The Big Beautiful Bill is close to passing. What would it mean for clean energy in the US?

The Energy Gang

Wood Mackenzie

Alternative Energy, Tech News, 958784, Environment, Technology, Renewable Energy, Energy, Business, Sustainability, Wind Energy, Climate Change, Cleantech, News, Solar Energy, Innovation, News Commentary

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 3 July 2025

⏱️ 70 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week the US budget reconciliation legislation, dubbed the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’, squeaked through the Senate on a 51/50 vote. The bill has wide-ranging implications for energy in the US, including an imminent end to tax credits for wind and solar power.

To discuss what the new legislation means, host Ed Crooks is joined by regular guest Amy Myers-Jaffe, director of NYU’s Energy, Climate Justice and Sustainability Lab. Also joining the show are Robbie Orvis, senior director of Modeling and Analysis at the think-tank Energy Innovation, and Jeremy Horan, VP for Government Affairs at ACORE, the American Council on Renewable Energy.

They discuss some of the key implications of bill: less investment in wind and solar, increased use of natural gas, and a relatively bright outlook for battery storage. And they explain the dramatic twists and turns of the past few days that have brought us to where we are today.

They also dive into the impacts of the dreaded rules on FEOC: Foreign Entities of Concern. These are new regulations intended to ensure that companies controlled by China and Russia, among others, don’t benefit from US energy subsidies. But they will have the effect of tying the industry up in a mountain of new red tape.

Before that, Ed and Amy talk about an even more dramatic event in global energy: the US intervention in the Israel-Iran conflict. The US dropped 30,000 pound ‘bunker-buster’ bombs on Iranian nuclear facilities. Iran retaliated with threats to close the Straight of Hormuz: the critical artery that delivers oil from the Gulf to the West. But by the middle of last week, tensions had eased significantly: there was a ceasefire, and negotiations were under way to agree a lasting peace.

Put it all together, and it adds up to a hectic couple of weeks for the future of energy. Expect in-depth analysis of all the news, and ideas on how the energy industry can prepare for what’s coming.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to The Energy Gang, a discussion show from Wood McKenzie about the
0:10.2	fast-changing world of energy. I'm Ed Crooks, and I'm joined today by Amy Myers-Jaffey,
0:15.2	the director of the Energy, Climate Justice and Sustainability Lab at New York University. Hi, Amy, how are you?
0:21.5	I am great, Ed. I New York University. Hi, Amy. How are you? I am great,
0:29.8	and I'm just back from Paris, so well-fed with croissants and the like. So focus now back in,
0:35.8	you know, squarely, squarely on energy. Yeah, absolutely, which you really need to be because it's been obviously very hectic week. We've got a
0:38.0	packed show for you today, as I'm sure everyone will have noticed, has been a lot going on this
0:43.5	week in the world of energy. And negotiations have been continuing over the tax and spending
0:48.2	package, the one big beautiful bill, as it's called. And beautiful or not, it certainly has
0:53.2	very big implications
0:54.5	for US energy. We're going to be talking about that in a minute. But before we get to that, Amy,
0:59.6	we've got to talk about Iran, everything that's happened, very, very dramatic events.
1:05.1	I say my kind of standard line to open this show is to talk about the fast-changing world of energy.
1:09.8	I don't think I can remember it often changing as fast as it has done over the past week. Clearly, we've had
1:15.6	dramatic movements in oil markets as a result of the events in Iran. We've also actually seen
1:22.4	pretty significant moves in natural gas markets too. I know this is kind of your old stomping ground,
1:28.6	isn't it? You actually began your career, Amy, looking at the oil market and interpreting what's
1:34.2	going on. Yeah, well, I think, Ed, really, for the listeners that don't follow oil very closely,
1:40.3	the one thing that people who trade oil are always thinking about is, could some war in the Middle East cause a supply catastrophe that would send prices through the roof to $200 a barrel or something like that?
1:55.6	And ironically, we came to a moment in time when literally there was a tiny little collision near the Strait of
2:04.7	Hermuz between two ships that had had their GPS mechanisms jammed, and there was a small oil
2:11.3	spill. The Strait of Herbos, it's 90 miles wide, so a tiny oil spill is not material, but a big oil spill could be very devastating
	...

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