The Senate can achieve U.S. energy dominance with one thing

Abundant U.S. energy is the key to low electricity prices, a booming economy, and winning the AI race against China. Thankfully, we can take a major step toward achieving that energy abundance if the Senate passes the original House reconciliation bill, also called the One Big Beautiful Bill.

Now, I don’t mean that the Senate should pass the exact same bill that the House sent them earlier this month. Unfortunately, eleventh-hour politicking led to the removal of critical energy incentives from that legislation. Instead, the Senate should restore the pro-energy policies that were in the conservative Ways and Means committee-passed bill before they were sacrificed to political grandstanding.

The first policy that the Senate should resurrect is the Ways and Means Committee’s Foreign Entity of Concern (FEOC) standards. The original bill imposed strict guidelines to block compromised foreign companies, like those from China, from accessing federal energy tax credits. These reforms are necessary to ensure tax incentives benefit American companies and consumers, not foreign adversaries.

However, at the last minute, the House voted to raise FEOC standards to such a high bar as to effectively kill the energy tax credits in the legislation. Likewise, these now overzealous standards are set to kick in immediately, giving companies no time to adjust their supply chains, reshore their operations, and comply with the law. As a result, those companies that would have used the tax incentives to bring manufacturing and jobs back to America may well stay abroad. American companies and their consumers will suffer.

The second policy the Senate should bring back is the original energy tax credit transferability rules. Transferability allows project developers or owners to transfer tax credits they are entitled to receive to another company. For companies with low tax burdens, transferability is a straightforward way to obtain a quick infusion of cash that can be channeled into technology development, deployment, or reducing consumer prices.

This policy is especially beneficial for small- and medium-sized firms that lack large companies’ financial reserves or that already have reduced tax liability due to factors such as lower margins and higher startup costs.

On the energy front, the benefit of transferability is clear. The ultimate goal of energy tax credits is not to reduce tax burdens, but to help companies bring a larger amount of lower-cost and cleaner energy to the market — benefiting the American people. Cash is often preferable to tax credits in accomplishing that goal. Yet the House-passed bill effectively repealed transferability on vital energy technologies like geothermal and nuclear power right at the time that AI is driving energy demand into the stratosphere.

The third policy is all the more relevant given this demand surge: restoring support for solar leasing companies. Solar leasing directly benefits U.S. homeowners by allowing them to install panels on their property with a monthly payment plan instead of swallowing the upfront cost. Not only does rooftop solar drive down consumer electricity costs, but it also gives Americans more independence by helping them to get off the grid and cut their reliance on utility companies.

Finally, the Senate should also reinstate the original placement in service requirements. Simply put, in order to access the energy tax credits, projects have to be under construction and operational within a certain amount of time. While there’s room for debate on exactly how long those timelines should be, the current House-passed bill is unworkable. Opponents of the energy tax credits demanded that construction begin within 60 days after the bill is enacted, a deadline that effectively blocks any legitimate enterprise from receiving the tax break.

Proponents of the last-minute House changes argue that gutting these energy tax credits saves the government money. That may be true within the confines of the One Big Beautiful Bill alone, but all those savings come at the expense of higher electricity bills for the American people.

If Congress wants to find budget savings, it shouldn’t target tax cuts that promote energy production and drive down Americans’ costs. Instead, the Senate should restore these policies, revitalize the energy tax credits, and ensure a future of energy abundance.

Neil Chatterjee served as chairman and a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. He has decades of experience working on the most important energy policy initiatives for Republican leadership in Congress.