Senate Republicans just voted to dismantle America’s only climate plan
After three days of constantly stopped negotiations on Capitol Hill, the Senate voted on Tuesday 51-50 to adopt a bill on domestic policy which completes a large part of President Donald Trump’s first-year program. Vice-president JD Vance expressed revolutionary vote. Three Republicans – Rand Paul of Kentucky, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Susan Collins of Maine – voted against the package, while the Democrats were united in opposition.
If it is approved by the House of Representatives and signed by Trump, the legislation will carry out the deepest reductions in the American social security net for decades and will unravel the only existing federal plan in the country to divide the greenhouse gas emissions at the origin of climate change.
“This radical legislation is the most anti-environmental bill of all time and will hurt our communities, our families, our climate and our public lands,” said the league of conservation voters, an environmental advocacy group, in a press release.
The estimated cost of the GOP superior policy priority – extend the 2017 tax reductions – is more than 4 dollars of 10 years. In order to compensate for these tax reductions, the Senate Republicans sought to reduce green energy expenditure approved by the Democrats during the mandate of former President Joe Biden, among other programs such as food coupons and Medicaid. The subsidies with clean energy have formed the heart of the law on the reduction of inflation 2022, or I will go, the largest bill on climatic expenditure in American history.
The legislation now dates back to the House of Representatives, which adopted a cheaper version of the Megabill in May, before it went to the Trump office for its signature. The legislation of the chamber would have laid down the investment and production credits of IRA for wind and solar energy within 60 days of the promulgation of the bill, an aggressive calendar which, according to renewable energy groups, would weaken their industry and disincip new renewable projects. Fears concerning regulatory changes have already led to the cancellation of $ 15.5 billion in clean energy investments this year.
Senate legislation is only slightly less punitive in the clean energy industry. Wind and solar projects that start construction before July 2026 or are put into service by 2027 could fully benefit from existing tax credits. Under IRA, these credits were to continue in a form until the country reaches substantial reductions in emissions.
A previous version of the Senate bill also included an additional “excise” tax on wind and solar energy, which an analysis of the American Clean Power Association would increase consumer energy prices up to 10% and cost clean energy companies up to $ 7 billion by 2036. This tax was removed from the final vote on Tuesday. Conservative legislators have triggered responsibility for the initial inclusion of the tax in the text. “I do not know where it comes from,” Senator Lindsey Graham, republican of Southern Carolina, told NBC.
The invoice of the previous chamber has set strict limits for the use of Chinese components in renewable energy projects. The version of the Senate has reduced this proposal to include fewer penalties for moderate use of equipment linked to China. But the Senate Republicans accelerated the driving offered by the Chamber for consumer tax credits for new and previously held electric vehicles owned two months, from the end of this year to September 30. Consumers had previously had until 2032 to take advantage of it.
The bill does not include the massive and controversial sale of public lands defended by Senator Mike Lee, from Utah, who withdrew this amendment after having faced a backlash in his state and across the country.
Electricity approved by the Senate of tax credits for wind and solar energy occurs at a time when the demand for industrial energy soar in the United States while data centers and factories of own technologies arise across the country. “The intentional effort aimed at undermining the fastest electrical energy sources will lead to an increase in energy bills, a decrease in network reliability and the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs,” said American Clean Power Association, a clean energy lobbying group, in a press release. “We cannot afford to choose winners and losers with regard to reliable energy and American manufacturing.”
The changes made by the Senate during an intense 24 -hour debate period could set up many hours of debate in the Lower Chamber of the Congress. The Chamber climbed through its version of the bill by concluding a balance between the moderate Republicans of the Blue States such as California and New York which wanted higher ceilings on the deductions of income tax and local income and the tax hawks of the deep states which wanted deeper discounts. The version of the Senate is around 800 billion dollars more expensive, an increase that could set up a fight against credit times for clean energy tax and more. Chip Roy, Texas Republican legislator who wants deeper cuts to green expenses, has already called it “a killer of transactions from an already bad affair”.
Some Republican senators think it’s a good thing.
Senator Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska republican who sent a letter to the head of the majority of the Senate John Thune in April asking him to preserve the credits of clean energy tax, was the last dryer in the Senate after Paul, Tillis and Collins clearly indicated that they were going to vote against the Senate bill. Despite the consequences of the clean energy bill, Murkowski agreed to support the bill after obtaining a set of sculptures for its state on the work requirements of food coupons and health care cuts.
After voting for the bill, Murkowski expressed doubts about its content. “I hope the house will look at this and recognize that we are not yet there,” she told journalists.
