Moderate Republicans were steamed Wednesday about President Donald Trump’s executive order to placate conservatives who voted for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and John Curtis of Utah secured concessions to ease the phase-out of renewable energy tax credits in the budget reconciliation package.
But Trump’s executive order this week was meant to blunt that deal. House conservatives demanded it last week before agreeing to help make the bill law.
Murkowski, during a hearing Wednesday, said the order “really guts the effort for a compromise that we were able to secure within that reconciliation bill. So I don’t really like it. I’ll just be blunt, I don’t really like it all.”
The law, which Trump signed on Independence Day, allows wind and solar projects to receive tax credits as long as they start construction by mid-2026 or are plugged into the grid by the end of 2027.
Renewable energy companies and their allies also secured softer supply chain restrictions and managed to kill a new excise tax on projects.
The president’s order directed officials to use a strict interpretation of the law and to prevent companies from securing materials from adversaries like China.
“We had a debate, certainly, before the Senate last week when it came to certain of the tax credits for our solar and wind projects,” Murkowski said. “We negotiated a little bit longer runway for wind and solar tax credits in reconciliation. It wasn’t much, but it’s gonna help allow for the facilitation of a couple of projects, maybe a good handful, to proceed.”
Members of the House Freedom Caucus were particularly irked with the start construction language, widely seen as a lifeline to wind and solar developers. Conservatives preferred only giving developers 60 days following passage.
The executive order directed the Treasury Department to issue new and revised guidance within 45 days that is “appropriate and consistent with applicable law to ensure that policies concerning the ‘beginning of construction’ are not circumvented.”
“For too long, the Federal Government has forced American taxpayers to subsidize expensive and unreliable energy sources like wind and solar,” the order reads.
It’s unclear how the order will play out, but Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) — another moderate who worked to soften the tax credit rollbacks — feared it would empower the administration to effectively limit the credits to a greater extent than the law states.
“It all depends on how they play it out, and there are a number of things that the administration can do now,” Tillis said. “They’ve been empowered to basically shut down the industry and make it even more negatively impacted than if they follow the letter of the law.”
Curtis said, “We are trying to understand not just the verbiage of the deal but the intent. And we’re being a little cautious until we have a chance to talk with the Trump administration.”
He added: “I think it is fair to say we worked very hard for that and that is the intent of Congress. And that will be the point I make to the administration.”
What does the order really mean?
Wild and solar executives and advocates have been trying to make sense of the order.
The law firm Stoel Rives said previous guidance defined starting construction as either physically beginning the building process or spending 5 percent of the expected cost. Trump’s order could change that.
“It is not clear from the language of the Executive Order exactly what this means, and we will not know exactly what the new and revised requirements will be for beginning of construction until the Treasury Department issues new guidance,” the firm said in an alert to clients.
ClearView Energy Partners, a consulting firm, told clients the bill becoming law “already pointed towards a slower U.S. clean energy transition.”
With the executive order, “the White House appears intent on leveraging its regulatory powers to interpret the statute to generate further headwinds,” the firm said.
Indeed, Mike Carr, executive director of the Solar Energy Manufacturers for America Coalition, expressed concern the order could introduce further uncertainty into the process of claiming credits.
“While we did not get all we needed to succeed in our fight with China to reshore solar manufacturing, allies of advanced manufacturing secured a one year lifeline for the domestic content incentive,” he said in a statement.
“Projects that can meet the beginning of construction deadline by July 2026 will be critical to keep factories open and people employed as they deliver American-made solar for the next few years.”
