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Solar and wind industries see existential threat in U.S. tax bill

Solar and wind industries see existential threat in U.S. tax bill

Japan Times20 hours ago
As Senate Republicans debate President Donald Trump's tax and spending bill, renewable energy companies are reeling at what looks like a worst-case scenario for the industry.
The latest version of the Senate bill includes a new excise tax on wind and solar projects with certain Chinese components, a late addition that stunned renewable advocates. Given China's dominance of the solar supply chain, developers would struggle to find ample equipment, including wafers, from other countries.
The bill would also roll back clean energy tax credits sooner than the House version of the package. It would require wind and solar projects to be fully operational by the end of 2027 to qualify for incentives. Many observers had expected the Senate to ease the phaseout — not accelerate it.
The moves by the Senate, as it seeks to cut spending to offset trillions of dollars in tax cuts, "came out of left field' and shocked the industry, according to Ben King, an associate director with research group Rhodium Group's Energy & Climate practice.
If passed in its current form, the "One Big, Beautiful Bill' would threaten billions of dollars of investments, hobbling energy development at a time of skyrocketing power demand. It would also risk causing household energy bills to spike higher.
"The willingness of the Senate to suggest policy changes that will dramatically increase cost of energy to their consumers and sacrifice significant job growth is very surprising,' said Jason Grumet, chief executive officer of the American Clean Power Association, or ACP, an industry trade group. "It suggests that the effort to repolarize this debate is now taking precedence over their actual constituent interests.'
Republican Senators Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley of Iowa, along with Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, worked Monday to advance an amendment to soften the clean electricity tax credit phaseout and jettison the proposed excise tax. The tax is "unprecedented,' and "the extremity of the proposal may motivate key Senators to support excise tax repeal,' analysts for research provider Capstone wrote in a note Monday.
ACP estimates the new tax would raise costs on American clean energy companies by $4 billion to $7 billion in the next 10 years, while Rhodium projects it will result in a 10% to 20% increase in the cost of building wind and solar.
Solar panels at the Cascadilla Community Solar Farm, owned by Cornell University, in Dryden, New York on April 10, 2023. |
Bloomberg
That cost increase would "drive down deployment' and, for some new solar and wind facilities that would otherwise be economically competitive with natural gas, push them "out of the sweet spot,' said King. Because this kind of policy has never been implemented before, the uncertainty it introduces would have a "chilling effect' on investment in renewables, he added.
The current proposal would also prevent 300 gigawatts of wind and solar — on par with the output of 300 nuclear reactors — from being brought online within the next 15 years, ACP estimates, which Grumet called a "dramatic interruption' of bringing power to the grid as demand soars. Natural gas couldn't easily fill the gap, due to a shortage of turbines, while nuclear power plants take years to bring online.
Industry wasn't alone in its dismay over the changes. On his platform X, Elon Musk called the bill "political suicide for the Republican Party' and "utterly insane and destructive' in its impact on energy. Labor groups assailed the potential for job losses, with North America's Building Trades Unions President Sean McGarvey calling the legislation "the biggest job-killing bill in the history of this country.'
"The president has demanded that renewable energy credits for wind and solar be terminated as soon as humanly possible, and the Senate bill meets that request,' White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in an email.
Asked earlier Monday to respond to an allegation the excise tax would be tantamount to terminating more than a thousand Keystone XL pipeline projects, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said the president understands "legislators want to protect jobs in their communities and in their districts, and so he understands why some of them are against this provision, but he also understands why people want the provision.'
The Trump administration has made a concerted push to shift federal policy to favor fossil fuels over renewables. Agencies have moved to strip $3.7 billion in loan support for low— and zero-emission power projects and unexpectedly paused construction of an offshore wind farm for weeks, both unprecedented moves. But the clean energy incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act have spurred investment predominantly in red states and districts, giving some congressional Republicans reason to think twice about nixing them.
As lawmakers debate the bill, one thing is clear: Its current iteration would "signal a real step back' on the energy transition, according to Rhodium's King. "Decarbonization effectively flatlines from where we are today,' he said.
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Iran assesses damage and lashes out after Israeli and U.S. strikes damage its nuclear sites
Iran assesses damage and lashes out after Israeli and U.S. strikes damage its nuclear sites

Japan Today

timean hour ago

  • Japan Today

Iran assesses damage and lashes out after Israeli and U.S. strikes damage its nuclear sites

This satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies shows overview of Fordo enrichment facility in Iran, on June 29, 2025. (Maxar Technologies via AP) By JON GAMBRELL Iran is assessing the damage and lashing out over the American and Israeli airstrikes on its nuclear sites, though Tehran kept open the possibility Tuesday of resuming talks with the Washington over its atomic program. The comments by government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani also included another acknowledgment that the American strikes at Fordo, Isfahan and Natanz — key sites within Iran's program — had been 'seriously damaged' by the bombing. Iran's state-run IRNA news agency quoted Mohajerani as making the remarks at a briefing for journalists. That acknowledgment comes as Iran's theocracy has slowly begun to admit the scale of the damage wrought by the 12-day war with Israel, which saw Israeli fighter jets decimate the country's air defenses and conduct strikes at will over the Islamic Republic. And keeping the door open to talks with the United States likely shows Tehran wants to avoid further economic pain as another deadline over U.N. sanctions loom. "No date (for U.S. talks) is announced, and it's not probably very soon, but a decision hasn't been made in this field,' Mohajerani said. Israeli airstrikes, which began June 13, decimated the upper ranks of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard and targeted its arsenal of ballistic missiles. The strikes also hit Iran's nuclear sites, which Israel claimed put Tehran within reach of a nuclear weapon. U.S. intelligence agencies and the International Atomic Energy Agency had assessed Iran last had an organized nuclear weapons program in 2003, though Tehran had been enriching uranium up to 60% — a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%. On Monday, Iranian judiciary spokesman Asghar Jahangir offered a sharply increased, government-issued death toll from the war. He said that the Israeli attacks killed 935 'Iranian citizens,' including 38 children and 102 women, IRNA reported. 'The enemy aimed to change the country's circumstances by assassinating military commanders and scientists, intending to spread fear and exert pressure," Jahangir added. However, he asserted — like others up to 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — that Iran had 'won' the war. Iran has a long history of offering lower death counts around unrest over political considerations. The Washington-based Human Rights Activists group, which has provided detailed casualty figures from multiple rounds of unrest in Iran, has put the death toll at 1,190 people killed, including 436 civilians and 435 security force members. The attacks wounded another 4,475 people, the group said. Meanwhile, it appears that Iranian officials now are assessing the damage done by the American strikes conducted on the three nuclear sites on June 22, namely those at Fordo, a site built under a mountain about 100 kilometers (60 miles) southwest of Tehran. Satellite images from Planet Labs PBC analyzed by The Associated Press show Iranian officials at Fordo on Monday likely examining the damage caused by American bunker busters. Trucks could be seen in the images, as well as at least one crane and an excavator at tunnels on the site. That corresponded to images shot Sunday by Maxar Technologies similarly showing the ongoing work. The tunnels likely had been filled in by Iran before the strikes to protect the facility. The presence of trucks before the attacks has raised questions about whether any enriched uranium or centrifuges had been spirited away before the attack, something repeatedly claimed by Iranian officials. Even before the strikes, the IAEA warned that its inspectors had lost their 'continuity of knowledge' regarding the program, meaning material could be at undeclared sites in the country. Iran hasn't said what work is ongoing at the sites, though it has said that the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran planned to issue a report about the damage done by the strikes. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, whose profile sharply rose during the war, also has kept open the possibility of talks with the U.S. However, hard-liners within Iran are increasingly criticizing any effort at negotiations or cooperation with the West. Iran's hard-line Kayhan newspaper, in a piece written by its Khamenei-appointed managing editor Hossein Shariatmadari, mocked any possible talks Tuesday by saying being a 'traitor or stupid are two sides of the same coin.' Shariatmadari's newspaper on Saturday also suggested that the IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi, should be 'tried and executed' if he visited Iran — something that drew immediate criticism from European nations and others. © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

Senate passes Trump's big tax breaks and spending cuts bill as Vance breaks 50-50 tie
Senate passes Trump's big tax breaks and spending cuts bill as Vance breaks 50-50 tie

Japan Today

timean hour ago

  • Japan Today

Senate passes Trump's big tax breaks and spending cuts bill as Vance breaks 50-50 tie

In this image from video from Senate Television, Vice President JD Vance, seated center, breaks a 50-50 tie to push President Donald Trump's big tax breaks and spending cuts bill over the top, on the Senate floor at the U.S. Capitol, on Tuesday. By LISA MASCARO, MARY CLARE JALONICK and MATT BROWN Senate Republicans hauled President Donald Trump's big tax breaks and spending cuts bill to passage Tuesday on the narrowest of margins, pushing past opposition from Democrats and their own GOP ranks after a turbulent overnight session. The outcome capped an unusually tense weekend of work at the Capitol, the president's signature legislative priority teetering on the edge of approval or collapse. In the end that tally was 50-50, with Vice President JD Vance casting the tie-breaking vote. Three Republican senators — Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine and Rand Paul of Kentucky — joined all Democrats in voting against it. "The big not so beautiful bill has passed,' Paul said after the vote. The difficulty it took for Republicans, who have the majority hold in Congress, to wrestle the bill to this point is not expected to let up. The package now goes back to the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson had warned senators not to deviate too far from what his chamber had already approved. But the Senate did make changes, particularly to Medicaid, risking more problems as they race to finish by Trump's Fourth of July deadline. The outcome is a pivotal moment for president and his party, which have been consumed by the 940-page 'One Big Beautiful Bill Act,' as it's formally titled, and invested their political capital in delivering on the GOP's sweep of power in Washington. Trump acknowledged it's 'very complicated stuff,' as he departed the White House for Florida. 'I don't want to go too crazy with cuts," he said. "I don't like cuts.' What started as a routine but laborious day of amendment voting, in a process called vote-a-rama, spiraled into a round-the-clock slog as Republican leaders were buying time to shore up support. The droning roll calls in the chamber belied the frenzied action to steady the bill. Grim-faced scenes played out on and off the Senate floor, amid exhaustion. Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota was desperately reaching for last-minute agreements between those in his party worried the bill's reductions to Medicaid will leave millions without care, and his most conservative flank, which wants even steeper cuts to hold down deficits ballooning with the tax cuts. The GOP leaders have no room to spare, with narrow majorities. Thune could lose no more than three Republican senators, and two — Tillis, who warned that millions of people will lose access to Medicaid health care, and Paul, who opposes raising the debt limit by $5 trillion — had already indicated opposition. Attention quickly turned to two other key senators, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Collins, who also raised concerns about health care cuts, as well as a loose coalition of four conservative GOP senators pushing for even steeper reductions. Murkowski in particular became the subject of the GOP leadership's attention, as they sat beside her for talks. She was huddled intensely for more than an hour in the back of the chamber with others, scribbling notes on papers. Then all eyes were on Paul after he returned from a visit to Thune's office with a stunning offer that could win his vote. He had suggested substantially lowering the bill's increase in the debt ceiling, according to two people familiar with the private meeting and granted anonymity to discuss it. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said 'Republicans are in shambles because they know the bill is so unpopular." An analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found 11.8 million more Americans would become uninsured by 2034 if the bill became law. The CBO said the package would increase the deficit by nearly $3.3 trillion over the decade. And on social media, billionaire Elon Musk was again lashing out at Republicans as 'the PORKY PIG PARTY!!' for including the $5 trillion debt ceiling in the package, which is needed to allow continued borrowing to pay the bills. Few Republicans appeared fully satisfied as the final package emerged, in either the House or the Senate. Collins had proposed bolstering the $25 billion proposed rural hospital fund to $50 billion, offset with a higher tax rate on those earning more than $25 million a year, but her amendment failed. And Murkowski was trying to secure provisions to spare people in her state from some food stamp cuts, which appeared to be accepted, while she was also working to beef up federal reimbursements to hospitals in Alaska and others states, that did not comply with parliamentary rules. All told, the Senate bill includes $4.5 trillion in tax cuts, according to the latest CBO analysis, making permanent Trump's 2017 rates, which would expire at the end of the year if Congress fails to act, while adding the new ones he campaigned on, including no taxes on tips. The Senate package would roll back billions of dollars in green energy tax credits, which Democrats warn will wipe out wind and solar investments nationwide. It would impose $1.2 trillion in cuts, largely to Medicaid and food stamps, by imposing work requirements on able-bodied people, including some parents and older Americans, making sign-up eligibility more stringent and changing federal reimbursements to states. Additionally, the bill would provide a $350 billion infusion for border and national security, including for deportations, some of it paid for with new fees charged to immigrants. Unable to stop the march toward passage, the Democrats tried to drag out the process, including with a weekend reading of the full bill. A few of the Democratic amendments won support from a few Republicans, though almost none passed. More were considered in one of the longer such sessions in modern times. One amendment overwhelmingly approved stripped a provision barring states from regulating artificial intelligence if they receive certain federal funding. Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, raised particular concern about the accounting method being used by the Republicans, which says the tax breaks from Trump's first term are now 'current policy' and the cost of extending them should not be counted toward deficits. She said that kind of 'magic math' won't fly with Americans trying to balance their own household books. Associated Press writers Joey Cappelletti, Darelene Superville and Kevin Freking contributed to this report. © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

Republicans Tillis and Bacon, Who Split with Trump, Won't Seek Reelection
Republicans Tillis and Bacon, Who Split with Trump, Won't Seek Reelection

Yomiuri Shimbun

time15 hours ago

  • Yomiuri Shimbun

Republicans Tillis and Bacon, Who Split with Trump, Won't Seek Reelection

Two of the best-known GOP lawmakers who have split with Donald Trump in his second term said in a span of 24 hours this week that they would not seek reelection – illustrating how little room there is in the party for dissenting voices and complicating the GOP's path to keeping its majorities in the midterm elections. Rep. Don Bacon (R-Nebraska) – who has taken issue with Trump's tariff policy, his posture toward Russia and Elon Musk's U.S. DOGE Service, among other things – announced his retirement Monday, calling himself a 'traditional conservative' caught in a 'tug of war' in his party over issues such as foreign policy and trade. A day earlier, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) declared that he would not seek a third term, after drawing Trump's wrath for opposing the president's priority legislative package. The developments emboldened Democrats in their efforts to try to defeat the sweeping tax and immigration bill as well as capture both lawmakers' seats next year – and worried some Republicans on both fronts. Bacon represents one of only three GOP-held House districts nationwide that Trump lost last year, while Tillis was considered the most vulnerable Senate Republican up for reelection next year. 'When the energy's on the other side, you really don't want to have to defend an open seat,' said Tom Davis, a former chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. The ranks of Republican elected officials who have differed with Trump in recent years has thinned considerably, as fealty to him has become the biggest litmus test in the party and the president has frequently vowed retribution against his critics. Some have stepped down voluntarily, while others have been ousted in Republican primaries. That dynamic is in play once again ahead of the 2026 elections, with other Republicans facing difficult decisions. In Texas, Republican Sen. John Cornyn is already facing a tough primary challenger in a vocal Trump ally, state Attorney General Ken Paxton. Cornyn has said he is fully committed to running again. But Paxton sought to stoke doubts about that. 'You next?' Paxton asked Cornyn on X after Tillis announced his retirement. Jeff Flake, a former Republican senator from Arizona who retired in 2019 after his own disagreements with Trump, said the decisions by Bacon and Tillis show how partisanship has only intensified since he left office. That has left independent-leaning lawmakers torn between retiring or forging forward with their every move scrutinized for loyalty to the party, he said. 'I don't blame them at all,' said Flake, specifically referring to Tillis's predicament. 'To go through the next 18 months … trying to thread that needle when the president's already come out against you – no way. That's asking for too much. You couldn't truly be independent.' Trump lashed out at Tillis on Saturday night after he voted against moving forward with the president's bill, and promised to meet with potential primary challengers in the coming weeks. Tillis vowed to speak more freely after announcing his retirement – and wasted little time, heading to the Senate floor hours later to give a scathing speech arguing that the bill went against Trump's insistence that he would not harm Medicaid. 'Republicans are about to make a mistake on health care and betray a promise,' Tillis said Sunday. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday bluntly dismissed Tillis's concerns that the bill's Medicaid provisions would prompt rural hospital closures. 'The senator was wrong,' Leavitt said during a White House press briefing. 'The president put out a Truth Social post addressing it, and then the senator announced he's no longer running for office anymore, so I think that case has been closed.' Several moderate House Republicans privately said they were stunned by how the White House responded to Tillis's retirement announcement, according to two lawmakers familiar with the conversations, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to detail private conversations, fueling their concerns about how hard the president's team will work to satisfy centrist concerns' ahead of the midterms. Speaking with reporters in Omaha on Monday, Bacon, who unlike Tillis had avoided an open back-and-forth conflict with Trump, acknowledged that some of his positions, such as his support for free trade and international alliances, put him at odds with some fellow Republicans in the Trump era. 'I'm a traditional conservative at heart, but I feel like I've been able to do what I thought was right, whether it's infrastructure, whether it was also certifying the election,' he said, referring to his support for President Joe Biden's bipartisan infrastructure law and for confirming Trump's 2020 reelection loss as the president falsely claimed it was rigged. Bacon said he was retiring to devote more time to family after years of representing a battleground district that requires the incumbent to be 'all in.' He advised his party to be discerning about who they put forward next in Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District. 'Be careful in a primary of being drug way to the right because you can't win in the general,' he said. Democrats said they were eager to contest the open seat. 'Even though [Bacon] always did end up voting the way that Trump wanted him to, he gave a hopeful vision, which is why he was able to win,' Jane Kleeb, head of the Nebraska Democrats, said Monday during a call with reporters. 'Now that that seat is open, there's no question that we're going to be able to send a Democratic official to Congress representing the 2nd Congressional District.' House Republicans hold a slim majority and roughly a dozen of them have already announced runs for governor and senator, with several others mulling whether to launch their own bids, according to multiple GOP campaign strategists. Two strategists familiar with House races said that the pace of announcements is on par with past years, and that more retirements could come after the August recess, when lawmakers have time to deliberate with their families about running for reelection. Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-South Dakota) – chair of the Main Street Caucus, which bills itself as a bloc of 'pragmatic conservatives' – announced Monday he was running for governor, and Rep. Michael Lawler (R-New York) said he would take more time to consider his own gubernatorial bid. Lawler is one of the other House Republicans who represents a district that Trump lost last year. Several House Republicans who belong to the more moderate wing of the party have privately signaled they are considering stepping aside rather than running in tougher terrain, according to GOP officials with knowledge of the situation, but House GOP campaign strategists think those seats – if left vacant – would easily remain Republican. In the battle for the Senate, Republicans may now be in for a messy primary in North Carolina, though operatives acknowledge an early Trump endorsement could tamp down infighting. The potential candidates include Lara Trump, the president's daughter-in-law who grew up in Wilmington; Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley, the former head of the North Carolina GOP; and some of the state's House members, such as Reps. Pat Harrigan and Richard Hudson. 'This is all kind of fresh within the past 24 hours for me, really learning that this was a viable option and that Senator Tillis wouldn't be seeking re-election,' Lara Trump said Monday on Fox News Radio. 'So look, I'm considering it.' On the Democratic side, former Rep. Wiley Nickel is already running, though many Democrats are waiting to see if former Gov. Roy Cooper joins the race. Some Trump-aligned GOP operatives said there was upside to Tillis's decision, giving the party a fresh opportunity to find a nominee who could better unite Republicans and enter the general election with a stronger hand. But open seats can be risky, and the party has fielded some untested contenders in recent elections who ultimately fell flat. Tillis's tensions with Trump date to his first term, when the senator initially opposed the president's declaration of a national emergency to build a border wall. He reversed the position days later amid political blowback. At the start of Trump's second term, Tillis stood out for scrutinizing the background of Pete Hegseth as a choice for defense secretary, though he ultimately voted to confirm him. Tillis openly disagreed with Trump's decision to pardon almost all defendants in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and later helped sink Trump's nominee to be D.C.'s top prosecutor, Ed Martin, over his positions on Jan. 6. While House Republicans praised Bacon on Monday, the reaction to Tillis's decision was more muted among Senate Republicans. Sen. Tim Scott (R-South Carolina), the chairman of the Senate GOP campaign arm, did not mention Tillis in a statement expressing confidence the party would keep the seat. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), the former majority leader who has repeatedly split with Trump over the years, said on X that Tillis's retirement was a 'big setback' for the Senate GOP. Freshman Sen. Jim Banks (R-Indiana), who won his primary last year without opposition after Trump endorsed him, struck a different tone during an appearance on 'Fox And Friends.' 'I would retire too,' Banks said, 'if I voted against this bill.'

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