In OK Energy Today’s recent interview with Oklahoma U.S. Sen. James Lankford, he not only stated how the state’s oil and gas industry saw an immediate impact from the President’s One Big Beautiful Bill, but also explained the wind and solar industries are not being punished.
“There’s not an opposition to wind and solar, we’re just taking the incentives away from what is intermittent power and moving incentives to saying what is base power.”
Lankford argued that the base power is the key to the issue, whether it’s oil and gas, coal, hydrogen or nuclear.
“Whatever it is, that’s base power all the time. That’s the incentive.”
Lankford says the incentives for solar and wind have been in existences for decades, including in Oklahoma, a state that produces and exports a lot of wind generated electricity.
“That’s a terrific new source for us that we’ve added over the decades. We want to continue to do that.”
He explained that any wind or solar project currently under construction or is in construction through 2026 will maintain all the credit had in the past.
“They have to be actually be operational by 2027 to be able to receive credits. Now it’s again not trying to be able to punish them. It’s trying to say, hey, if we’re going to incentivize any kind of power that we’re incentivizing. But there’s no punishment for solar or for wind,” he continued.
Lankford said the goal is to make sure power continues to thrive as well for promoters of rooftop solar or commercial power operations.
“We want them to continue to be able to do that, but it has to be on a level plaing field with everyone else. That’s the question, the level playing field. That’s always been the argument, hasn’t it?”
Still, there are some who contend the OBBB will lead to a disaster for renewable energy. Some predict rooftop solar installations will plummet following the repeal of the federal incentives and lead to 40% and 85% less demand over the next decade.
Critics contend the OBBB has cast uncertainty over battery storage deployments to EV factories. They predict the new law will reduce investment in renewable energy projects by $141 billion and at the same time, eliminate 81 gigawatts of potential new generation capacity through 2033.
One of those critics is Kylah McNabb, head of Vesta Strategic Solutions, an Oklahoma energy consulting firm.
She predicted in an interview with The Oklahoman, the cuts will stop Oklahoma’s development of renewable energy.
“It’s just incredibly devastating, I mean, I hesitate to use a term that strong, but it is devastating,” said McNabb, who is also the executive administrator for the Oklahoma Renewable Energy Council.
“The bill is changing the business environment for which these projects are working in, and Business 101 is you want a stable policy environment in order to make calculated investments to know where money should be invested at for projects. And what this bill has done has essentially yanked the rug out from under projects in development.”
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