The Tax Cut That is So Much More

As House and Senate Republicans grapple with reconciling differing versions of the GOP “tax reform” legislation, they are also gloating at those little nasties that sneaked in doctrinaire evangelical mandates into the bill. Like recognizing a fetus as a human being or allowing religious organizations to embrace political candidates without losing their non-profit status. Or reflecting the virtually globally-rejected GOP/evangelical falsehood – evidenced by the hard statistics in the above Yale University survey – that man isn’t not the principal cause of global climate change. The United States is the only nation on earth to have rejected the Paris climate change accord.

These political statements somehow found their way into various versions of the legislation. Energy policy is particularly scary now. “The Trump administration’s campaign for ‘American energy dominance,’ which focuses on elevating the nation’s fossil fuel production, received a potential big boost from Republican senators over the weekend.

“The tax measure they approved proposes to open the Arctic to oil and gas development, weaken investment incentives for solar and wind production, and end a big tax credit for new electric vehicles… Taken together, the Senate tax provisions are clearly allied with the Trump administration’s goal to shift American energy development back to black fuels and reverse Obama-era programs to encourage cleaner technologies to generate electricity and move people and goods.

“Arguably the most significant Senate tax provision is meant to tilt a 40-year-old conflict between the oil industry and conservationists toward opening a 1.5-million-acre stretch of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to energy exploration. The struggle over the so-called 1002 area, one of the longest running and most intensely debated in U.S. environmental history, has commanded the attention of every president since Jimmy Carter…

“The Senate proposal to explore for energy in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is not contained in the House version of the tax measure that passed last month. The two tax proposals will be reconciled by House and Senate conferees this month. If it survives, the Arctic drilling plan would be another step in the Trump administration’s effort to reverse Obama-era measures to curb fossil fuel development, reduce carbon emissions to the atmosphere and encourage more environmentally sensitive electrical generation and transportation.

“Other provisions in the Senate tax bill are a boost to the White House fossil energy initiatives. One would treat investment tax credits for wind and solar plants as income and levy a tax on them. Wind and solar developments are eligible for a 30% tax credit under legislation approved in 2015. The nearly $50 billion invested annually in solar and wind projects in the United States has generated hundreds of thousands of jobs and been helped by the $12 billion to $15 billion in tax credit investments by multinational banks and other financiers.

“If the charge on investment tax credits is made law, big investors are likely to exit the American clean energy market, said Gregory Wetstone, chief executive of the American Council on Renewable Energy, or ACORE, a trade group in Washington… ‘A lot of renewable development occurs in rural areas where there are not a lot of other economic opportunities,’ Wetstone said. ‘They are doing the exact opposite of the intention of this bill, which is to grow the economy and produce jobs. With this bill they are slowing investment and making it harder to grow.’… A third provision in the Senate tax bill that appears aimed at helping the oil industry is the elimination of the $7,500 tax credit for electric vehicles…

“Each of the administration’s fossil energy measures has faced strong opposition from conservationists, state leaders, Native Americans and executives in the clean energy and recreational industries. Federal jurists also have begun to consider the merits of a flurry of lawsuits intended to halt the administration’s “energy dominance” campaign.

“Behind the White House initiative is the conviction that big mines, pipelines and oilfields produce thousands of good jobs. Opponents point out, though, that the administration’s support for the U.S. fossil fuel sector comes as China, India, Europe and several Southeast Asian nations begin to do just the opposite, pivoting away from coal — and to some extent from oil — to grow their economies and respond to the risks of climate change.

“U.S. solar companies, one of the nation’s fastest growing industrial sectors, are particularly concerned. Along with the Senate tax provision that weakens investment incentives, President Trump is weighing a tariff on imported solar photovoltaic panels that executives say could cripple the industry. The president has until early January to issue his decision.

“‘The president and Congress are ceding leadership in the growth segment of the energy industry to China and India as fast as they can,’ said Niel Lawrence, Alaska program director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. ‘It will cost Americans in terms of jobs and global stature and ultimately on the impact of climate change.’” Los Angeles Times, December 4^th.

When the reality of what this legislation really represents finally comes home, when those wonderful high-paying jobs fail to materialize, when the taxpayers in high tax states loose massive discretionary income (because those individual state taxes are no longer deductible) and stop spending and innovation there slows down (let’s face it, it’s in those states where cutting edge technology is born at the highest volume in the United States)… well, let’s just say the seeds of a recession have been planted. So corporate America can gloat over the tax cuts now… but the clock is ticking.

I’m Peter Dekom, and Donald Trump now must expand his “people I will blame when my policies tank” list by a whole lot of names.