Millions are scrambling as their student loan interest resumes. Here's what to know
Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced in April that the zero-interest loan deferment policy offered by the Biden administration would come to an end, and interest accrual and payments would resume for millions of student borrowers.
As a result, the 7.7 million people on the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) Plan are set to start racking up interest on their student loan balances beginning Friday, Aug. 1. And with the program set to end by 2028 as part of the massive GOP spending law, the Education Department is encouraging enrollees to switch to a different repayment plan.
But nearly 2 million borrowers in SAVE and other income-driven repayment (IDR) programs attempting to do that landed in a massive backlog of applications, according to a lawsuit filed by the American Federation of Teachers against the Deptartment of Education.
A reader reached out and said they received emails from their loan servicer, Mohela — one of the largest in the country, managing the accounts of more than 8 million student borrowers — saying they had missed payments and their loans would soon be in default. They said there was a long wait to reach a human being on the phone at Mohela.
When reached for comment about what that borrower and other Mohela customers have been dealing with in recent weeks, an unnamed representative directed the Chronicle to ask the Department of Education. An unnamed representative for the Department of Education sent back a generic statement about its Loan Simulator tool, linked to its press release about SAVE plans from earlier this month, and informed the Chronicle about a related video posted to Elon Musk's social media platform X.
'You can't make payments through SAVE because they are discontinuing the plan, and there seems to be no way to switch to another plan? I submitted my application to change plans last October, and it still hasn't been processed,' they wrote. 'I tried calling the MOHELA customer service line, and it said 30 minute wait time — which sounded great because when I've called before it says it will be hours. But then I got stuck in a maze of automated options and never got to an actual representative.'
Aissa Canchola Bañez, the policy director for the Student Borrower Protection Center, said her organization was familiar with those issues.
'We have heard of folks having issues on that front. They don't have a viable path out of the SAVE plan right now,' she said. 'Penalizing them when they are either stuck in a 1 million application backlog, or cannot actually get their servicer to transfer them out, is just completely unfair.'
The Student Borrower Protection Center published an investigation in 2023 that said Mohela purposefully obstructed borrowers from reaching a human customer service representative — a 'call deflection scheme' that 'ensured that borrowers caught in a byzantine loop of misinformation and false promises were unable to resolve servicing errors.' In response, Mohela issued a statement saying it had followed federal student aid guidelines on borrower calls.
If you're a SAVE plan borrower stuck in loan limbo, you've got a few options. Here's what you need to know.
For advice, the Chronicle spoke to:
Canchola Bañez of the Student Borrower Protection Center.
Braxton Brewington, the senior vice president of policy for Debt Collective.
Abby Shafroth, the managing director of advocacy for the National Consumer Law Center.
What are my options for the SAVE plan?
Do nothing while the dust settles.
Interest is set to resume on Aug. 1 — but there's precedent for a last-minute change, said Brewington of Debt Collective. The Biden administration made announcements about student loan forgiveness only to have things later blocked by the courts. Two lawsuits filed by Republican-led states seeking to strike down the SAVE plan are still in progress, resulting in forbearance that has paused payments for borrowers, even though interest will start accruing. And the tariff turmoil of the past few months has shown a willingness for the Trump administration to walk back its decisions at the 11th hour.
If you change plans, you might not be able to get back on SAVE if a decision is made to preserve the program, Brewington said.
'It's not clear to the Debt Collective that removing yourself from the SAVE plan is necessarily your best option,' he said. 'We're struggling to see why certain people who want the lowest monthly payment would remove themselves from the SAVE plan at this current time.'
If you stay in your current plan, you'll start to accrue interest — around $300 a month for the average borrower, according to Debt Collective's calculations — but that isn't necessarily an emergency. Any other plan you switch to will also charge interest, so you'll be accruing it either way. And for now, monthly payments are not required.
'There are some borrowers that, if they cannot afford to make any payment right now, staying on the SAVE forbearance and having interest accrue might be the better financial scenario for them,' Canchola Bañez said.
One major caveat: If you're a borrower hoping to get Public Service Loan Forgiveness — a program where the remaining balance on student loan debt is forgiven after a certain number of qualifying payments are made by certain types of public service workers — it might benefit you to switch off the SAVE plan and start making those payments, if you can afford them.
'Every month you're spending in SAVE forbearance is not counting toward PSLF,' Canchola Bañez said.
Consider reapplying with your servicer.
This was the advice from Shafroth of the National Consumer Law Center. She said in an email that the NCLC had heard from loan servicers that people caught in the backlog should 're-apply electronically now and that new application will be processed faster and their old backlogged application will be cancelled.'
But both Brewington and Canchola Bañez urged caution with this option, saying they hadn't heard that guidance.
'The Dept. of Education has not given us any indication that by reapplying you're putting your application at the top of the pile,' said Canchola Bañez. 'It's unclear that that will get your application processed any sooner.'
Contact your congressional representative.
Your congressperson should be able to help you if you can't get hold of your loan servicer. They often have connections with student loan companies — a phone number, an email, a contact — that regular people don't have access to.
The Student Borrower Protection Center has a Congressional Casework Tool to help you find your representative in Congress and the Senate and walks you through the steps you need to take to open a constituent case.
'Many folks have no idea that members of Congress' offices have caseworkers that are charged with helping constituents with issues with federal agencies,' Canchola Bañez said. 'Reach out to your member of congress and demand that they help. We have gotten some very positive feedback on the tool.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNN
2 hours ago
- CNN
Analysis: Why Trump's Texas battle over the House could end up affecting every American
Democrats might finally have learned something about Donald Trump — if they hope to beat him, they must get down in the gutter alongside him. Party leaders in powerhouse blue states on Monday vowed to emulate the president's methods to create new Democratic-friendly seats in the House of Representatives in response to his bid to carve out five new GOP districts in Texas. Their promises came as they celebrated Democratic Texas state lawmakers who suddenly became the fresh faces of the anti-Trump resistance after facing arrest warrants for fleeing the state in an exodus that ground a special legislative session called by the president's allies to a halt. This all might look like yet another twist in a generationslong struggle by both parties to gerrymander districts to get a leg up in elections. And some voters' eyes might glaze over at what seems like an internal Texas tussle. But the fight has profound national implications. In the short term, the House of Representatives — which Democrats hope to win back in midterm elections next year to rein in Trump's presidency — could be at stake. Democrats currently need a net gain of three seats to take the majority. If the Texas plan passes without a response by another state, they will need eight. That could dash their goal of imposing a clamp on Trump's runaway presidency. In the medium term, the Texas redistricting fight must be seen against the backdrop of a fraught political age. There are growing signs American democracy is fraying. Republicans will argue, correctly, that Democrats have mounted their own egregious redistricting schemes in states such as Illinois and Maryland. But the instigator of the effort to make the Texas congressional delegation even redder was a president who already has a dark record of trying to subvert the verdict of voters. Longer term, the national political fight that has erupted over Texas looks almost certain to further erode the checks and balances of democracy, however it ends. If both parties now simply go all-out in a national gerrymandering frenzy, they will produce a House of Representatives where it will be even more difficult for incumbents to lose their seats and that will make meaningful political change even harder. If nothing else, the furor demonstrates the imperative of winning power and forging transformational change before the opportunity is lost. Republicans over the last decade have built an unassailable conservative Supreme Court majority that enabled GOP redistricting efforts based on race, including in Texas. And they've elected and supported a president with an expansive and constitutionally questionable thirst for imposing his own personal power that has shattered most political norms. Most presidents would not be as blatant in Trump in trying to change the electoral battlefield. Over the same period, Democrats failed to bolster ranks of liberals on the Supreme Court — for instance, by not persuading late Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to retire when a liberal replacement could be confirmed while the party controlled the presidency and the Senate. In 2024, Democrats initially backed an aging and unpopular President Joe Biden, despite warnings that his candidacy could open the door again to Trump and his anti-democratic project. This loss of power has been disastrous to progressive aspirations and to protecting the liberal victories of the last 50 years, including the nationwide constitutional right to abortion. Some top Democrats see the Texas redistricting showdown as a moment for their party to show more ruthlessness. 'We are at war,' New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Monday, alongside several exiled Texas lawmakers, warning that Democrats should forget independent redistricting panels intended to draw fairer maps that represent a complex electorate. 'The playing field has changed dramatically, and shame on us if we ignore that fact and cling tight to the vestiges of the past,' Hochul said. 'That era is over. Donald Trump eliminated that forever,' she said. California Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled a plan for a mid-decade redistricting in his state to match the one underway in deep-red Texas. His proposal would come before voters in November — the latest skirmish in a long-running ideological feud between the two states. But it will only be triggered if Texas moves ahead with its own plan. Newsom said he still favored a national independent districting body, but warned that Democrats needed to respond to the GOP's hardline tactics. 'Things have changed. Facts have changed. So we must change,' Newsom said. 'We have got to think anew. We have got to act anew. And we are reacting to the change — they have triggered this response, and we are not going to roll over.' Potential 2028 Democratic primary candidates, including Newsom and Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois — who has also rushed to back the Democratic Texas lawmakers — have compelling personal interests in joining the fight. In two years, candidates will be asked on a debate stage what they did in the battle over Texas. But they're also seeking to revive a national party pummeled by Trump, which lacks leadership and has left its supporters listless. Grassroots progressives have been pining for someone, anyone, to show some stomach for the fight — even though Democrats lack any power in Washington to meaningfully hurt the president. The Texas uproar also coincides with multiple examples of Trump's widening authoritarianism, following his cowing of Congress, crushing of constraints within the federal government, and co-option of the Justice Department and some intelligence services into instruments of his whims. On that score, a source told CNN on Monday that Attorney General Pam Bondi has ordered prosecutors to launch a grand jury investigation into Obama administration officials over the Russia investigation. Given all this, if the Democrats don't fight back now, when will they ever fight? As CNN's Eric Bradner reported Monday, the proposed new GOP maps could force two prominent Democratic lawmakers, Reps. Greg Casar and Lloyd Doggett, into a primary against one another. They'd also merge two other seats and make two south Texas seats held by Democrats more Republican-leaning. While the Democrats made a statement by leaving Texas, their chances of ultimately prevailing seem thin, given the financial pressure of $500 daily fines for non-attendance and their interrupted livelihoods when they are away. And Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a key Trump ally, could call further special sessions later in the year. This is why some Democrats believe that if they can threaten Republican seats in their own states, they might convince House Speaker Mike Johnson to call off his allies in Austin. 'Perhaps the Republican members of Congress here in New York could say to their Republican colleagues in Texas — 'Hey, slow down on this because this could affect us,'' Carl Heastie, the speaker of the New York State Assembly, said. This seems a long shot, however, not least because there are considerable impediments in New York to a swift redrawing of maps. Hochul admitted that that even if everything goes smoothly, redistricting that would bypass New York's current nonpartisan commission could only be in place for the 2028 election — a lifetime away in Trump-era politics. And attempts by Democratic states to rebalance electoral maps might convince more GOP bastions to do the same. So, if an outside Texas strategy is unlikely to force the Texas Republicans to back down, why are Democrats pursuing it? This may be one of those times in politics when a party can win something by losing. Democrats might not only engage their demoralized partisans by taking the fight to Trump on Texas; they can use the battle to organize and focus their message as they grapple for traction after a grim political year. Defending democracy might be a desirable project in the abstract. But in the past, especially when Biden was warning that Trump imperiled America's 'soul,' the idea felt distant from voters infuriated by high grocery prices and the cost of housing. And impassioned warnings from Democratic leadership about how Trump would threaten democracy didn't stop his reelection. Hochul and other Democrats seemed on Monday to be reaching for a way to connect the democracy question to more immediate voter concerns through the prism of the Texas power grab. She argued that stopping such schemes was critical to charting a path back to power so Democrats could reverse Trump's policies on tariffs and deportations. That will require a toughening of the Democratic approach, one that underscores the distance traveled since former first lady Michelle Obama warned that when Republicans like Trump go low, 'we go high.' 'With all respect to the good governance groups, politics is a political process,' Hochul said, dismissing 'purity tests' that would make electoral maps fair to everyone involved through nonpartisan commissions. 'If Republicans win the legislature, they can have at it. But until then, we are in charge, and we are sick and tired of being pushed around.'
CNN
2 hours ago
- CNN
Analysis: Why Trump's Texas battle over the House could end up affecting every American
Democrats might finally have learned something about Donald Trump — if they hope to beat him, they must get down in the gutter alongside him. Party leaders in powerhouse blue states on Monday vowed to emulate the president's methods to create new Democratic-friendly seats in the House of Representatives in response to his bid to carve out five new GOP districts in Texas. Their promises came as they celebrated Democratic Texas state lawmakers who suddenly became the fresh faces of the anti-Trump resistance after facing arrest warrants for fleeing the state in an exodus that ground a special legislative session called by the president's allies to a halt. This all might look like yet another twist in a generationslong struggle by both parties to gerrymander districts to get a leg up in elections. And some voters' eyes might glaze over at what seems like an internal Texas tussle. But the fight has profound national implications. In the short term, the House of Representatives — which Democrats hope to win back in midterm elections next year to rein in Trump's presidency — could be at stake. Democrats currently need a net gain of three seats to take the majority. If the Texas plan passes without a response by another state, they will need eight. That could dash their goal of imposing a clamp on Trump's runaway presidency. In the medium term, the Texas redistricting fight must be seen against the backdrop of a fraught political age. There are growing signs American democracy is fraying. Republicans will argue, correctly, that Democrats have mounted their own egregious redistricting schemes in states such as Illinois and Maryland. But the instigator of the effort to make the Texas congressional delegation even redder was a president who already has a dark record of trying to subvert the verdict of voters. Longer term, the national political fight that has erupted over Texas looks almost certain to further erode the checks and balances of democracy, however it ends. If both parties now simply go all-out in a national gerrymandering frenzy, they will produce a House of Representatives where it will be even more difficult for incumbents to lose their seats and that will make meaningful political change even harder. If nothing else, the furor demonstrates the imperative of winning power and forging transformational change before the opportunity is lost. Republicans over the last decade have built an unassailable conservative Supreme Court majority that enabled GOP redistricting efforts based on race, including in Texas. And they've elected and supported a president with an expansive and constitutionally questionable thirst for imposing his own personal power that has shattered most political norms. Most presidents would not be as blatant in Trump in trying to change the electoral battlefield. Over the same period, Democrats failed to bolster ranks of liberals on the Supreme Court — for instance, by not persuading late Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to retire when a liberal replacement could be confirmed while the party controlled the presidency and the Senate. In 2024, Democrats initially backed an aging and unpopular President Joe Biden, despite warnings that his candidacy could open the door again to Trump and his anti-democratic project. This loss of power has been disastrous to progressive aspirations and to protecting the liberal victories of the last 50 years, including the nationwide constitutional right to abortion. Some top Democrats see the Texas redistricting showdown as a moment for their party to show more ruthlessness. 'We are at war,' New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Monday, alongside several exiled Texas lawmakers, warning that Democrats should forget independent redistricting panels intended to draw fairer maps that represent a complex electorate. 'The playing field has changed dramatically, and shame on us if we ignore that fact and cling tight to the vestiges of the past,' Hochul said. 'That era is over. Donald Trump eliminated that forever,' she said. California Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled a plan for a mid-decade redistricting in his state to match the one underway in deep-red Texas. His proposal would come before voters in November — the latest skirmish in a long-running ideological feud between the two states. But it will only be triggered if Texas moves ahead with its own plan. Newsom said he still favored a national independent districting body, but warned that Democrats needed to respond to the GOP's hardline tactics. 'Things have changed. Facts have changed. So we must change,' Newsom said. 'We have got to think anew. We have got to act anew. And we are reacting to the change — they have triggered this response, and we are not going to roll over.' Potential 2028 Democratic primary candidates, including Newsom and Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois — who has also rushed to back the Democratic Texas lawmakers — have compelling personal interests in joining the fight. In two years, candidates will be asked on a debate stage what they did in the battle over Texas. But they're also seeking to revive a national party pummeled by Trump, which lacks leadership and has left its supporters listless. Grassroots progressives have been pining for someone, anyone, to show some stomach for the fight — even though Democrats lack any power in Washington to meaningfully hurt the president. The Texas uproar also coincides with multiple examples of Trump's widening authoritarianism, following his cowing of Congress, crushing of constraints within the federal government, and co-option of the Justice Department and some intelligence services into instruments of his whims. On that score, a source told CNN on Monday that Attorney General Pam Bondi has ordered prosecutors to launch a grand jury investigation into Obama administration officials over the Russia investigation. Given all this, if the Democrats don't fight back now, when will they ever fight? As CNN's Eric Bradner reported Monday, the proposed new GOP maps could force two prominent Democratic lawmakers, Reps. Greg Casar and Lloyd Doggett, into a primary against one another. They'd also merge two other seats and make two south Texas seats held by Democrats more Republican-leaning. While the Democrats made a statement by leaving Texas, their chances of ultimately prevailing seem thin, given the financial pressure of $500 daily fines for non-attendance and their interrupted livelihoods when they are away. And Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a key Trump ally, could call further special sessions later in the year. This is why some Democrats believe that if they can threaten Republican seats in their own states, they might convince House Speaker Mike Johnson to call off his allies in Austin. 'Perhaps the Republican members of Congress here in New York could say to their Republican colleagues in Texas — 'Hey, slow down on this because this could affect us,'' Carl Heastie, the speaker of the New York State Assembly, said. This seems a long shot, however, not least because there are considerable impediments in New York to a swift redrawing of maps. Hochul admitted that that even if everything goes smoothly, redistricting that would bypass New York's current nonpartisan commission could only be in place for the 2028 election — a lifetime away in Trump-era politics. And attempts by Democratic states to rebalance electoral maps might convince more GOP bastions to do the same. So, if an outside Texas strategy is unlikely to force the Texas Republicans to back down, why are Democrats pursuing it? This may be one of those times in politics when a party can win something by losing. Democrats might not only engage their demoralized partisans by taking the fight to Trump on Texas; they can use the battle to organize and focus their message as they grapple for traction after a grim political year. Defending democracy might be a desirable project in the abstract. But in the past, especially when Biden was warning that Trump imperiled America's 'soul,' the idea felt distant from voters infuriated by high grocery prices and the cost of housing. And impassioned warnings from Democratic leadership about how Trump would threaten democracy didn't stop his reelection. Hochul and other Democrats seemed on Monday to be reaching for a way to connect the democracy question to more immediate voter concerns through the prism of the Texas power grab. She argued that stopping such schemes was critical to charting a path back to power so Democrats could reverse Trump's policies on tariffs and deportations. That will require a toughening of the Democratic approach, one that underscores the distance traveled since former first lady Michelle Obama warned that when Republicans like Trump go low, 'we go high.' 'With all respect to the good governance groups, politics is a political process,' Hochul said, dismissing 'purity tests' that would make electoral maps fair to everyone involved through nonpartisan commissions. 'If Republicans win the legislature, they can have at it. But until then, we are in charge, and we are sick and tired of being pushed around.'
E&E News
3 hours ago
- E&E News
Megalaw complicates Trump's plans to quickly ax renewable credits
President Donald Trump wants to quickly ax renewable tax credits. But his One Big Beautiful Bill Act could take years to unwind some Biden-era incentives. The legislation, signed into law by Trump last week, creates a complicated system for phasing out the investment tax credit and production tax credit available to wind and solar projects. Many projects could still see financing for years to come — though confusion reigns over which ones will qualify. Projects already under construction are effectively able to claim the credits if they enter operation through 2030. That threshold is met by roughly a third of onshore wind development projects and more than a quarter of solar projects, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration figures. Advertisement Projects on the cusp of construction will also be able to claim credits. Those that start work before July 4, 2026, can avoid a new congressional requirement that projects be placed in service by the end of 2027 to get federal money. Trump injected uncertainty into those qualifications with an executive order Monday, titled 'Ending Market distorting Subsidies for Unreliable, Foreign Controlled Energy Sources.' The order directed the Treasury Department to tighten the definition for what qualifies as the start of construction. But some renewable developers predict that their projects will weather the changes. 'As long as there's demand for power and not enough supply, we'll have customers to buy our power,' said Nick Cohen, president and CEO of Doral Renewables. 'And, you know, right now the customer market is paying double what it did five years ago, and that's because it needs the power. So our business is actually in a very good position because there's so little supply out there and such strong demand.' Still, the stakes for who qualifies are potentially massive for the country's renewable energy industry and the climate. About two-thirds of wind projects and nearly three quarters of solar projects that plan to come online by 2030 haven't begun construction, according to EIA's figures. The agency's numbers represent a rough estimate of the status of projects as of May. Most energy modelers are forecasting a big drop-off in renewable installations as a result of the GOP megabill. Wood Mackenzie, a consultancy, predicts wind and solar installations will decrease by 20 percent and 17 percent, respectively, over the next decade. Greenhouse gas emissions could be 7 percent higher in 2035, according to modeling done by a research group led by Jesse Jenkins, a Princeton University professor and outspoken climate hawk. That analysis also factors in rollbacks for other clean energy incentives, like tax credits for electric vehicles. And while Trump has long prioritized axing renewable tax credits — which he refers to as part of the 'Green New Scam' — his order Monday shocked renewable developers. Under the order, Treasury will reconsider how it determines whether a project is under construction. Historically, companies that spend 5 percent of a project's total cost or have begun significant construction activities are safe-harbored under federal tax law, making them eligible to receive subsidies. But Republican lawmakers belonging to the ultra conservative House Freedom Caucus maintain the current rules make it too easy for developers to claim they have started construction and receive the money. The Treasury Department has 45 days to issue a report on the topic. Keith Martin, a lawyer specializing in renewable project finance at the firm Norton Rose Fulbright, said he has been inundated with calls this week about how the order could impact project financing. The big fear among developers: Banks won't be willing to lend if companies can't meet Treasury's new guidelines. Renewable developers traditionally have not had enough tax liability to fully claim the value of the federal tax credits. So many have partnered with big banks, who can claim the full value of the credits thanks to their massive balance sheets. So far, it's been business as usual. Martin said he saw one new term sheet signed earlier this week and expected to close on another Thursday. He predicted projects already under construction are likely to continue to receive financing under the tax equity model, as are ones close to the start of construction. 'And then after that, we'll see what Treasury does,' he said. Any change in the rules proposed by the department are likely to be forward looking and only apply to projects yet to enter construction, Martin added. 'The big tax equity investors have told us they are talking internally about what to do.' 'A tough change' Cohen of Doral Renewables said the company plans to forge ahead with the projects it is planning. It will simply raise the power price it is seeking from potential customers if Treasury's new guidance makes it too onerous to pursue the federal tax credits. A large project underway in Wisconsin illustrates how Doral is adjusting to changes in the legislative landscape. The Philadelphia-based renewable developer is waiting on Treasury's new guidance before signing a long-term contract to sell the power generated by Vista Sands, one of the largest planned solar developments in the country. At 1.3 gigawatts, Vista Sands will be able to produce enough electricity to power 230,000 homes. The project was approved earlier this year by Wisconsin utility regulators. It is slated to start construction in the spring of 2026 and come online in 2027. Right now, the project falls within the requirements for receiving federal tax benefits, Cohen said. That would lower Vista Sands' financing costs and make it cheaper to build. But if Treasury's new guidance is too difficult to meet, the company will simply pursue traditional financing to build the project. The big change: It will charge prospective customers more for the power. Whether other developers could do the same is hard to gauge. Five large renewable developers contacted by POLITICO's E&E News declined to comment publicly on the law's impact, with some citing fear that their comments might incite further actions from the Trump administration to curtail the industry. American Clean Power, a major trade association, declined to comment on the record. The Solar Energy Industries Association did not respond to a request for comment. Some developers said they were not impacted by the changes. Power Co. of Wyoming said its plans to build a 3.5-GW wind farm in the state were not affected by the law, even though the project is slated to come online in stages in 2029 and 2030. Chokecherry and Sierra Madre, as the project is known, has been safe harbored under existing Internal Revenue Service rules since it began construction on roads and turbine pads in 2016. Foundation installation is slated to begin next year, according to a project spokesperson. In Oregon, one of the country's largest planned solar projects, the 1.2-GW Sunstone Solar development, is going to be built in stages. A spokesperson for Pine Gate Renewables, the project's developer, anticipates that the early phases of the project will qualify for the federal tax credits. She did not disclose what percentage of the project that entailed. Solar projects on firm financial ground are more likely to get built regardless of the tax credit situation, said Andrew LaScaleia, an analyst at Capstone, a consulting firm. But the picture is more complicated for projects on the financial margins, which likely need the federal credits to proceed, he said. LaScaleia has been fielding calls from clients asking if Democrats might extend the tax credits if they emerge victorious from next year's midterm elections. There's precedent for such an action. The tax credits have been repeatedly extended by Congress since being enacted in 1978, in the case of the investment tax credit, and 1992, in the case of the production tax credit. 'Obviously, that hinges on Democrats winning a chamber and it hinges on them prioritizing this in a tax extenders package, and then you need the president to actually sign that,' he said. 'But, yeah, it's a tough change and is definitely bad for the industry.' This story also appears in Energywire.
