Latest news with #Senate-passed
CNBC
4 days ago
- Business
- CNBC
Solar stocks plummet as Senate version of Trump's tax bill cuts renewable energy incentives
Solar stocks were under pressure Tuesday as the U.S. Senate's version of President Donald Trump's spending bill kept cuts to renewable energy incentives. Shares of Enphase Energy plummeted more than 17% in the premarket, while First Solar dipped about 12%. Sunrun slipped more than 27% and SolarEdge Technologies dropped 22%. The Senate version of the bill includes a provision that would fully phase out both solar and wind power tax incentives by 2028. It does, however, keep incentives for nuclear, hydropower and geothermal energy for longer. The renewable energy incentives were key pillars of former President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act. "The House-passed version generally represented a worst-case scenario for the majority of the IRA's tax incentives; while the Senate proposal still represents a material negative for renewable energy investment/names, it is a significant improvement from the House," wrote Raymond James Washington policy analyst Ed Mills. However, "wind and solar eligibility continue to see pressure in the Senate-passed version." Republicans in the Senate want to move fast to pass the bill before the Fourth of July holiday. The tax legislation also raises the debt limit to $5 trillion from $4 trillion. "We continue to view the July 4 target as ambitious given pending Byrd Rule decisions and potential amendments. With Republicans holding a narrow 53-47 majority, defections could force concessions, particularly on SALT and Medicaid provisions," Mills said. "Unless the Senate is able to pre-negotiate provisions, the Senate will then reconcile differences with the House version through the conference process, likely extending into late July."
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
US lawmakers pass tougher penalties for fentanyl traffickers
The US Congress on Thursday passed a bill imposing harsher penalties on fentanyl traffickers, with lawmakers from both parties anxious to crack down on an opioid that has driven an epidemic of deadly overdoses. The Senate-passed bill -- which delivers on a key election pledge of President Donald Trump to get tough on drug smuggling -- was rubber-stamped by the House on a 321-104 vote, with Democrats providing all but one of the no votes. The Justice Department says 75,000 Americans die each year because of fentanyl, making it the number one cause of death for people between the ages of 18 and 34 in the United States. The synthetic opioid is more potent than heroin and much cheaper to produce. "More Americans die of drug overdoses each year than the number of Americans who died in the entirety of the Vietnam War," Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune said ahead of the vote. The HALT Fentanyl Act places copycat variations of fentanyl -- often sold by traffickers -- on the government's list of most dangerous "Schedule 1" drugs alongside the original substance. Lab-created fentanyl alternatives were reclassified to "Schedule 1" on a temporary basis seven years ago but the vote makes the change permanent. Trump has made halting the flow of fentanyl one of his priorities, even announcing it as a justification for import tariffs on Mexico and Canada. But opponents said the new law -- rather than tackling overdoses -- would simply repeat the mistakes of the so-called "War on Drugs." The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of more than 240 US rights organizations, said in a statement the measure would "exacerbate pretrial detention, mass incarceration, and racial disparities in the prison system." "Beginning in the 1980s, draconian drug laws with harsh mandatory minimums and their resulting enforcement under the banner of the 'war on drugs' fueled skyrocketing prison populations," it said. ft/acb
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
N.C. bill gives big energy users a break — at the expense of households
Residential customers of Duke Energy in North Carolina could pay $87 million more per year for electricity under a proposal rocketing through the state legislature, a new study shows. The figure represents about a 4% jump in household bills. The legislation, Senate Bill 266, would change how Duke distributes the cost of electricity it buys to supplement generation from its own power plants — significantly hiking the share paid by residential consumers and cutting the portion paid by industrial electricity users, like chemical manufacturers and textile mills. The analysis shows the legislation is a better deal for industrial customers than the status quo, said Will Scott, Southeast climate and clean energy director for the Environmental Defense Fund. 'They will pay less to use the same amount of energy, and residential ratepayers will pay more,' he said. SB 266 is the latest version of a Senate-passed measure that would unravel the state's climate targets. It was publicly unveiled moments before it was debated and approved by the House Energy and Public Utilities Committee last week, and received fulsome praise from Duke, industrial groups, and others in testimony. On Tuesday, despite protests from clean energy advocates and some Democratic lawmakers, the bill easily cleared the Republican-controlled House and now returns to the Senate, also run by the GOP. The study, conducted by independent analysis group EQ Research, has a narrow scope, homing in on the ramifications of just one section of the 30-page bill — the part that covers how purchased power is billed to customers. 'We were pretty laser-focused,' said Justin Barnes, president of EQ Research, 'because that's the analysis we could do with readily available information quickly.' While Duke generates much of its own electricity from a fleet of fossil fuel and nuclear plants, it also contracts to buy some of its solar power from independent producers and purchases energy from other generators under certain conditions, such as when demand spikes. Under current law, the entire cost of this purchased power is passed on to customers annually along with a charge for natural gas and other fuels. The utility divvies up the costs of this fuel "rider" between residential and industrial customer groups based partially on their peak electricity demand and partially on their overall energy use. According to EQ's analysis of Duke's latest filings with regulators, the fuel rider totals about $2.75 billion for the company's two North Carolina entities, Duke Energy Progress and Duke Energy Carolinas. The purchased power portion is around $1.1 billion. Of the purchased power portion, residential customers currently pay about 41.2%, and use just over 40% of the energy. SB 266 eliminates any weight given to overall energy use in allocating purchased power costs, according to EQ, shifting charges from large industrial users of electricity to residential consumers. The result is that households would pay just under 49% of those costs while using the same 40% of energy, the group's study found. 'It is not going to be a savings for us ratepayers,' said Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Guilford County Democrat, speaking against SB 266 on the House floor. 'It is going to be an increase.' The EQ study does not incorporate the potential effects of other parts of the bill, including alleged savings from eliminating a 2030 deadline by which Duke must cut its carbon pollution, and the impact to customers of allowing the utility to recoup some costs for power plants not yet delivering electricity. Rep. Dean Arp, the Union County Republican championing SB 266, said last week in committee that erasing the 2030 climate target would save all customers a total of $13 billion by 2050. He said allowing Duke to recover plant-construction financing costs early would net them another $1.4 billion. He echoed those claims Tuesday on the House floor, rounding up the total savings by over half a billion dollars. 'A vote against this legislation is a vote to make all ratepayers pay $15 billion more in electricity costs,' Arp said. But opponents of the bill reject the allegation that striving for more wind and solar energy in the near term will contribute to rising rates, an assertion stemming from an elusive study from the state-sanctioned customer advocate, Public Staff, that hasn't been provided widely to legislators or members of the public. Clean energy advocates say the Public Staff analysis considers only the cost of building new power generation, not the rising price of fossil fuels. And they continue to question the wisdom of allowing Duke to charge consumers for costs related to nuclear and gas plants that may never come online. Perhaps above all, EQ's findings show why more time is needed to vet the bill with all interested parties, including clean energy and consumer advocates, not just Duke and large industrial customers, critics contend. 'When we rush processes like these and don't include all the stakeholders, we can end up with results that unfairly burden North Carolina households,' said Scott with the Environmental Defense Fund. 'I hope that we can slow down and make the adjustments we need so that this bill doesn't cause unnecessary pollution or unnecessary costs.' But the House's public deliberation of the measure has been anything but slow. In less than a week, it cleared two committees and two required floor votes. It could appear on the desk of Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, as soon as this week. 'There are all kinds of reasons to vote no on this bill,' Harrison said to the full House on Tuesday, including its treatment of residential customers, its abdication of climate targets, and the process by which it was rushed through the chamber. As the House prepared to vote around 7 p.m., she said, 'It's not clear why we're doing this tonight.'
Yahoo
05-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Parental rights bills get over finish line
A push to give parents affirmative rights to information about their children — a legislative priority for Gov. Kelly Ayotte — cleared both House and Senate Thursday in two identical bills. In a key concession, however, Republican leaders in both chambers agreed to remove a section requiring that parents give consent for all health care services provided to their children. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England and other advocates of legal abortion argued that section would have been in conflict with federal law that permits teens to gain access to birth control without parental permission. The Senate-passed bill (SB 72) won approval in the House largely on a party line vote of 214-167. The vote to support changes the Senate made to the House bill (HB 10) was 210-160. State Rep. Peter Petrigno, D-Milford, charged that the measure's high legal standard of 'clear and convincing evidence' for educators to be able to withhold information from parents could put children at risk of harm. 'We will be giving cover to child abusers; I am sure that is not the intent but that is exactly what that provision does,' Petrigno said. Rep. Heather Raymond, D-Nashua who formerly worked for the Division of Children, Youth and Families, said the current standard for DCYF to investigate abuse is if the teacher has a 'reasonable cause to suspect' that it happened. DCYF can then bring an abuse allegation to law enforcement if it meets the 'preponderance of the evidence.' House Speaker Pro Tem Jim Kofalt, R-Wilton, said the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by a Manchester parent seeking information about their child showed that the Legislature needed to act. 'They did not have clear and unequivocal guidance from this Legislature and governor that parental rights are fundamental and should be viewed through that lens; that changes the game,' Kofalt said. House Speaker Sherman Packard, R-Londonderry, had been working for the past four years on a parental rights policy and made it one of the top 10 issues contained in the House GOP's 'Contract with New Hampshire' during the 2024 campaign. 'Today, with the passage of HB 10, the Legislature has taken a decisive step to uphold parental rights. This legislation reaffirms a fundamental principle: that parents have the right to be informed and involved in decisions affecting their children's lives,' Packard said in a statement after the vote. Kayla Montgomery, vice president of public affairs for Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, praised a coalition of groups who had pushed to remove the section requiring parental consent for health care. 'Confidentiality plays a key role in supporting young people to make healthy, responsible decisions as they grow into adulthood,' Montgomery said. 'When confidentiality is assured, teens and young adults are more likely to obtain health services, disclose necessary information to their providers, and seek out needed services in the future. When young people perceive a lack of confidentiality, they often delay or forgo seeking critical care, including sexual and reproductive health care.' Devon Chaffee, executive director for the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire, said removing that section was the right move. 'Granite Staters have continued to make it crystal clear that legislative attacks on our reproductive rights and health care are deeply unpopular,' Chaffee said. Senate Majority Leader Regina Birdsell, R-Hampstead, said this reform came about because lawmakers worked to come up with the best proposal. 'This language is a compromise between both bodies and is a win for the parents and children of New Hampshire,' Birdsell said. The Senate approved its measure on a voice vote after Senate Democratic Leader Rebecca Perkins Kwoka of Portsmouth had warned that it would not do enough to 'protect our kids' from potential abuse. klandrigan@
Axios
28-05-2025
- Business
- Axios
Lawmakers sweeten the deal for Texas-based film and TV productions
Texas lawmakers have approved a major film incentive bill, signaling a long-term effort to make the state more competitive for projects. Why it matters: Senate Bill 22, filed by Houston Republican Sen. Joan Huffman, would inject $1.5 billion into a new Texas Moving Image Industry Incentive Fund every two years through 2035 — the biggest support for film incentives in the state yet. Backed by celebs, the bill is a major win for production advocates who say Texas has lost out for too long. Eligible expenses would include wages for Texas workers, meals from local restaurants, and airfare on Texas-based airlines — all of which could be reimbursed through the Texas Moving Image Industry Incentive Program. Driving the news: The Texas House approved the Senate-passed bill over the weekend and it will likely be sent to Gov. Greg Abbott, who is expected to sign it, per the Fort Worth Report. State of play: The proposal originally sought $500 million every two years, but the figure dropped to $300 million following committee discussions. Rep. Todd Hunter (R-Corpus Christi), who sponsored the bill in the House, said he'll keep pushing for the higher amount in future budget cycles, per the Fort Worth Report. Yes, but: Despite the drop, the bill would still mark the Texas Moving Image Industry Incentive Program's biggest upgrade yet if signed by Abbott. The consistent funding would support long-term planning and extended productions, the nonprofit Media for Texas tells Axios. Flashback: Since launching in 2007, Texas' film incentive program has seen inconsistent funding. In 2023, lawmakers didn't overhaul the program but approved a then-record $200 million for the 2024–2025 budget — a major jump from the previous $45 million. Zoom in: Houston saw more than $81 million in film-related economic impact in 2024 — more than double the previous year — with projects like Netflix's "Mo" in Alief and Paramount's "1923" filming in the region, per Houston First. What they're saying: "This bill will enable Texans to take a leading place in this industry," Chase Musslewhite, co-founder of Media for Texas, tells Axios. "And instead of this fear of Hollywood coming to Texas, we should look at the opportunity for Texas to be a leader in this industry and spread light in places where industry may not be working. So I think it's just a huge, huge, huge opportunity for Texas."
