The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”, H.R. 1, was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on 20 May 2025. Rumor has it the text of the bill is a thousand pages, so I read the summary.
The first four words in the summary are “This bill reduces taxes…”, and yet the bill would actually increase taxes on those who make responsible energy choices by removing clean energy income tax credits and by imposing sizable fees for the registration of electric and hybrid-electric vehicles.
Notably, the bill would also reduce SNAP food assistance benefits, expand applicability of work requirements for SNAP recipients, allow for no errors in payment of SNAP benefits, eliminate the SNAP Nutrition Education and Obesity Prevention Grant Program, limit SNAP benefits to citizens and permanent residents, extend various crop subsidies, increase Dairy Margin Coverage, extend the Feral Swine Eradication and Control Pilot Program, rescind various conservation grants authorized under the Inflation Reduction Act, increase funding for agricultural trade promotion and USDA research, double funding for the Specialty Crop Research Initiative, provide competitive grants for remodeling Agricultural Research Stations, extend the SRS program by which the Department of Interior and the Forest Service pay states and counties containing federal land, require federal agencies and contractors to purchase “biobased” products, extend funding for “advanced” biofuels (including wood pellets), increase funding for plant pest and disease management, modernize international trade technology and data collection on imported agricultural products, increase funding for the National Animal Vaccine and Veterinary Countermeasures Bank, increase funding for sheep production and marketing, increase funding for shipbuilding, increase funding for missiles and missile defense systems, increase funding for drones and employ artificial intelligence (AI) to pilot drones and make decisions, increasing financing of loans by the Department of Defense (DOD) Office of Strategic Capital, deploy AI to accelerate audits of DOD financial statements, modernize military aircraft, prevent the retirement of F-22 fighter jets, increase funding for nuclear weapons, increase funding for military operations in the Indo-Pacific and support to Taiwan as well as secret military space-superiority programs, militarize the borders, enhance military intelligence, authorize military branches to acquire land and construct buildings, revise eligibility for student aid (specifying eligibility for certain nationals of Cuba, Ukraine, Afghanistan, and several island nations), calculate need-based federal education assistance based on median program costs rather than the cost at the student’s institution, restore an exemption for farms and small businesses on the FAFSA financial aid application form, terminate the ability of undergraduates to receive subsidized loans, require higher education institutions to make risk-sharing payments to the government based on nonrepayment of loans by borrowers, establish the Promoting Real Opportunities to Maximize Investments and Savings in Education (PROMISE) grant program, allow for-profit higher education institutions to derive all their tuition and fees from federal funds, remove references to “gainful employment” from the Higher Education Act of 1965, limit the ability of the Department of Education to regulate federal student aid programs, rescind various grants for alternative energy and energy efficiency, direct FERC to award certificates for cross-border energy infrastructure, allow for permitting of carbon dioxide and hydrogen pipelines, provide compensation for energy projects that have had federal approval revoked, repeal a provision requiring the DOE to draw down the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, repeal and rescind CAFE standards and many environmental programs established under the Inflation Reduction Act, reallocate 600 megahertz of the radio spectrum to nonfederal use, prohibit states and localities from regulating AI, develop automated decision-making for Department of Commerce systems, reduce Medicaid fraud, require states to check the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File (which now includes some individuals who are not, in fact, dead) for Medicaid recipients, reduce federal Medicaid contributions, regulate pharmacies and medical providers, prohibit federal funding of “gender transition procedures”, prohibit federal funding of community health organizations that provide abortions, require recipients of benefits under Medicaid expansions to work or perform community service, prohibit income-based special enrollment periods under the Affordable Care Act, transfer the duties of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board to the Securities and Exchange Commission, reduce funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, increase funding for Customs and Border Protection, provide funding to FEMA to reimburse state and local law enforcement for protecting a residence of the President, provide funding to FEMA to monitor drones and prepare for a couple of large sporting events, increase fees for immigration programs, require Congressional approval of rules that raise revenue, limit the ability of courts to use federal funds to issue contempt citations for noncompliance (by the federal government) with court orders, immediately resume onshore oil and gas leases by the Department of the Interior, prohibit the Department of the Interior from requiring a permit to drill for oil or gas if the leaseholder pays $5000, decrease minimum royalty rates for onshore and offshore oil and gas development on federal lands, hold annual geothermal lease sales, reissue oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), require the Department of the Interior to conduct at least 4 lease sales in ANWR within 7 years, restore the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska oil and gas program, open the Boundary Waters to mining, resume federal coal leases without finishing the BLM’s comprehensive review, decrease the royalty rate on coal, modify the NEPA environmental review process, allow a project “sponsor” to pay a “fee” (bribe) for the preparation of an Environmental Assessment or Environmental Impact Statement, rescind funding for the Council on Environmental Quality, establish a filing fee for protests of oil and gas leases, direct the Department of the Interior to hold offshore oil and gas leases in the Cook Inlet in Alaska and in the “Gulf of America”, establish requirements for fees for renewable energy developments on federal lands, rescind funding for NOAA programs, provide funding to the Bureau of Reclamation that increases mining capacity, open sensitive lands in western states to mining, rescind Forest Service funding for wildfire prevention and old-growth forest protection as well as “restoration” (maybe just as well) and environmental reviews, prevent the National Park Service (NPS) and the BLM from implementing certain conservation projects, rescind funds for hiring more NPS workers, establish a statuary park named the National Garden of American Heroes, require the Forest Service and BLM to enter into 20-year contracts with individual companies for logging and vegetation “removal”, increase timber harvests on federal lands by 25%, sell certain lands to counties in Nevada and Utah, reduce benefits for federal employees, provide funds to the FAA for certain improvements, provide funds for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, make permanent certain income tax provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act including tax rates and the increased standard deduction, increase the tax deduction for qualified business income, increase certain tax exemptions to $15,000,000, increase the alternative minimum tax threshold, establish above-the-line tax deductions for car loans and other purposes, allow tax-free withdrawals from 529s for secondary schools and homeschooling, establish a charitable giving exemption for tax filers who do not itemize, establish the Money Accounts for Growth and Advancement (MAGA) program, phase out tax credits for nuclear power production and hydrogen production, terminate the IRS Direct File program, extend the termination of tax-exempt status to “terrorist-supporting” organizations, and increase the statutory debt limit by $4,000,000,000,000.
