The Senate is planning for gentler cuts to the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean energy tax credits as it continues to negotiate its version of the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ budget legislation, with Republican leadership hoping to start voting on the bill by Friday, senators said Tuesday.
Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., said the Senate’s cuts to the IRA may ultimately be “a little more generous” than the House’s cuts, Reuters reported. Those cuts sought to claw back funding by winding down most credits much earlier than originally laid out in the IRA.
Cramer also said there is “work being done” to revise the cuts to the residential solar tax credit, or 25D, which was eliminated in both the final bill passed by the House of Representatives and the version of the bill passed out of the Senate Finance Committee.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told Axios Tuesday that he expects the Senate will begin voting on the bill Friday and “grind it out until … whenever.”
Congressional Republicans have set a self-imposed deadline to deliver final legislation to President Donald Trump by July 4. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., warned House Republicans on Tuesday “not to leave town” in the coming days in case of a vote, Politico reported.
Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough announced on Monday that multiple provisions included in the Senate Finance Committee’s version of the bill wouldn’t qualify for budget reconciliation under the Byrd Rule, and have to be removed or will trigger a 60-vote threshold requirement.
Several of those provisions are energy-related, including one deeming offshore oil and gas projects “automatically compliant” with the National Environmental Policy Act, and one which would remove the Secretary of the Interior’s “discretion to reduce fees for solar and wind projects on Bureau of Land Management land,” according to Senate Budget Committee Democrats.
Another would require the Secretary of the Interior to hold yearly geothermal lease sales and “purport to change how geothermal royalties are calculated,” the Democrats said.
