Trump Wanted to Kill Solar Fast… The Senate Would Rather Watch It Suffer Slowly (Self-Sabotage 101)

As if Trump’s proposed deathwish for the solar industry wasn’t already bleak enough, the Senate took one look at it and said, “That’s cute… but instead of putting them out of their misery, let’s make them suffer a little longer.” If Trump was ready to end things quick and clean, Senate Republicans came in with a slower, more calculated dismantling… like they wanted the clean energy sector to feel every single cut.

Trump’s original pitch (buried inside a multi-trillion-dollar tax and spending package that might as well have been ghostwritten by ExxonMobil’s legal team) came after clean energy like it was six months behind on rent. The House version of the bill would’ve gutted the Inflation Reduction Act the way a private equity firm guts a flailing retailer. Here’s how the original House version of the bill carved up the clean energy sector… rooftop solar tax credits would be eliminated within six months. The $7,500 incentive for electric vehicles had the same fate, gone in half a year. Hydrogen fuel subsidies worth up to $3 per kilogram were on the chopping block too. 

But the real knockout punch came from the fine print: if a renewable energy project wasn’t under construction within just 60 days of the bill becoming law, it would lose eligibility for federal tax credits entirely. That kind of deadline might work for setting up a lemonade stand… but for a $300 million wind farm, it's laughable. Planning, permitting, financing, environmental studies… none of that happens in two months unless you’re building with crayons and cardboard.

Then the Senate stepped in, led by Idaho Republican Mike Crapo, with promises of a more “reasonable” approach. And to be fair, they did smooth out a few of the most jagged edges. The 60-day rule was tossed, and instead of slamming the door shut immediately, they gave the industry until 2028 before phasing out solar and wind tax credits entirely. On paper, that’s an improvement. In practice, it’s like swapping a guillotine for a slow drip IV. The Senate version may not kill the clean energy sector overnight, but it still sets the clock ticking… and fast. The Senate version still fast-tracks the phaseout of solar and wind tax credits by 2028, a full four years earlier than the IRA planned. Meanwhile, nuclear, hydropower, and geothermal got their credits extended all the way to 2036.

And just like that, every pro-solar investor still clinging to hope on Wall Street chucked their panels out the nearest window. The Senate’s plan dropped, and the market hit the panic button so hard it left a permanent crack in the floor. At the time of writing, Sunrun is down 27%, SolarEdge is off 22%, Enphase is sliding 17%, and First Solar is nursing a 12% loss.

The bill doesn’t stop at pulling the plug on solar credits. It also eliminates the residential energy efficiency rebates (you know, the ones that helped people upgrade their homes with heat pumps and electric appliances). Leasing companies like Sunrun are cut off entirely. If you were planning on buying a new Tesla, that $7,500 credit is toast. And just for fun, the bill also disqualifies projects that use components sourced from China… which is basically everything from solar panels to batteries, unless you’re assembling energy systems out of Lincoln Logs.

Look, I love nuclear and genuinely believe it’s part of the future. It’s clean, reliable, and when it finally gets online, it delivers. But the Senate handing it tax credits through 2036, despite a track record of delays and billion-dollar overruns, is hard to justify… especially while solar and wind projects, which are actually getting built today, get their support yanked. It’s a tough sell. As Jason Grumet of America’s Clean Power put it, this bill will do far more than raise household energy costs… it risks pushing innovation, AI infrastructure, and clean manufacturing overseas (which is the opposite of Trump’s MO).

And let’s not forget where the money’s been going. More than 80% of the $841 billion in post-IRA clean energy investment has flowed into Republican-held districts (which is kind of confusing, no matter who you voted for). Battery plants in Georgia, solar farms in Texas, wind projects in Iowa… all thriving, all now at risk. This bill’s biting the same hands that feed it.

The Senate’s branding this as “targeting waste, fraud, and abuse.” The solar industry has another name for it: Chapter 11.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News holds positions in Tesla as mentioned in the article.