HR2838-119

What This Bill Does

The Ending Intermittent Energy Subsidies Act rewrites the clean-electricity credit rules so wind and solar projects lose the most valuable tax treatment. It removes the ability to transfer the wind- and solar-related portions of the section 45Y production credit and section 48E investment credit to tax-credit buyers. It then phases down the remaining credits for solar and wind: 80 percent in the first calendar year after enactment, 60 percent in the second, 40 percent in the third, 20 percent in the fourth, and zero after that. The practical effect is to raise after-tax project costs for wind and solar developers, reduce tax-credit market value for those projects, and lower federal clean-energy tax expenditures.

Who Benefits and How

Federal taxpayers benefit because wind and solar tax expenditures decline as the transferable credits and phased credit amounts disappear. Internal Revenue Service credit administrators benefit from clearer wind and solar exclusions in sections 45Y, 48E, and 6418. Competing electric utilities benefit because wind and solar projects lose federal tax advantages that can lower bid prices. Treasury Department budget analysts benefit because the bill creates a predictable four-year phaseout instead of leaving the credits open-ended.

Who Bears the Burden and How

Solar project developers bear higher financing costs because section 45Y and section 48E support is reduced and then eliminated. Wind project developers bear the same credit phaseout and lose access to transferability for the affected credit amounts. Clean-energy tax-credit buyers lose a supply of transferable wind and solar credits. Project finance investors must reprice projects that relied on production-credit or investment-credit monetization.

Key Provisions

• Bars transferability for the wind- and solar-attributable portions of section 45Y and section 48E credits.
• Limits the clean electricity production credit for wind and solar to 80, 60, 40, 20, and then zero percent.
• Limits the clean electricity investment credit for wind and solar facilities on the same four-year schedule.
• Requires the transferability rule to apply to taxable years beginning after enactment and the credit phaseouts to apply to post-enactment production or property.