ENB Pub Note: This article is from David Blackmon’s Substack. . It is truly an honor to have been featured on so many podcasts and worked on these topics with David; he is a great thought leader with a truly positive energy. We recomend subscribing to his Substack. One thought as you read through this update on the Big Beautiful Bill, why is an Alaskan state Senator fighting to keep wind and solar when her state is funded by oil and gas? As my Grandfather was attributed with being the chief geologist for discovering the North Slope, and given all my trips to Alaska, it saddens me that a Senator is representing their state with apparent ulterior motives.
Early Monday evening, Reuters reported that a group of GOP senators, led by Iowa’s Chuck Grassley and Joni Earnst, and by Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, were trying to move an amendment that would rescue the wind and solar tax breaks and subsidies contained in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.
The working version of the One Big Beautiful Bill was amended over the weekend to include language that ends the subsidies for projects not placed in service by the end of 2027. The working draft also imposes a new excise tax on wind and solar projects that cannot prove they do not contain parts made in China, a practical impossibility given the current Chinese domination of components for the intermittent energy sector.
My view: while I support the end of these incredibly wasteful and ruinous subsidies, the new tax is a case of overkill. If the bill retains its hard end-of-2027 deadline, the tax would become irrelevant in any event. Perhaps there’s a compromise to be had here.
The Reuters piece quotes several wind/solar developers and boosters as claiming that the provision would effectively kill their industries, an admission that they are pure rent-seeking enterprises with unsustainable business plans. That’s a point I and many others, like Robert Bryce, Irina Slav, Tammy Nemeth, Ed Ireland, and Stu Turley, have made over and over again for years now.
The amendment sought by Grassley, Earnst and Murkowski would water down the phase-out provision in the OBBB so drastically that the subsidies would inevitably be allowed to remain in place into perpetuity, just as the Bush-era subsidies for corn ethanol – another Grassley/Iowa-led multi-billion-dollar boondoggle – have been able to do.
Fortunately, while there is currently a paucity of up-to-the-minute reporting on this topic in the media, both Grok 3 and Google’s AI tool report this morning that the effort by these senators failed overnight. Given that the Senate appears ready to move to a final vote on the OBBB as this is being written at around 5 a.m. CT/6 a.m. ET, it seems the effort to preserve what would no doubt ultimately become more than a trillion dollars in federal subsidies has failed.
Here’s what Grok 3 says about it:
No, the Senate did not approve an amendment overnight to change the provision to end wind and solar subsidies. An amendment proposed by Senator Joni Ernst, supported by Senators Chuck Grassley and Lisa Murkowski, aimed to remove a new tax on wind and solar projects starting after 2027 and adjust the credits based on construction start dates. However, a related amendment by Senator Mike Lee (amendment #2745) to terminate wind and solar credits was rejected by a Senate roll call vote of 21-79 on July 1, 2025. There’s no evidence from available sources that any amendment altering the wind and solar subsidy provisions was approved overnight.
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Here’s what the Google tool returned:
A group of Republican senators is attempting to modify a Senate bill that proposes rolling back tax credits for wind and solar projects established by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
Key proposals in the Senate bill include:
- Accelerated phase-out of incentives: The bill would require wind and solar projects to be fully operational by the end of 2027 to qualify for credits, a more aggressive timeline than initially proposed.
- New tax on certain foreign components: The bill includes a new excise tax on projects utilizing wind and solar components from specific foreign entities, such as China. This could increase project costs by an estimated 10-20%.
- Rollback of other clean energy incentives: The bill also proposes to eliminate tax credits for electric vehicles and energy-efficient home improvements, among other changes.
Senators pushing for changes:
- A group of Republican senators, led by Senator Joni Ernst and supported by others like Chuck Grassley and Lisa Murkowski, are advocating for changes to ease the phase-out of wind and solar subsidies.
- Their proposed amendment would ease qualification requirements for clean electricity tax credits, tying eligibility to the start of construction rather than the “placed in service” date.
- It would also remove the proposed excise tax on wind and solar projects with components from certain “foreign entities of concern”.
Arguments against the proposed changes in the Senate bill:
- The proposed changes are described as a “death sentence” for the American wind and solar industries, potentially leading to increased energy costs for consumers and jeopardizing planned projects.
- The tight deadline for projects to be operational by the end of 2027 is considered virtually impossible to meet by many developers, potentially halting development.
- The excise tax on wind and solar components is seen as particularly harmful, especially given China’s dominance in the solar supply chain.
The proposed changes and the debate around them highlight the ongoing tension surrounding clean energy policies and incentives within the US Senate.
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Let’s all keep our fingers crossed that the Senate Republicans can do something right for a change and stop some of this IRA madness.
