Congress
Capitol agenda: Crapo to answer big megabill questions
Senate Finance is expected to reveal at least some of its tweaks to the House-passed “big, beautiful bill” Monday, but the panel’s text will likely include placeholders for key Medicaid and tax provisions as negotiations continue.
Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) will brief Senate Republicans on his proposals around 6 p.m., three people granted anonymity to share the unannounced plans told Blue Light News.
Expect the state-and-local-tax deduction to be one of the TBDs as GOP senators continue to hash out how much they want to roll back the House’s $40,000 SALT cap.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune teased a “compromise position” on SALT in a pre-taped Fox News Sunday interview. He said there “isn’t a high level of interest” among senators to follow the House in quadrupling the $10,000 limit that’s in law today.
Thune insisted that President Donald Trump’s tax priorities — no taxes on tips and overtime — will be “incorporated” in the Senate’s version of the megabill, despite Senate Republicans’ desire to trim them in favor of making business tax incentives permanent.
A person granted anonymity to discuss the negotiations tells Blue Light News that Senate Republicans still plan to make those business tax provisions permanent — a win for Thune, Crapo and other Finance members.
With the Senate out Thursday and Friday, this shortened week will be key for sending the bill to Trump’s desk by July 4. The Senate parliamentarian will have bipartisan discussions with committees, and staffers anticipate she will start issuing rulings now that nearly every committee has released text.
A few other megabill developments:
— Trump and Rand Paul talk it out: Paul told NBC News that the two spoke Saturday, after Trump spent weeks attacking the Kentucky Republican for signaling he’d vote against the bill. Paul, who has objected to the bill’s debt ceiling increase, said he told Trump he’s “not an absolute no” and that the two are “trying to get to a better place in our conversations.” But he also indicated that Republicans are spending little energy in really trying to win him over.
— What Mark Meadows is doing behind the scenes: The former House Freedom Caucus chair and one-time Trump chief of staff is operating as a sounding board for conservatives as they try to hang onto some of their biggest priorities in the megabill. Meadows huddled with House and Senate hard-liners last week, and is in regular contact with House Freedom Caucus members.
“Mark is trying to help get a deal done,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) says.
What else we’re watching:
— Where the megabill Medicaid negotiations end up: Senate GOP leaders are getting some outside help as they try to find a landing spot on the megabill’s Medicaid revamp and the provider tax, which several states use to help fund their Medicaid programs. Hospital associations from 13 states sent a letter to Thune and Crapo, a copy of which was obtained by Blue Light News, urging them to “move forward with the carefully negotiated Medicaid provider tax-related and Medicaid directed payment program provisions in the House-passed budget reconciliation bill.”
— Senator security briefing: Senators will receive a classified security briefing Tuesday morning from the chamber’s sergeant at arms and the Capitol Police after a Saturday shooting killed and injured Minnesota state lawmakers and their spouses. The internal announcement Sunday from Majority Leader Thune about the bipartisan briefing came after GOP senators and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer requested one.
Mia McCarthy and Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.
Congress
‘Kill shot’: GOP megabill targets solar, wind projects with new tax
Senate Republicans stepped up their attacks on U.S. solar and wind energy projects by quietly adding a provision to their megabill that would penalize future developments with a new tax.
That new tax measure was tucked into the more than 900-page document released late Friday that also would sharply cut the tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act for solar and wind projects. Those cuts to the IRA credits were added after a late-stage push by President Donald Trump to crack down further on the incentives by requiring generation projects be placed in service by the end of 2027 to qualify.
The new excise tax is another blow to the fastest-growing sources of power production in the United States, and would be a massive setback to the wind and solar energy industries since it would apply even to projects not receiving any credits.
“It’s a kill shot. This new excise tax on wind and solar is designed to fully kill the industry,” said Adrian Deveny, founder and president of policy advisory firm Climate Vision, who helped craft the climate law as a former policy director for Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer.
Analysts at the Rhodium Group said in an email the new tax would push up the costs of wind and solar projects by 10 to 20 percent — on top of the cost increases from losing the credits.
“Combined with the likely onerous administrative reporting burden this provision puts in place, these cost increases will lead to even lower wind and solar installations. The impacts of this tax would also flow through to consumers in the form of higher electricity rates,” Rhodium said.
The provision as written appears to add an additional tax for any wind and solar project placed into service after 2027 — when its eligibility for the investment and production tax credits ends — if a certain percentage of the value of the project’s components are sourced from prohibited foreign entities, like China. It would apply to all projects that began construction after June 16 of this year.
The language would require wind and solar projects, even those not receiving credits, to navigate complex and potentially unworkable requirements that prohibit sourcing from foreign entities of concern — a move designed to promote domestic production and crack down on Chinese materials.
In keeping with GOP support for the fossil fuel industry, the updated bill creates a new production tax credit for metallurgical coal, which is used in steelmaking.
Congress
Elon Musk renews megabill attacks
Elon Musk is once again bashing the Republican megabill.
Weeks after an initial tirade against the legislation, the former top White House staffer and current richest man in the world wrote Saturday on X that the “latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country!”
“Utterly insane and destructive,” he added. “It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future.”
The bill significantly cuts subsidies for clean power sources like wind and solar, along with tax credits for buying electric vehicles and instead includes incentives for the coal industry.
Musk has intervened before to tank a major spending bill. The billionaire torpedoed a compromise government spending bill in December by repeatedly posting in opposition to it. This caused a number of Republicans to back away and nearly spaked a government shutdown.
At the time, Musk had far more influence as a close Trump ally and as the largest donor in support of Trump’s re-election bid. His influence in the GOP has waned after his controversial stint atop the Department of Government Efficiency initiative created repeated hassles for the White House.
Congress
House could vote on megabill as soon as Tuesday
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise told GOP members on a Saturday conference call to prepare for votes Tuesday evening or Wednesday on the sweeping Republican megabill, according to three people who were on the call and were granted anonymity to describe it.
Scalise and Speaker Mike Johnson addressed House Republicans as GOP leaders in the Senate raced to tweak and advance their version of the megabill. Johnson said on the call he has been working with Senate Republican leaders to shape the bill so the version that emerges from the other chamber can be passed in the House without changes and sent to President Donald Trump for enactment.
The leaders have been planning to iron out some issues in a final amendment before Senate passage, but Senate GOP leaders have pushed back hard on reversing deep Medicaid cuts — something dozens of House Republicans are concerned about.
Johnson also members to bring any remaining concerns directly to their GOP senators and to the White House — and to not air those grievances in public. House GOP leadership said they would stick with a promise to give members 48 hours notice of a vote so that lawmakers have adequate time to return to Washington.
House GOP leaders did not take questions on the call.
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