Republican lawmakers face clean-energy conundrum as they work on tax bill

Bo Erickson - Reuters - 21/04
Major clean energy investments in their districts are at odds with Trump's skepticism of the industry.
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WASHINGTON, April 21 (Reuters) - Republican lawmakers working to extend U.S. President Donald Trump's tax cuts legislation are facing a clean-energy conundrum back home, as major clean energy investments in their districts are at odds with Trump's skepticism of the industry.
Eleven of the 26 Republicans on the House of Representatives' tax-writing Ways & Means committee, who are now crafting the extension of the 2017 tax cut legislation, represent areas that have seen hundreds of millions to billions of dollars in green energy investments in the last few years.

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Clean energy investments boomed after former President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act passed a then-Democratic-controlled Congress in 2022, authorizing hundreds of billions of dollars of clean energy tax credits for businesses, most of which were not capped.
Since then, businesses unveiled more than $165 billion of clean energy manufacturing investments nationwide, according to data tracked by pro-clean energy research firm, Atlas Public Policy, and Utah State University.
The House Republicans are trying to cut at least $1.5 trillion in spending from the federal budget over the next decade, to partly offset a tax cut extension that's expected to cost more than $4.5 trillion over that time.
More than 75% of the clean-energy investments -- almost $125 billion -- were targeted at Republican-held congressional districts, the data shows.
Trump long derided electric vehicles as a "hoax," before he closely allied hims...
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