Wildfire grants, backfill, energy funds three main differences between House, Senate budget
CHEYENNE — The spending difference between the supplemental budgets in Wyoming's two legislative chambers is approximately $109 million, according to the Legislative Service Office.
Last week, the House of Representatives voted to pass a supplemental budget that added $119.4 million in appropriations, and lawmakers in the Senate passed a one-year budget adjustment with $228.8 million in appropriations.
This week, LSO staff met with House and Senate appropriators separately to brief them on the opposite chamber's budget amendments. Lawmakers spent last week bringing second- and third-reading amendments to their versions of the supplemental budget, which is a spending adjustment to the 2025-26 biennium budget that was passed last year.
Legislators passed a total of 47 amendments to the supplemental budget, with 19 in the House and 28 in the Senate. Out of that total, five of them are mirror, or identical amendments. One mirror amendment includes a $4 million appropriation to child development centers in the state.
Mirror amendments are off the table during the upcoming joint conference committee (JCC) negotiations.
Three high-level spending differences between the two budgets are state backfill to local governments for property tax revenue loss, wildfire grant funding and energy matching funds, according to LSO Budget and Fiscal Administrator Don Richards.
At the beginning of the session, Gov. Mark Gordon reminded lawmakers the supplemental budget is meant for emergency and unforeseen expenditures only. In his own supplemental budget request, Gordon prioritized funding for wildfire recovery grants, increased Medicaid reimbursement rates and litigation funds to defend Wyoming's core natural industries — just to name a few.
Wildfire, property tax, energy
Gordon asked for $130 million in his supplemental budget proposal for a wildfire grant program to aid recovery efforts for farmers, ranchers and impacted state lands damaged by last summer's historic wildfire season. House appropriators originally knocked this down to a $100 million loan program, run through the Wyoming Business Council, with a 2% interest rate.
However, Rep. Jeremy Haroldson, R-Wheatland, successfully added an amendment to create a $40 million grant program for purposes of recovering damaged vegetation from the fires, and reduced the loan program to $60 million. The Senate proposed a $100 million wildfire grant program.
Rep. Jeremy Haroldson, R-Wheatland (2025)
Rep. Jeremy Haroldson, R-Wheatland
The $60 million funding difference for wildfire grants is on the table during budget negotiations.
As for property tax cuts, the House added a conditional $72 million state backfill to help cover local governments' revenue loss. This grant would go to the eight counties with the lowest total assessed valuations on condition the grants do not exceed 75% of residential property tax reduction compared to the 2024 tax year.
'This amendment is contingent on passage of at least one of 10 different bills that are all related to property tax,' said LSO Senior Fiscal Analyst Polly Scott, adding that this amendment is set to end in two years.
The Senate provided a $15 million backfill, but only to first-responder and health care special districts. The funding difference between these amendments, as well as the parameters around these backfills, will also be on the table during budget negotiations.
The Senate also adopted an amendment allow the governor to retain $100 million in large energy matching funds. These funds are used for industrial projects in coal, oil and natural gas. The House chose to adopt the JAC's position and return that money to the budget reserve account.
Word of caution
Rep. Steve Harshman, R-Casper, currently the House's longest-serving member, has warned lawmakers all session against bills that he said could put the state in a fiscal bind. During Tuesday's report of the supplemental budget, Harshman repeated his words of caution.
The beginning balance of the state's Legislative Stabilization Reserve Account (LSRA, also known as the state's 'rainy-day fund') is $1.869 billion, Harshman said.
Rep. Steve Harshman, R-Casper (2025)
Rep. Steve Harshman, R-Casper
'Depending on whether you're looking at the Senate or the House, we're about $600 million, $700 million less,' Harshman said, adding he wasn't sure if this included the $72 million backfill for lost property tax revenue.
State statute requires the LSRA to backstop the School Foundation Program account if it goes below $100 million. For the second time in the state's history, the School Foundation Program dipped into the LSRA, Harshman said.
'And it's not the spending as much,' Harshman said. 'There's been some serious revenue reductions and movements, as well.'
Further reductions in property taxes are also expected to impact revenue into the School Foundation Program, which funds inflationary costs for teacher and non-teacher salaries, classroom supplies and energy. Senate Majority Floor Leader Tara Nethercott, R-Cheyenne, told the media last week the LSRA is expected to replace lost property tax revenue in funding this account.
However, once the LSRA drops below $500 million, 'no more funding for schools,' Harshman said Tuesday.
'I urge caution when we shrink revenue streams. Our revenue streams are pretty tight the way it is,' Harshman said.
House Appropriations Chairman Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette, reminded lawmakers Gordon's original supplemental request was $750 million, and the Joint Appropriations Committee cut out $235 million before the current legislative session began.
'What was the real purpose of those cuts? They were to provide tax relief, folks,' Bear said.
He said constituents have pushed for property tax relief, and it was the goal of members of the body to provide those tax cuts. He admitted these cuts are costing the state money from its savings account.
Next steps
The Senate president and House speaker each appointed five members from their respective chambers to the Joint Conference Committee. The JCC is responsible for looking at the amendments on the table and negotiating a single version of the supplemental budget before sending it back to the floor of each chamber for a vote.
House Speaker Chip Neiman, R-Hulett, nominated Reps. Jayme Lien, R-Casper; Chris Knapp, R-Gillette; Scott Heiner, R-Green River, himself and House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bear. Bear is the only JCC member who is also a member of the Joint Appropriations Committee.
During a news conference Tuesday, Bear said he wanted to give the other House appropriators 'a break.'
Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette (2025)
Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette
'As the chair of Appropriations, I have worked and run my committee about like a bunch of random mules,' Bear said. 'They deserve a break for their hard work, and maybe this is one way that they can get a better break.'
The Senate has not yet announced its JCC members.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hill
25 minutes ago
- The Hill
House GOP approves ‘technical changes' to Trump agenda bill
House Republicans on Wednesday greenlit a series of 'technical changes' to the party's tax cut and spending package, removing language that would have thrown their effort off course in the Senate. The chamber approved the tweaks — which were tucked inside a procedural rule for a separate measure — in a 213-207 vote, weeks after Republicans passed the sprawling package full of President Trump's legislative priorities. The adopted rule also tees up a final vote on the White House's bill to claw back $9.4 billion in federal spending. House GOP leaders moved to make the changes after the Senate parliamentarian scrubbed through the legislation — a procedure known as the 'Byrd bath' — and identified provisions and language that do not comply with the strict rules for the budget reconciliation process, which the GOP trifecta is using to circumvent a Democratic filibuster in the Senate and approve the bill by a simple majority. Leaving the legislation as it was risked the parliamentarian ruling that it was not compliant, which would have resulted in the threshold for passage in the Senate increasing from a simple majority to 60 votes — allowing Democratic opposition to block it. The changes to the Trump agenda bill — officially titled the 'One Big Beautiful Bill Act — pertain to defense funding, energy policy and changes to Medicaid. For defense, Republicans nixed $2 billion for the enhancement of military intelligence programs; $500 million for the development, procurement and integration of maritime mines; and $62 million to convert Ohio-class submarine tubes to accept additional missiles. On the energy front, meanwhile, the changes removed a provision that would have reinstated leases for a proposed copper and nickel mine that had been renewed under the first Trump administration but revoked under Biden. The mine would have been located near an area known as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, a nature preserve that contains canoe routes and species including black bears, moose and foxes. While leaders moved to strike some portions of the bill, they still plan to fight for those provisions when the package hits the Senate floor. 'We disagree; ultimately we're going to try it again on the Senate floor,' House Majority Leadere Steve Scalise (R-La.) said Tuesday. ' We disagree with the parliamentarian. … But you can't take the risk on any of them. You cannot take the risk because if any one of them is ruled on the Senate floor to be fatal, it's a 60-vote bill. The whole bill is a 60-vote bill — you can't take that risk.' With the changes made, the House is now expected to formally send the package to the Senate, where Republicans are mapping out their own changes to the behemoth bill. Some GOP senators want to decrease the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap, others are pushing to increase the spending cuts in the bill, and a subset are pressing for a smaller rollback of the green energy tax credits that Democrats approved in 2022. Any changes to the House bill in the Senate, however, risks party leadership losing support in the lower chamber, which will have to approve the Senate's tweaks before the bill can head to Trump's desk for signature. Party leaders are still hoping to enact the package by July 4, but that timeline is coming into serious question as Republicans remain at odds over a series of high-stakes issues. Rachel Frazin contributed.
Boston Globe
29 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
Why rooftop solar could crash under the GOP tax bill
'This sets us back,' said Ben Airth, policy director for Freedom Forever, one of the country's largest residential solar installers. 'I've been in this industry 22 years and remember when it was only rich people, doomsday preppers and environmentalists installing solar panels on their roofs.' Advertisement One analysis by Ohm Analytics, an energy data firm, estimates that residential solar installations could fall by half next year if the House bill becomes law. Without the tax credits, it would take 17 years, on average, for homeowners to earn back their solar investments. A more pessimistic analysis by Morgan Stanley projects that rooftop solar demand could fall by 85 percent through 2030. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up While Republicans want to curb tax breaks for other renewable energy technologies like wind turbines and large-scale solar farms, the consequences for rooftop solar could be more severe. Rooftop solar can cost two to three times as much per unit of electricity as large solar arrays on farms or in deserts, and the residential industry is more vulnerable to shifts in subsidies. Advertisement The Senate is now writing its version of the domestic policy bill, and solar executives have descended on Washington to plead for a more gradual wind-down of the energy credits. They note that the solar industry employs roughly 300,000 workers and that rooftop systems can help homeowners cut their electric bills. Yet some conservative Republicans have made clear they oppose any restoration of tax breaks for renewable energy. 'Those God forsaken subsidies are killing our energy, killing our grid, making us weaker, destroying our landscape, undermining our freedom,' Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said on the House floor last week. 'I'm not going to have it.' The uncertainty is upending an industry that was already struggling with tariffs and high interest rates. Last week, Solar Mosaic, which provided loans to homeowners to install rooftop panels, declared bankruptcy. On Monday, Sunnova Energy, one of the nation's largest rooftop solar companies, followed suit. Some experts say rooftop solar will eventually rebound, even without subsidies, if electricity prices keep rising around the country, which would make the economics of going solar more favorable. But the adjustment period is likely to be painful, with more bankruptcies and layoffs. 'We're not expecting residential solar to go away,' said Zoë Gaston, a principal analyst for residential solar at Wood MacKenzie, an energy research firm. 'But it will be smaller.' Major tax changes For two decades, Congress has offered tax breaks for people who put solar panels on their roofs. But Democrats supersized those subsidies in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which plowed hundreds of billions of dollars into technologies meant to fight climate change. The law extended the residential solar credit, which allows homeowners to recoup 30 percent of the cost of a solar system they own, through 2032. It also expanded an investment tax credit for companies that build low-emissions sources of electricity like solar and batteries. Advertisement The latter change fueled a boom in solar leasing, in which homeowners don't have to pay the upfront cost of a rooftop solar system that can run $30,000 or more. Instead, a company owns the panels and keeps the tax credits. The homeowner leases the equipment from the company and ideally saves money through lower energy bills. More than 50 percent of home solar systems are now financed this way, and the rise of leasing has made rooftop solar more accessible to less-wealthy households, as well as to schools, hospitals and small businesses. The House Republican bill would terminate the residential solar tax credit by the end of 2025. And, in a last-minute change pushed by fiscal conservatives, solar leasing companies would be immediately ineligible for the investment tax credit. The House bill would also forbid companies from claiming the tax credits if they use components from China, which dominates solar supply chains. Because that provision is so broadly written, many companies say it would effectively make the credits unusable. 'Catastrophic is a fair way to describe the industry impact' of the House bill, said Gregg Felton, CEO of Altus Power, which develops solar projects on rooftops and parking lots. If Congress slashed support for renewable energy, experts said companies would continue investing in large-scale solar arrays, since even without subsidies those plants are often one of the cheapest ways to generate additional electrons. Rooftop solar, which is costlier and requires more labor, faces greater risks. Advertisement Kenny Pfannenstiel, the chief operating officer at Big Dog Solar, an Idaho-based solar installation company, said that rooftop solar has lately grown popular in newer markets like Montana and Idaho. 'We see a lot of interest from people who want to control their own energy future, or who worry about the grid being available when they need it,' Pfannenstiel said. Once the tax credits were expanded, he said, 'the economic argument for those customers to install solar and battery systems became a lot stronger.' If the credits vanished, some customers might still want panels, he said, but the market 'would shrink drastically.' The ripple effects could be significant. If solar leasing companies go bankrupt, customers could be left in the lurch, with no one left to service their panels. Thousands of installers and electricians would find themselves out of work. More than three dozen solar factories have opened in the United States in recent years, but some could shutter if demand slows. A debate over rooftop solar The fight over tax credits in Congress isn't the only challenge facing rooftop solar. While the technology remains popular with homeowners, some states have started pulling back support amid a barrage of criticism. Electric utilities and some analysts say that rooftop solar users raise costs for everyone else, because solar households pay less on their monthly utility bills but still rely on the broader grid for backup power. That shifts the cost of maintaining the grid to other households, which are often low-income. (Solar proponents disagree, saying that utilities ignore many benefits of rooftop panels, such as avoided transmission costs.) The fight has been especially fierce in California, the country's biggest rooftop solar market. In 2022, regulators slashed the compensation that new solar households could receive for the electricity they produce. In the months that followed, rooftop installations fell 85 percent statewide, straining installers, manufacturers and distributors. Advertisement Even now, some officials are looking to cut support further, including for existing homes. 'We have to reevaluate how our current solar subsidy programs impact Californians who may not be able to afford solar-panel systems,' said Lisa Calderon, a Democratic state lawmaker. The rise in interest rates has further squeezed the rooftop solar industry, by making it more expensive to borrow money to finance new installations. The Trump and Biden administrations also increased tariffs on solar components from China, which aids domestic manufacturers but makes panels more expensive. 'At some point our industry can and should be able to function without tax credits,' said Chris Hopper, co-founder of Aurora Solar, a software company that designs home solar systems. 'I do think we could get on board with a phase-down of these credits over an appropriate time period that gives us time to figure out how to find efficiencies and lower costs.' 'But an overnight change would be devastating,' Hopper said. 'It's just not possible to adapt that quickly.' This article originally appeared in .
The Hill
30 minutes ago
- The Hill
Hegseth takes fire from Republicans at heated Senate hearing
Republican senators came out firing during Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's hearing on Wednesday before the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on armed forces. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) immediately pressed Hegseth over the Russia-Ukraine war, with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) driving home the point later in the hearing; Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the top Senate appropriator, scolded the Pentagon's delays with budget information; and Sen. Lisa Murkowski closed out the hearing by questioning the administration's focus on Greenland in its Arctic strategy. McConnell, one of three Republicans who opposed Hegseth's confirmation, gaveled in the hearing by calling out the Trump administration for what he views as a flat base-line defense budget. He then launched into strong warnings against the U.S. cozying up to Russia in its bid to end its war in Ukraine. McConnell said Washington's allies are 'wondering whether we're in the middle of brokering what appears to be allowing the Russians to define victory. I think victory is defined by the people who have to live there — the Ukrainians.' The former Senate majority leader who now chairs the subcommittee, McConnell asked Hegseth which side he wanted to win the war. The Defense chief said the Trump administration wanted the killing to end but would not choose a side. 'America's reputation is on the line,' McConnell said. 'Will we defend Democratic allies against authoritarian aggressors?' Later in the hearing, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) asked Hegseth and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Dan 'Razin' Caine Caine if Russian President Vladimir Putin is going to stop at Ukraine. 'I don't believe he is,' Caine replied. Hegseth, meanwhile, said it 'remains to be seen. Graham fired back, referring to his previous allusion to appeasement of Adolph Hitler: 'Well, he says he's not. This is the '30s all over. It doesn't remain to be seen.' The line of questioning laid bare the ideological divide within the GOP as to how the U.S. should confront Russia, seen by defense hawks as a global threat that must be countered with military assistance to prop up Ukraine and assert U.S. force in the European theater. But many in the Trump administration, including Hegseth, have taken a more ambivalent tone, arguing for an America First approach that could see American troops rotated out of bases in Europe and an end to the flow of military aid from Washington to Kyiv. 'We don't want a headline at the end of this conflict that says Russia wins and America loses,' McConnell told Hegseth. The hearing had a far more adversarial tone compared to Hegseth's appearance before the House Appropriations defense subcommittee a day prior, in which the Pentagon chief emerged largely unscathed, particularly at the hands of GOP members. Democratic and Republican senators grilled Hegseth over a sparsely outlined defense budget for next fiscal year, echoing rare bipartisan criticism during the House hearing. Collins reprimanded the Pentagon for being 'unacceptably slow' in submitting a detailed Pentagon spending request for the fiscal year 2026. Congress is waiting on the information as the GOP struggles to agree on Trump's reconciliation package. She also told Hegseth that Trump's budget request represented a reduction in buying power compared to the 2025 military budget, when inflation is taken into account, but suggested the Senate might correct that. McConnell earlier was also critical of the administration's defense spending plan, pushing back at Hegseth's argument that the U.S. would be making the largest investment in the military in 20 years via Trump's reconciliation package. McConnell said putting funneling defense dollars into that package while declining to increase military spending in the regular budget 'may well end up functioning as a shell game to avoid making the most significant annual investments that we spent years urging the Biden administration to make.' There was also no shortage of criticism from the panel's Democrats. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), bashed the Pentagon for cutting military medical research while spending $45 million for a grand military parade marking the Army's 250th birthday, set for Saturday 'This is not consistent with what the men and women in uniform deserve,' Durbin said. Others, including Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) berated Hegseth for the Trump administration's decision to send National Guard troops and active-duty Marines into Los Angeles this week, calling the actions a wildly out-of-proportion response to sometimes violent protests against Trump's escalating immigration crackdowns. 'Threatening to use our own troops on our own citizens at such scale is unprecedented, it is unconstitutional, and it is downright un-American,' Murray said, noting that the actions were undermining the readiness of the U.S. military. Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) pressed Hegseth to reveal the cost or timeline of refurbishing Trump's luxury jet from the Qatari government, meant to become Air Force One. 'You have signed a contract with a company to reconfigure the Qatari aircraft. What is the price of that contract?' Reed asked. Hegseth replied that the information 'cannot be revealed in this setting,' prompting Reed to fire back. 'Why can't it be revealed? This is the appropriation committee of the United States Senate. We appropriate the money that you will spend,' Reed said.
