Businesses return to Capitol Hill to champion clean energy tax credits as Congress debates budget reconciliation

With Congress deep into budget reconciliation negotiations over the federal tax code, 20 major companies are headed to Capitol Hill to make the economic case for maintaining clean economy tax credits and incentives to key Republican lawmakers this week. 

Companies across the manufacturing, transportation, and energy sectors, including DHL, IKEA US, Michelin, and Scout Motors, are scheduled for meetings with 19 U.S. House and Senate offices between April 9 and 10. The meetings, organized by Ceres, are the latest showing of corporate advocacy for the tax credits, which have unleashed hundreds of billions of dollars in private-sector investment in domestic manufacturing and clean energy deployment, delivering economic benefits to communities across the country since they were last extended and expanded in 2022. 

"Businesses need policy certainty, affordable electricity, and reliable supply chains as they continue to invest in the United States,” said Zach Friedman, senior director of federal policy at Ceres. “That’s why they are returning to Capitol Hill this week to demonstrate the wide-ranging, cross-industry support for maintaining federal clean economy and advanced manufacturing tax credits. As tax negotiations enter their next phase in Congress, Ceres is excited to again connect leading businesses and lawmakers to showcase the vast economic, energy, and national security benefits of these crucial policies. Maintaining these policies is essential to achieving shared goals of energy dominance, affordability, and competitiveness with China and other countries.” 

The meetings will come amid signs of growing GOP support for maintaining the tax credits. In March, 21 House Republicans signed a letter to Ways & Means Chairman Jason Smith voicing their support for maintaining the tax credits, which have delivered economic benefits to their districts. 

The letter followed Ceres’ last Capitol Hill advocacy event, which brought more than 80 businesses and investors into more than 100 meetings with Congressional offices and the White House in support of maintaining the tax credits. Leading businesses and investors have supported the tax credits for years – advocating for their expansion and extension in 2022, providing expert insight to guide their implementation between 2023 and 2024, and working to defend them from the threat of repeal for much of the last year.  

Clean energy tax credits have a long history of bipartisan support. Since they were extended and expanded by Congress in 2022, the private sector has capitalized on the long-term policy certainty by investing more than $420 billion into about 750 clean energy projects in the U.S., creating more than 400,000 jobs. Most of the benefits – including new factories, jobs, restored domestic supply chains, and affordable domestically produced electricity – are accruing in states and districts represented by Republicans in Congress. 

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Ceres is a nonprofit advocacy organization working to accelerate the transition to a cleaner, more just, and sustainable world. United under a shared vision, our powerful networks of investors and companies are proving sustainability is the bottom line—changing markets and sectors from the inside out. For more information, visit ceres.org.