Trumps budget bill cuts off the green-energy cash spigot and its about time
The “big, beautiful” budget bill passed by the House of Representatives, if enacted in its current form, will eliminate clean-electricity tax credits, including for wind and solar power, starting in 2029.It will require projects seeking to receive those subsidies to begin construction within 60 days of the legislation becoming law, and to start operating by 2028.This is great news for both fiscal sanity and energy reality, both of which have been in short supply for far too long.This “temporary” tax credit was first enacted in 1992 to help the then-nascent onshore wind and solar industries.Congress always set it to expire years into the future, providing ample opportunities for politicians to extend and enlarge it.
They have done so 12 times.The Investment Tax Credit used by offshore wind developers like the Norwegian government-owned Equinor, which is relying on it to build Empire Wind off the coast of New York, has been around even longer — it was first enacted almost a half-century ago.But the ITC was greatly expanded under President Joe Biden’s ill-named Inflation Reduction Act, enabling offshore wind developers to qualify for up to 50% of their construction costs.Far from being temporary, these tax credits have become a permanent crutch.
As Warren Buffett commented back in 2014, the only reason his MidAmerican Energy company built wind turbines was to capture the tax credits.Wind and solar developers have been allowed to stick taxpayers and ratepayers with the bills, assuming they would continue to do so for many years.Consequently, the proposed rapid demise of these tax credits has ignited howls of outrage from green energy advocates, as well as politicians from both sides of the aisle, who contend it will devastate state economies and destroy thousands of jobs.In New York, Gov.Kathy Hochul claimed that transforming the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal into the nation’s largest offshore wind port would be “a large step forward in our commitmen...