Reconciliation Bill Best Shot For Energy Incentives, Aides Say

Reconciliation Bill Best Shot For Energy Incentives, Aides Say

A new budget reconciliation bill is the best chance to enact long-term versions of energy incentives in the stalled Build Back Better Act, congressional aides said during an online conference panel Thursday.

If a reconciliation bill isn't done in the spring or early summer, work on energy provisions is unlikely until after the November elections, Robert Andres, a senior policy adviser for Senate Finance Committee Democrats, said during the online conference sponsored by the D.C. Bar.

"The reconciliation package is the best vehicle to provide long-term certainty for these incentives," Andres said.

In the House of Representatives, the Build Back Better Act is still being considered as a vehicle for energy tax credits, said Alice Lin, an adviser with the House Ways and Means Committee. The next opportunity for lawmakers to act on energy credits would likely be in a tax extenders package later in the year, she said. Any energy tax credits that are included in a tax extenders package would likely have a shorter duration, Lin said.

The House in November passed the BBB Act, a legislative package that would expand renewable energy tax credits and provide incentives for energy transmission and storage, clean energy vehicles, renewable fuel sources and manufacturing.

The green energy part of the House-passed version of the bill contained an option for the premium and investment tax credits that would essentially allow developers or investors to receive their tax credits in a lump-sum rebate. The Senate's version of the bill had a provision that mirrored the provision in the House bill, according to the Congressional Research Service. 
 
Considerable support remains for direct payment of a lump-sum rebate, Andres said during the panel. If lawmakers succeed in passing a reconciliation bill, he said he'd expect some form of a direct pay option to be part of it.

"It's a provision that I think is neither as secure as a lot of its proponents would like it to be, nor is it in as much danger, I think, as they fear it's in," Andres said. "It's a type of thing where there will probably be some modifications to what was put out before, but I think, probably not as substantial as some people have expected."

In April, Ali Zaidi, the White House's deputy national climate adviser, said during a conference that the Biden administration continues talking with lawmakers about putting energy incentives in the BBB Act into a new reconciliation bill. The incentives include production and incentive tax credit extensions, and the direct payment option.


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Reconciliation Bill Best Shot For Energy Incentives, Aides Sayhttps://www.cbiz.com/Portals/0/Images/Hero-ReconciliationBillBest.jpg?ver=3qlDY0Rmy4Dr7IfnQWh1sQ%3d%3dhttps://www.cbiz.com/Portals/0/Images/Thumbnail-ReconciliationBillBest.jpg?ver=_FSDL0uNKqtskHg6cHLvmg%3d%3dA new budget reconciliation bill is the best chance to enact long-term versions of energy incentives in the stalled Build Back Better Act, congressional aides said during an online conference panel Thursday.2022-05-10T17:00:00-05:00

A new budget reconciliation bill is the best chance to enact long-term versions of energy incentives in the stalled Build Back Better Act, congressional aides said during an online conference panel Thursday.

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