House Passes Tax Cuts and Jobs Act

Yesterday, the House passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) along party lines. As we discussed in our prior blog post here, the TCJA extends the ITC with respect to certain “orphaned” technologies (e.g., fiber optic solar, fuel cell, small wind, micro turbine, CHP, and thermal energy) but it slashes the PTC down to 1.5¢/kWh with no annual inflation adjustment. The ball is now in the Senate’s court where the Senate Finance Committee voted its version of the bill, which does not impact the PTC, onto the floor late last night. (Our blog post on that bill is available here). Senate Republicans have a much slimmer majority to work with; just three defections will torpedo the bill. Assuming the Senate approves the bill, a conference committee will meet after Thanksgiving to hammer out the differences between the two versions of the legislation and that’s when the fate of the PTC will ultimately be decided.