Weekend Reads: The OBBB and Clean Energy

It’s the weekend! Kick back and catch up with these must-read articles from around the web. In this special issue, we cover perspectives on the OBBB's implications for clean energy.

July 19, 2025

Published by SED

GHG Emissions, Regulation, Solar, Sourcing Renewables

It’s the weekend! Kick back and catch up with these must-read articles from around the web. In this special issue, we cover perspectives on the OBBB’s implications for clean energy.

Assessing the Energy Impacts of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia) The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), signed into law by President Trump on July 4, 2025, significantly modifies clean energy tax incentives enacted under the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA). This special CGEP blog series, featuring six contributions from CGEP scholars, analyzes the potential impacts of the OBBBA across a range of sectors.

Exclusive: Bill Gates on Trump’s big bill, AI and more (Cipher News) Bill Gates, a major funder of climate technologies, told Cipher in an exclusive interview that the Trump administration’s recently enacted law largely rolling back the biggest set of climate incentives in American history was not as bad as could have been expected.

The Uncertain Future of Renewable Energy (Wall Street Journal) After the passage of President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” renewable energy companies are bracing for more challenging times. The law is set to end Biden-era subsidies for clean energy, with the Congressional Budget Office estimating that the industry could lose half a trillion dollars in tax incentives over the next decade. WSJ’s David Uberti reports on the renewable energy pullback. And Annie Minofftalks to a co-owner of a North Carolina-based solar-panel-installation company about what the winding down of subsidies means for his business.

How Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill and 45Z Could Reshape the SAF Market (ResourceWise) Tax credits like the US Section 45Z clean fuel production credit play a crucial role in determining SAF’s financial viability. And now with President Trump signing the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” into law, the landscape is shifting again. This legislation extends, revises, and in some ways redefines the future of SAF incentives in the U.S. Here’s what changed and what it could mean for producers, investors, and strategists navigating the aviation market.

Utilities may speed renewable projects under new tax credit timeline: Jefferies (Utility Dive) Utilities “with renewables-heavy plans” may accelerate wind and solar projects by several years in order to qualify for the new one-year safe harbor period, according to Jefferies.