senate is in position to eliminate even more of subsidies if Republicans can muster the political will to do so, energy policy experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
READ :EPA Announces Over $9 Million In Grants To Safeguard Beachgoers’ Health, Florida Tops List
“The Big Beautiful Bill appears to get rid of at least 50% of the $1.9 trillion from the Democrat’s Green New Scam. Ending subsidies for wind, solar and batteries will help keep our electric rates from tripling, like they have in Europe because of their version of the green new scam,” president of Truth in Energy and Climate Frank Lasee wrote to the DCNF. “[This is] a step in the right, free-market energy direction. We hope the Senate can do more. It could be better, but it must pass.”
A last-minute reform to the bill included language that moves up the phase-out of tax breaks for wind, solar and battery storage to 2028, the last year of Trump’s term in office.
More can be done to roll back the IRA subsidies in the Senate’s take on the reconciliation bill if Senate Majority Leader John Thune can wrangle moderate members who have recently signaled support for keeping some IRA subsidies. The House version of the package that passed Thursday would terminate approximately $677.8 billion’s worth in tax credits, about half of the projected overall cost of the IRA subsidies that were on the table, according to The Washington Post and Alexander Stevens, manager of policy and communications at the Institute for Energy Research.
READ: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth Slams Pentagon Christian Prayer Service Critics
Several leading green energy trade groups — including the American Clean Power Association and the Solar Energy Industries Association — urged the Senate to reject the House’s more firm approach to reforming IRA tax credits.
Notably, the House bill carved out subsidies for nuclear energy, a form of low-carbon energy that the Trump administration has repeatedly championed.
Though solar and wind technology advocates are asking the Senate to change course and salvage the IRA subsidies, there are some lawmakers and energy policy experts who argue the House bill did not go far enough toward terminating key tax credits in Biden’s signature climate bill.
Republican Texas Reps. Chip Roy and Keith Self both voted for the reconciliation package on Thursday, but each lawmaker said that the IRA reforms contained in the passed bill are too weak in statements explaining their votes.
READ: James Comer Wants Depositions From People Who Had ‘Influence’ Over Biden, De Facto Presidents
Adam Michel, director of tax policy studies at the Cato Institute, told the DCNF that he considers the House version of the reconciliation bill to be a “missed opportunity” for Republicans.
“Overall, the bill is still not a fiscally conservative product and will expand the deficit. That’s unfortunate. Republicans should be expecting more than they did,” Michel told the DCNF. “It’s a massive missed opportunity, but hopefully the Senate will correct it.”
Though not a single Republican in either chamber voted for the IRA in 2022, some GOP Senators are now expressing support for some of the Biden law’s tax credits. Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, John Curtis of Utah, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and Jerry Moran of Kansas wrote to Thune on April 10 and argued that “a wholesale repeal, or the termination of certain individual credits, would create uncertainty, jeopardizing capital allocation, long-term project planning, and job creation in the energy sector and across our broader economy.”
Given that the GOP currently holds 53 seats in the Senate, four defecting Republicans would be enough to gum up the reconciliation package.
READ :University Accreditor Announces It Will Pause Leftist Racial Discrimination
“It looks like about 50% of the $1.2 trillion in Green New Scam waste fraud and abuse has been cut out. Possibly the Senate can do more. If it seems like ‘half a loaf’ it is, but the Big Beautiful Bill must pass,” Steve Milloy, senior fellow at the Energy & Environment Legal Institute, told the DCNF.
Sterling Burnett, director of the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy at the Heartland Institute, told the DCNF that the House version of the bill was good enough given political constraints.
“Negotiators made progress in the big, beautiful bill, cutting additional hundreds of billions in IRA green spending costs in part by shortening the deadlines for project commencement,” he wrote. “Although I wish all the boondoggle spending on damaging, expensive, intermittent, wind and solar and carbon capture storage had ended entirely and the provisions for limited federal land sales had remained in the bill, it is to their credit that Republicans didn’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”
American Clean Power, Solar Energy Industries Association, Roy’s office and Self’s office did not respond for comment, and the White House referred the DCNF to Trump’s Truth Social post and the briefing on the matter.
Please make a small donation to the Tampa Free Press to help sustain independent journalism. Your contribution enables us to continue delivering high-quality, local, and national news coverage.
Connect with us: Follow the Tampa Free Press on Facebook and Twitter for breaking news and updates.
Sign up: Subscribe to our free newsletter for a curated selection of top stories delivered straight to your inbox.
First published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
