Tax credits worth billions of dollars for the wind and solar industries are set to expire or begin phasing out next year -- part of a 2015 deal Democrats struck that ended a 40-year-old ban on the export of crude oil.
But some Democrats are seeking to extend the credits, saying President Donald Trump’s tariffs on solar panels and moves to roll back Obama-era climate-related policies have changed the equation.
“We had a change election, we’ve got new leadership in the halls of Congress and we’ve got an opportunity to seize,” Representative Haley Stevens, a Michigan Democrat elected in November, said in an interview.
Stevens helped put together a letter to the chairman of the House’s main tax-writing committee -- which has scheduled a hearing for Wednesday on climate change -- calling for giving the wind and solar tax credits more time. It was signed by more than 100 Democrats.
“For many of us who served in 2015 when that bipartisan, bicameral agreement was reached, the facts on the ground have now changed demonstrably,” the representatives wrote.
The push comes amid an intra-party squabble over climate policy that has pitted progressives led by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, a champion of the Green New Deal, against moderates who favor a less radical approach.
Under the 2015 agreement, inserted into a 2,000-page bill needed keep the government funded, a lucrative production tax credit for the wind industry that had expired was restored and scheduled to phase out over five years ending in 2020. The solar industry’s 30% investment tax credit was also extended as part of the deal, with a phase-down slated to begin next year and reach zero for residential projects in 2022.
In exchange for granting those Democratic priorities, Republicans secured an end to the 1970s-era prohibition on exporting crude oil.
The Democrats, in their letter, wrote that the Trump administration’s efforts to undermine the Clean Power Plan, relax fuel economy standards for cars and trucks, undo efforts to curtail methane emissions and withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate accords have “fundamentally altered the framework by which the 2015 agreement was reached.”
Representative Richard Neal of Massachusetts, the House Ways and Means Committee chairman, said in an interview he’s in favor of extending the solar and wind tax incentives.