Energy Secretary Chris Wright is lobbying Republicans to restore tax credits for nuclear and geothermal energy projects that were slashed in the mega-legislation to enact President Trump’s tax cuts and agenda.
Mr. Wright is calling around Capitol Hill and urging lawmakers to reinstate the tax credits that were reduced in the House version of the legislation, he said Tuesday.
He is weighing in on the measure as one of Mr. Trump’s most important cabinet secretaries, while the Senate GOP faces calls to further reduce the cost of the bill, which narrowly passed the House last month.
Extending the tax credits for nuclear and geothermal would diminish the savings in the mega-legislation, but Mr. Wright believes they need to be restored.
“I think geothermal should be included with nuclear as emerging, reliable, dispatchable energy sources for those credits,” Mr. Wright told lawmakers on the House Energy and Commerce Committee Tuesday.
The “Big, Beautiful Bill,” as Mr. Trump and the GOP call it, saves hundreds of billions of dollars by repealing federal tax credits for clean energy, including solar and wind.
Some of the savings come from shrinking the tax credits for both nuclear and geothermal energy, which are “next generation” clean technologies that Mr. Wright and others believe will contribute significantly to a more stable energy grid and more affordable energy.
The House-passed bill weakens the tax credits, making them largely useless for new nuclear and geothermal facilities. It would require new advanced nuclear facilities and nuclear facility upgrades to begin construction by Dec. 31, 2028 to qualify for the tax credit.
Mr. Wright wants to extend the date to 2031.
The latest geothermal technology, which injects water into a hot rock and returns it to the Earth’s surface as steam, Mr. Wright said, “is rapidly becoming commercially viable” as a new source of carbon-free energy.
New nuclear power plants are also key to strengthening the U.S. energy grid as demand increases, Mr. Wright said. Both technologies should only be eligible for the tax credits for a few years.
“It has to have an end-date,” he said.
The House-passed bill cuts off tax credits for wind and solar projects that have not yet started within sixty days of the legislation’s enactment. Mr. Wright applauded those cuts. He said wind and solar are intermittent sources of energy that cost more and make the grid less reliable.
“The reforms there in energy policy will not only save Americans money by stopping the 30-year-long subsidies for intermittent energy sources, but by stopping the rapid increase in intermittent sources on grids, we will reduce stress on grids and reduce costs,” Mr. Wright said.
Prior to joining the Trump administration, Mr. Wright was CEO of the nation’s second-largest fracking company. He was an investor in Fervo, the nation’s leading geothermal energy developer.
The company is building what it calls the world’s largest geothermal project in southern Utah with the help of tech billionaire Bill Gates. The project will be slowed without the government tax credits, Mr. Gates told the Wall Street Journal. Federal money will help the project more rapidly scale up energy production, he said.
Unlike wind and solar, geothermal can produce a constant supply of energy, using heat from underground.
Mr. Wright said he’s “a believer that energy sources, with time, should stand on their own,” but said emerging technologies should be helped by the government “for a finite time period.”
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.