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Senate Republicans who support the Inflation Reduction Act credits ended the chamber’s work week projecting confidence the Finance Committee would ease off the harsh phaseouts of clean energy tax credits in the House megabill, as reported by Josh Siegel and James Bikales.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) told reporters, “every one of them is going to have some sort of an extension” compared to the phaseouts in the House bill. Tillis has been particularly focused on protecting the tech-neutral clean electricity credits and loosening restrictions on the 45X manufacturing credit.
Tillis also said he’s pushing to make credit eligibility contingent on a project starting construction. He said the House bill’s requirement that projects be placed in service by a certain year to be eligible “doesn’t make sense.”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), a centrist who signed a letter with Tillis defending the IRA credits, said she’s looking to ensure “more reasonable” phaseout timelines that treat different energy sources the same.
“You can’t have real dominance unless you have all aspects of energy,” Murkowski told reporters Thursday. “And it’s not too much to say that ‘all of the above’ includes things still like wind and solar, and geothermal, and nuclear, and biofuels, and ocean energy.”
Her comments come as other Republicans have argued protecting tax credits for “baseload” energy sources that can provide around-the-clock power should be a higher priority over intermittent wind and solar power.
Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah), who also signed the IRA letter, said wind and solar paired with battery storage should be treated as a baseload energy source when it comes to tax policy.
“One of the changes of the last few years is when you pair renewables with batteries it changes the discussion of what’s baseload,” he said. “It's not as simple as one type of fuel is baseload and one isn’t.”
Several Senate Republicans are also skeptical of the House’s decision to eliminate the clean hydrogen production tax credit after this year, despite its strong backing from the fossil fuel industry.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, said she and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a Finance Committee member, are advocating to extend the phaseout duration for the hydrogen credit. Both have hydrogen projects planned in their states.
More than 200 organizations — including the regional hydrogen hub developers and major oil and gas trade groups — sent a letter to Senate leadership Thursday urging the credit remain in place for projects that commence construction by the end of 2029.
Senators also heard Thursday from the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry of the United States and Canada urging them to preserve credits for hydrogen, carbon capture, geothermal and nuclear.
“The House decided to undo this progress and stifle projects like the seven hydrogen hubs across the nation that were poised to usher in a new era of American energy dominance,” the union wrote in a letter viewed by reporters.
