-9999

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. CRAPO. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to S.J. Res. 107.

The resolution seeks to overturn a Trump administration IRS notice intended to prevent abuse of the forthcoming phasedown of tax credits for wind and solar projects by requiring project developers to take meaningful steps toward project construction.

While Democrats assert that reversing this notice would help with affordability issues, the result would actually be exactly the opposite. Overturning this notice would create more uncertainty and unpredictability for current projects and discourage focus on more reliable and affordable energy sources.

Under the Biden administration, the Democrats enacted massive new incentives for ``green energy'' projects under the Inflation Reduction Act, abandoning secure, reliable American energy sources for unreliable and costly solar and wind projects. As Republicans predicted, the cost of the Biden administration's Inflation Reduction Act subsidies far exceeded predictions. A 2023 report by Goldman Sachs found that the cost of these Green New Deal incentives could exceed $1.2 trillion-- more than three times what the Democrats claimed.

As part of the Working Families Tax Cut Act, Republicans succeeded in reining in these high costs while also preserving tax incentives for reliable baseload power like hydroelectric and nuclear. Congressional Republicans also imposed new, prohibited foreign entity restrictions to prevent the flow of American taxpayers' dollars to Chinese companies and encourage energy supply chains to return to the United States.

This resolution would ultimately disrupt important progress toward achieving President Trump's ``America First'' energy agenda, create unpredictability by overturning guidance, while also impeding the Treasury Department's official work to implement the Working Families Tax Cut Act.

I encourage my colleagues to vote against this resolution.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source