THIS STORY ORIGINALLY appeared Grist and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
For the last two decades, homeowners have been able to claim thousands of dollars in federal tax credits to help offset the high up-front costs of going solar. Things were supposed to stay that way through 2034. But, this week, the US House of Representatives proposed abruptly ending the incentives at the end of the year. If this idea survives the House and passes the Senate, it could upend the economic calculus of powering your home with sunlight
“It would put solar out of reach for millions of people,” said Glen Brand, director of policy and advocacy at Solar United Neighbors, a nonprofit that encourages adoption of the technology. “What the House has done is to put ordinary Americans in a really hard place. They are basically saying they aren’t going to help people with rising energy costs.”
The country’s first solar tax credits took effect in 1978, but were allowed to lapse in 1985, when President Ronald Regan was in office. In 2005, however, another Republican—President George W. Bush—revived them. Lawmakers have extended and tweaked the incentives ever since, most recently with the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, which set the credit at 30 percent of the cost of a system until 2032, before a two-year phase out.
