WATCH: Padilla Pushes to Lower Energy Costs and Stop Trump Administration’s Rule Punishing Clean Energy Projects

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla, a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, spoke on the Senate floor to call on his colleagues to revoke the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) arbitrary and vengeful rule that is making it significantly harder for wind and solar projects to qualify for clean energy tax credits. As Trump's disastrous agenda continues to raise energy costs - with California household electricity costs up 15% since President Trump took office - Padilla pushed his colleagues to pass a resolution under the Congressional Review Act to repeal this misguided rule to restore certainty for companies and support vital clean energy projects.

Padilla emphasized that companies have been counting on these critical tax credits, including the clean energy production and clean electricity investment tax credits, to support wind and solar projects that will build cleaner and more reliable energy solutions while lowering Americans' costs. He warned that as more projects struggle to receive these credits, fewer will be completed - and those that are finished will be more expensive, raising the price of electricity for working families and businesses.

Video of Padilla's remarks is available here.

Remarks as delivered:

Mr. President, I rise today in support of my colleagues' effort to overturn the IRS' new rule, which is making it harder for wind and solar projects to qualify for critical clean energy tax credits.

Now, families across the country are already struggling to get by with rising costs, costs that are going up at the grocery store, at the doctor's office, when you're trying to pay the monthly rent or your mortgage, at the pump, and increasingly, our energy bills.

Now, since President Trump took office last January, California household electricity costs have increased by 15%. That's more than five times the rate of inflation.

And so it makes no sense that this Administration is making it harder to build the very energy projects that would help. Energy projects that would increase supply of electricity, energy projects that would help bring down the cost of electricity. And one of the many ways they're doing it is with this new IRS rule that is changing the rules in the middle of the game.

Now, for years now, companies could qualify for a clean energy tax credit once they had invested at least 5% of a project cost into the project. It's what we refer to as "the 5% safe harbor."

That's how businesses make their plans, that's how businesses make their investments, and that's how businesses were able to break ground on a number of necessary projects.

But now, even with projects that are already underway … they may not qualify for their tax credits anymore that they were counting on, that they were planning on.

The net result - not project by project, but overall - is that fewer of these projects will get built. And the projects that do power through somehow may get to the finish line, but they will be more expensive.

It means less energy comes online, and once again, the price of that electricity is going to be higher for families and for businesses and for everybody.

Now, I'm proud to represent California, where we're leaning in on clean energy production, not just to meet the growing demands on the grid of our growing economy and our growing population, but also modernizing in a way that will make us more resilient to the threats of wildfires and extreme heat.

So we have experience in this, and we know, I can share with you colleagues, that building more clean, reliable, and affordable energy projects isn't just an option - it is fundamentally essential. So we have to recognize the impact of this rule and recognize that it's part of a broader pattern.

Over the past year, we've seen repeated efforts to block or delay clean energy projects, whether it's halting offshore wind, canceling funding, or undermining projects that are already underway, as I just explained. And at the same time, my colleague and friend from Virginia just articulated, global instability is driving up fossil fuel costs even further.

This, colleagues, is a perfect example of why the Congressional Review Act exists. When an agency takes an action that harms the American people, we in Congress don't just have the authority, we have the responsibility to step in, and that's what this resolution does. It overturns the misguided IRS rule, it can restore certainty for business, and it can help get clean energy projects back on track. So I urge my colleagues to support the Energy Investment Credits CRA.

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