trending Market Intelligence /marketintelligence/en/news-insights/trending/-P9-RiglO9uLY1au5TB0Sw2 content esgSubNav
In This List

Democrats: Tax bill uncertainty putting $20B in clean energy projects on hold

Podcast

Next in Tech | Episode 49: Carbon reduction in cloud

Blog

Using ESG Analysis to Support a Sustainable Future

Research

US utility commissioners: Who they are and how they impact regulation

Blog

Q&A: Datacenters: Energy Hogs or Sustainability Helpers?


Democrats: Tax bill uncertainty putting $20B in clean energy projects on hold

A group of U.S. Senate Democrats is urging a bicameral conference committee to protect existing wind and solar tax credits and not include provisions in the GOP tax reform legislation that would "cripple" financing for renewable energy projects.

The uncertainty generated by the tax plan has already caused $20 billion of clean energy investment to be put on hold, U.S. Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., told reporters during a Dec. 12 briefing.

Markey and eight other Senate Democrats sent a letter to tax-writing committee leaders asking them to remove provisions in the Senate and U.S. House of Representatives' separate tax bills that could hurt renewable energy development.

SNL Image

Left to right, Democratic U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet, Ben Cardin, Edward Markey, Sheldon Whitehouse, Jeff Merkley and Amy Klobuchar blast provisions in the GOP tax proposals that could hurt renewable power development.

Source: S&P Global Market Intelligence

Those provisions include a proposal in the House's bill to weaken the federal wind production tax credit and a controversial measure in the Senate bill that would discourage multinational companies from investing in wind and solar projects by making it difficult to monetize federal tax credits. Democrats are also opposed to a piece of the House bill that would scrap a $7,500 tax credit for electric vehicles.

Those and other anti-renewable provisions in the tax proposals could cut in half the 35,000 MW of wind projects planned between now and 2020 and imperil much of the 39,000 MW of new solar capacity in the pipeline, Markey said.

"If these Republican provisions are not removed from the final bill, they could destroy of tens of thousands of clean energy jobs in the United States," he said.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said Democrats and other supporters of the renewable energy provisions "hope they'll correct this in conference." Markey said he understands that some GOP lawmakers are also concerned with the proposals affecting renewable energy, but "our ability to assess the problematic possibility of success inside of the Republican caucus is very limited."

The conference committee will hold an open meeting Dec. 13 on merging the House and Senate tax bills. Republicans are hoping to get final legislation to President Donald Trump's desk by the end of December.

When asked if specific conference committee members had pledged support for rolling back the anti-renewable provisions, Markey said he would "allow them to speak for themselves, whoever they may be," and the Dec. 12 letter "is just the beginning of a two-week effort."

Some Senate lawmakers have discussed introducing a separate energy tax extenders bill before the end of 2017 that could include credits not addressed in the broader tax reform bill. But at the Dec. 12 briefing, Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., said the timing of a tax extenders bill is unclear.

"It could be months. It may not happen," Cardin said.