The energy needs in the US are only getting bigger every year and the grid is not equipped to fully handle them, so a lot of legislation has been passed in order to ensure that residents can get credits for installing greener sources of energy like solar panels and windmills. However, last week there was a very unpleasant surprise hidden in a domestic policy bill that Senate Republicans proposed. The surprise? Cuts to these credits and the addition of a tax in order to install renewables. But believe it or not, that was not the strangest thing about the bill, the strangest thing is that no one is taking credit for the measure.
When a measure makes into a bill, usually someone will be able to point out who added the provision, but Republican senators are insisting that they did not add the provision and do not know who did. In fact, most are even claiming to be against the tax on renewables.
The new and surprising tax on solar and wind energy
The matter is baffling, according to Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the Budget Committee chairman, who released the 940-page bill and gave an interview to NBC News “It’s a secret, I guess. I don’t know where it came from.”
And he is not the only one that was confused by the measure, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska was also quite confused “It wasn’t part of any consideration. It’s like, surprise! It’s Saturday night. And we looked at it like, where did this come from? […] My view of it is — it’s just entirely punitive to the wind and solar industry,” she continued to explain that this kind of unpleasant surprise is not one that was liked and that the Senate Republicans were looking at options on how to deal with it in the future.
Luckily for Americans, just before the vote happened, the provision was taken out of the bill and a new one without these taxes went up for vote, still proposed by the Republicans. This was because of the obvious blowback to the original provision, but even though most Republican Senators were against these taxes, some would have been fine with passing them, like Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo, although she still claims she does not know who proposed the change.
Although this came as a surprise, it should not have, when he took office, Trump vowed to boost energy production in the United States, including fossil fuels and unravel clean energy incentives Democrats passed in the Biden administration, amongst which we can find the numerous credits and rebates for solar and wind electricity. As an added bonus, this would have helped him in his tariff war against China, as thanks to the eliminated provision he would have been able to tax wind and solar projects if a certain share of their components come from China. The wording was so vague that it could have given him basically carte blanche.
Detractors of the bill include Tesla CEO Elon Musk, former Trump adviser, and groups like the American Clean Power Association, but some of the most important Republican committee chairs have declined to comment on the provision, including the Republican chairs of the Finance Committee (Mike Crapo of Idaho), the Energy and Natural Resources Committee (Mike Lee of Utah) and the Environment and Public Works Committee (Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia).
Musk commented on the measure calling it “Utterly insane and destructive. It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future. A massive strategic error is being made right now to damage solar/battery that will leave America extremely vulnerable in the future.”
Jason Grumet, the CEO of the American Clean Power Association also did not mince words “With no warning, the Senate has proposed new language that would increase taxes on domestic energy production. In what can only be described as ‘midnight dumping,’ the Senate has proposed a punitive tax hike targeting the fastest-growing sectors of our energy industry. It is astounding that the Senate would intentionally raise prices on consumers rather than encouraging economic growth and addressing the affordability crisis facing American households.”