If you've ever considered putting solar on your home...
... then it's probably time to call your Senators.
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(Photo by Skyler Ewing on Pexels)
A very specific newsletter this Monday afternoon:
If you have considered, wanted, even thought about putting solar panels on your house but haven’t decided or it won't make sense financially this year, you may want to call your Senators.
Why? Because the giant budget bill that passed the House in May ends the solar tax credit by the end of this calendar year.
If you’re not familiar, the policy offers a credit on your federal taxes equivalent of 30% of what you paid for the solar installation. It’s not an immediate savings on the cost of putting panels on your roof, but it can reduce your year-end tax bill by thousands of dollars.
A version of this credit has existed for decades, but the confusingly-named 2022 climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, fixed this figure at 30% until the end of the decade. Under the budget bill that Senators are considering right now, it would be gone at the end of 2025.
As you may have heard, there are a lot of elements in this bill that affect American society in so many ways — so much so I wouldn’t dare try to summarize here: GovTrack NBC News and NPR have a good short summaries while the NYTimes has a comprehensive but organized by category list (gift link) .
It is also a near-wholesale repeal of the 2022 climate law, including other ending tax credits for energy efficiency upgrades and electric vehicles; rescinding hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for grants intended to develop wider scale efficiency, new technologies or address years of environmental injustice; revoking credits that would effectively kill large renewable energy installations in progress; and ending funding for programs designed to monitor and reduce air pollution, including methane releases.
But the energy efficiency and solar credits, including ones that encourage third party companies to offer you dramatically reduced installation costs, are probably what has the most immediate impact for this readership. If these cuts stay in the final bill, it won’t mean you can’t put solar on your roof, but that the math may no longer make sense for many, especially if panels become more expensive as a result of tariffs.
As it stands, the way the tax credit is designed largely benefits people who have enough cash flow to swing the cost of an upfront installation, but losing the credits would dramatically reduce the number of people who could afford it at all .
The solar industry and other lobbyists will certainly be pitching Senators on this, but it certainly doesn’t feel like they have a lot of power in this Congress. That being said, there are a number of Republican senators who have previously supported the idea, even without making an argument primarily concerned about carbon pollution.
Is this helpful, clear information for you? Let me know by replying to this email.
Elsewhere:
- I am reopening my newsletter strategy consulting business. I’ve worked with individual writers, nonprofits and newsrooms to improve what they’re doing on email and I updated my email consulting page with a bit more detail about how I use email as a tool for your specific goals, rather than trying to follow every trend.
Reading:
- Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green. As a long-time watcher of the vlogbrothers YouTube channel, knowing John Green is obsessed with TB is not the same as reading the result of that obsession. It's a fast read of a heavy subject, and what I've learned so far is certainly applicable to other infectious diseases.
Listening:
- I went through the YouTube playlist of an older “Listening Habits” column at Defector, and both found a couple of new rap artists AND was again impressed by Doechii.