On Friday, July 4, 2025, President Trump signed into law the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (the OBBB), making permanent many of the tax provisions enacted under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and enacting many of the policy objectives of the Trump administration.  The following discussion summarizes at a high level some of the more significant consequences of the OBBB to the wind and solar industry—specifically, to the tech-neutral investment and production tax credits for solar and wind projects under Sections 45Y and 48E (the PTC and ITC, respectively) of the Internal Revenue Code (the Code).  The IRS and Department of the Treasury are also expected to issue additional guidance and regulations to interpret the OBBB.  Among other expected areas of additional guidance, on July 7, 2025, the Trump White House released Executive Order “Ending Market Distorting Subsidies for Unreliable, Foreign Controlled Energy Sources” (the BOC EO), announcing its specific intention to cause Treasury to issue new guidance relating to the Beginning of Construction rules applicable under the ITC and PTC.On Friday, July 4, 2025, President Trump signed into law the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (the OBBB), making permanent many of the tax provisions enacted under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and enacting many of the policy objectives of the Trump administration.  The following discussion summarizes at a high level some of the more significant consequences of the OBBB to the wind and solar industry—specifically, to the tech-neutral investment and production tax credits for solar and wind projects under Sections 45Y and 48E (the PTC and ITC, respectively) of the Internal Revenue Code (the Code).  The IRS and Department of the Treasury are also expected to issue additional guidance and regulations to interpret the OBBB.  Among other expected areas of additional guidance, on July 7, 2025, the Trump White House released Executive Order “Ending Market Distorting Subsidies for Unreliable, Foreign Controlled Energy Sources” (the BOC EO), announcing its specific intention to cause Treasury to issue new guidance relating to the Beginning of Construction rules applicable under the ITC and PTC.

In November 2023, the State of New York filed a lawsuit alleging that PepsiCo endangered public health and polluted the Buffalo River in upstate New York related to single use plastic packaging from its products. New York sought to hold PepsiCo liable for the independent actions of third parties under a novel theory of liability. The City of Baltimore, MD, and the County of Los Angeles, CA, subsequently filed their own plastics pollution lawsuits against PepsiCo under the same theory of liability. In October 2024, the State of New York’s complaint was dismissed, with the court forcefully rejecting this theory of liability. It remains to be seen whether plaintiffs advancing similar arguments in other jurisdictions will fare any better.

A district court in Louisiana has barred the EPA and the Department of Justice from imposing disparate-impact-based requirements against the State of Louisiana or its State agencies in civil rights cases under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This decision is likely to serve as a template for other states to oppose the EPA’s use of disparate impact analyses when advancing environmental justice policies and investigations.