Senate Democrats aren't the only people holding up President Trump's appointees. Two GOP senators have placed a "hold" on three of President Trump's nominees in a spat with the administration over federal funding for the solar and wind energy grifts President Trump is trying to wind down. Senators Charles Grassley (R-IA) and John Curtis (R-UT) are preventing any action from being taken on the nominations of Brian Morrissey to be general counsel at the Department of the Treasury, Francis Brooke to be assistant Treasury secretary, and Jonathan McKernan, who is nominated to become an undersecretary at Treasury.
A hold is defined as:
The Senate "hold" is an informal practice whereby Senators communicate to Senate leaders, often in the form of a letter, their policy views and scheduling preferences regarding measures and matters available for floor consideration. Unique to the upper chamber, holds can be understood as information-sharing devices predicated on the unanimous consent nature of Senate decision-making. Senators place holds to accomplish a variety of purposes—to receive notification of upcoming legislative proceedings, for instance, or to express objections to a particular proposal or executive nomination—but ultimately the decision to honor a hold request, and for how long, rests with the majority leader. Scheduling Senate business is the fundamental prerogative of the majority leader, and this responsibility is typically carried out in consultation with the minority leader.
Grassley and Curtin are not alone in fighting to continue, at least for the short run, funding these ridiculous "renewable" programs that make the Chinese rich while contributing nothing to U.S. energy independence. According to Politico, Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Mike Rounds (R-SD), and Thom Tillis (R-NC) are also considering holding figurative hostages to defend wind and solar tax credits from the budget ax.
Grassley laid out his objection to considering the nominees in the Congressional Record:
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, today, I placed a hold on three Department of the Treasury nominees. The nominees are Brian Morrissey, Jr., of Virginia, to be General Counsel for the Department of the Treasury; Francis Brooke, of Virginia, to be an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury; and Jonathan McKernan, of Tennessee, to be an Under Secretary of the Treasury.
During consideration of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, I worked with my colleagues to provide wind and solar an appropriate glidepath for the orderly phase-out of the tax credits. Ultimately, Congress enshrined in statute a 12-month transition period based on when projects ``begin construction.''
What it means for a project to ``begin construction'' has been well established by Treasury guidance for more than a decade. Moreover, Congress specifically references current Treasury guidance to set that term's meaning in law. This is a case where both the law and congressional intent are clear.
The Department of the Treasury is expected to issue rules and regulations implementing the agreed upon phase-out of the wind and solar credits by August 18, 2025.
Until I can be certain that such rules and regulations adhere to the law and congressional intent, I intend to continue to object to the consideration of these Treasury nominees.
The conflict centers on a provision in the law by Curtis that grants full tax benefits to solar and wind projects that commence construction within a year of the provision's passage. This would likely result in a building craze, as planned solar and wind facilities would rush to meet the tax credit deadline. In the meantime, Trump had adopted a much more unforgiving view. His executive order, titled "Ending Market Distorting Subsidies for Unreliable, Foreign‑Controlled Energy Sources," issued shortly after the "One Big Beautiful Bill," requires the Treasury Secretary "shall take all action as the Secretary of the Treasury deems necessary and appropriate to strictly enforce the termination of the clean electricity production and investment tax credits under sections 45Y and 48E of the Internal Revenue Code for wind and solar facilities. This includes issuing new and revised guidance as the Secretary of the Treasury deems appropriate and consistent with applicable law to ensure that policies concerning the “beginning of construction” are not circumvented, including by preventing the artificial acceleration or manipulation of eligibility and by restricting the use of broad safe harbors unless a substantial portion of a subject facility has been built."
Apparently, the extension of the window for "beginning of construction" was a sweetener that brought several Republican senators into the "yes" column on the One Big Beautiful Bill vote.
As it stands, the standard for "beginning of construction" can be met by spending 5% of the project cost. House Republicans targeted this scheme, but it somehow survived.
All in all, the demands by Grassley and Curtis aren't all that different from those made by Chuck Schumer. Schumer also demanded the unfreezing of billions of dollars in return for a small number of nominees.
This places Trump in a very difficult position. Grassley is pretty much a staunch ally when he isn't slinging pork around. And Trump needs his nominees confirmed. The last thing he needs is for this skirmish to mutate into a much larger battle with a handful of GOP senators aligning themselves with the Democrats to trade spending for nominations. This is precisely what would happen if Trump tried to roll Grassley over the "beginning of construction" rules. On the other hand, alienating a key slice of the House GOP by caving is probably not a great strategy either.
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