The House approved the latest version of Republicans’ “big, beautiful bill” early Thursday morning after days of haggling between moderates and hard-line conservatives on issues including renewable energy incentives.
Republican leaders late Wednesday released considerable changes to their massive party-line tax, energy and border package meant to appease different factions and meet Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) goal of passing the megabill before the Memorial Day recess. It passed 215-214, with Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris (R-Md.) voting present, and Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) joining Democrats in voting no.
The legislation would now enact even steeper restrictions on Inflation Reduction Act tax incentives, including quicker phase downs of “technology neutral” production and investment credits. Nuclear energy, however, emerged a big winner in the negotiations.
The updated text also scrapped GOP-friendly provisions, including language to sell or swap hundreds of thousands of acres in Utah and Nevada. Also gone is language on regulations, a mining road in Alaska and drilling in the Arctic’s National Petroleum Reserve.
Republicans appeared poised to release a so-called manager’s amendment with the latest changes Wednesday morning, but a revolt from conservatives sent leaders scrambling. A meeting with President Donald Trump and White House aides appeared to change the dynamics. Trump also visited the Capitol earlier this week to urge Republicans to set their differences aside.
“That was a very productive meeting at the White House. It’s great to have a president who is directly engaged with what happens in the other branch of government,” Johnson said.
The sprawling legislation also includes provisions to accelerate National Environmental Policy Act reviews and other permitting for companies willing to pay, new fees on electric vehicles and hybrids, cuts to climate grants and other spending, and expanded drilling and mining.
Johnson on Thursday morning said, “We’re accomplishing a big thing here today, but we know this isn’t the end of the road just yet. We’ve been working closely with [Senate Majority] Leader [John] Thune [R-S.D.] and our Senate colleagues, the Senate Republicans, to get this done and delivered to the president’s desk by Independence Day.”
Tax credit rollbacks
After firing off numerous letters and statements, the group of Republicans wanting to save at least some climate law incentives are divided about the result, and they are now looking to the Senate for improvements.
House leaders have spent days trying to balance demands from lawmakers wanting to increase state and local tax deductions, change Medicaid, and either gut or protect Inflation Reduction Act credits. Clean energy incentives appeared to have gotten the shortest end of the stick.
The latest bill — crafted with input from Energy Secretary Chris Wright — has new restrictions and faster phase downs of “technology neutral” production and investment credits. Projects would need to be plugged into the grid by the end of 2028, rather than 2031, to qualify.
But the updated bill includes a generous carve-out for nuclear. The industry would continue to qualify for production tax credits for projects that start construction by 2031.
And nuclear would be the only sector able to access the practice known as “transferability,” which allows project sponsors to transfer tax breaks to third parties.
By the end of 2025, the House package would implement requirements intended to disallow Chinese companies from accessing Inflation Reduction Act credits. The climate law also has sourcing restrictions, but Democrats included flexibility to allow U.S. supply chains for minerals and other components to develop.
Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.), co-chair of the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus, said he was “not happy” with the new language and didn’t cast a vote on final passage Thurday. “It is not what I had hoped it would be,” he said.
Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.), however, called the changes a “compromise.” She had previously looked to the Senate to help protect some of the climate law credits.
Even though Trump has been demanding full repeal of what he calls the “Green New Scan,” Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) said GOP leaders hesitated to fully repeal Inflation Reduction Act credits out of concern that projects already under development could be harmed, and that those costs would ultimately be felt by the ratepayers.
‘My San Juan Hill’
Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) prevailed in his efforts to strip public land sales from the package after threatening to vote against the bill.
The land sales, inserted into the measure through a committee amendment from Reps. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.) and Celeste Maloy (R-Utah), would have ordered the sale or swap of roughly 450,000 acres across Nevada and Utah.
While Amodei and Maloy framed the sales as minor transactions to facilitate the development of affordable housing, it lit a fire under Zinke, Democrats and conservation groups, who argued the sales would circumvent the normal process for selling federal lands.
“This was my San Juan Hill; I do not support the widespread sale or transfer of public lands. Once the land is sold, we will never get it back. God isn’t creating more land,” Zinke said in a statement.
“Public access, sportsmanship, grazing, tourism … our entire Montanan way of life is connected to our public lands. I don’t yield to pressure; I only yield to higher principle.”
Conservation groups — and even some Democrats — were quick to laud both the land sale removal and Zinke himself Wednesday night.
“This is the right decision,” said Rep Dina Titus (D-Nev.). “The Amodei amendment would have created an additional burden on taxpayers who would have ultimately had to front the costs of infrastructure improvements needed for developments in distant areas.”
Jessica Turner, president of the the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable, said Congress “avoided setting a dangerous precedent that lands can be sold anytime the U.S. Treasury needs a budget ‘pay-for.’”
David Willms, associate vice president for public lands at the National Wildlife Federation, thanked “Zinke and his colleagues who listened to their constituents and worked with House leaders to eliminate the provision from the budget reconciliation bill.”
Other groups, however, warned that more proposals for land sales could be coming and vowed to keep pushing back.
“Our fight is far from over. … To every lawmaker who supported this dangerous amendment, or who believes our public lands are for sale, we’ll never forget, and we’re just getting started,” said Land Tawney, co-chair of American Hunters and Anglers. “You kicked the hornets’ nest and we ain’t going away.”
Alaska provisions, regulations
Two Natural Resources Committee provisions relating to oil and gas drilling and mining were also sliced out from the final package.
Leaders cut language that would have smoothed approval for the contentious Ambler mining road in Alaska. They also axed a section to push oil and gas leasing in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
It’s unclear why the sections — popular with Republicans and members of the Alaska delegation — were removed. The Senate could add them back into the bill.
Natural Resources Chair Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) said the bill’s passage “marks a historic day for America as the House took action to provide tax relief for working Americans, make generational investments in the American economy and unleash the full potential of America’s natural resources.”
The legislation still includes expanded offshore and onshore drilling, including in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Gulf of Mexico, and language to promote coal mining.
“The Natural Resources title of the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill Act’ will generate billions of dollars in new revenue for the federal government, restore American energy dominance, turbocharge critical mineral development, streamline permitting processes and promote an all-of-the-above energy future,” Westerman said.
Republicans appear to have scaled back language — popular with conservatives — that would require congressional approval of major rules. Aides say the goal was to address issues with the Senate.
Pipelines
Republicans did not add back a previously struck measure that would have allowed hydrogen and carbon dioxide pipeline developers to receive expedited permitting.
Leaders stayed the course even though Trump specifically told Republicans to add the provision back in. Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) also said he was supportive of the measure following Trump’s comments earlier this week.
The section would have specifically allowed developers of oil, carbon dioxide and hydrogen pipelines to receive an “expedited permitting process” if applicants pay $10 million, or 1 percent, of the project’s anticipated cost.
“Who the hell in here is against pipelines?” the president said, according to a lawmakers in the room. But hydrogen and CO2 pipelines have been unpopular in some communities.
The bill still retains a similar provision that would allow natural gas pipeline developers to pay a $10 million fee for expedited permitting. It did, however, receive technical modifications to avoid Senate procedural issues.
And the bill would require the Department of Energy to deem a potential liquefied natural gas export facility to be in the “public interest” — normally a key regulatory hurdle — if the applicant pays a one-time fee of $1 million.
Reporter Amelia Davidson contributed.
