After more than 24 hours of voting, Senate leaders agreed to kill a controversial tax targeting the wind and solar industry in an apparent effort to help secure Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s critical support on the reconciliation bill.
The origins of the proposal, which no one in Congress had publicly considered before Friday, remain a mystery to members of Congress and to outside experts involved in negotiations on the bill. The provision would have placed an excise tax on wind and solar projects that rely on a certain percentage of materials from China, alongside even greater restrictions on the clean energy tax credits for renewable sources of energy.
Members of both parties, energy experts and business leaders spent the weekend maligning the plan, warning that it would raise electricity prices and stifle the buildout of new energy projects when the country needs them most for artificial intelligence infrastructure. Almost all wind and solar projects would be subject to the tax because it is nearly impossible to build them without materials from China.