WASHINGTON — The U.S. Capitol complex is crawling with citizen advocates these days, mobilized by one part or another of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” pending in the Congress.
A cluster of anti-hunger champions took a breather Wednesday afternoon in a stairwell of the Cannon House Office building.
“We have 500 advocates on the Hill today, from almost every state in the nation, and we have 200 Hill meetings,” said Cheri Andes, an organizer for Bread for the World, from Massachusetts.
Proposed cuts to SNAP and Medicaid have captured most of the attention since the reconciliation bill emerged in the House in May, but in its more than 1,000 pages are sections that have all kinds of interest groups knocking on congressional doors. They’re asking lawmakers to block the bill, or blunt some of its provisions.
Alaskans are walking the marbled halls, too. Chase Christie, development director for Anchorage-based company called Alaska Solar, flew to Washington to defend renewable energy tax credits that the House-passed bill slates for extinction. Josh Craft, an energy consultant and project manager from Wasilla, was on the same mission.
Wednesday they went to Alaska Congressman Nick Begich’s office. Begich, a freshman Republican, voted for the reconciliation bill, and with it the cancellation of renewable energy credits that have boosted Christie and Craft’s industry.
Christie honed his message for the freshman Republican.
“Solar and renewables in general are unnecessarily politicized in this country,” he said, enroute to his appointment with a Begich staffer. “Nobody from our contingent is saying ‘solar only.’ We’re saying ‘solar and.’ Fill in the blank: Natural gas, oil, whatever. We’re part of the energy solution for this country.”
At stake are several kinds of tax credits. Some help homeowners install solar panels, heat pumps and the like. Thousands of Alaskans have claimed them. Other credits give utilities incentives to install large-scale solar or wind generation. And, utilities could sell their credits to investors.
Craft says together they’ve made for an effective financing tool.
“You can't go to a bank and ask them for $500 million to do a wind project because they don't have the underwriting capability. The banks don't have the programs in place,” Craft said. “So the investment firms are the ones that have stepped up and provided the capital for local folks to go out and build these projects … because they get the credits.”
Eliminating the clean energy producer and investment tax credits would save about $250 billion over 10 years. The Congressional Budget Office estimates they’ve increased private investment in the renewables industry by about 30%.
Another Alaskan on Capitol Hill, advocating against specifics in the reconciliation bill, is Laurie Wolf. She’s president of the Foraker Group, a non-profit that supports other Alaska non-profits. Wolf is focused on tax provisions in the bill that would tend to suppress charitable contributions and philanthropy.
“Specifically, calling out areas that would deeply impact Alaska's nonprofits and the people that we serve,” she said.
As she talks to the congressional delegation, Wolf said she can’t overlook the proposed cuts to Medicaid.
“Every rural (and) every urban health care system in Alaska relies on that, the equation of Medicaid,” she said. “And you can't take that equation out and expect there to be health care for all Alaskans.”
Republican leaders in Congress had hoped to pass the reconciliation bill by July 4. But Republican senators have been slow to reach agreement among themselves about the bill, which is projected to add $3 trillion to the deficit.
