Thom Tillis Defends Break From Party On Big Beautiful Bill: 'We're Rushing To An Arbitrary Deadline'

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In Senate floor remarks, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) explained his break from fellow Republicans on the Big Beautiful Bill.

Transcript

00:00Senator from North Carolina.

00:04Thank you, Mr. President.

00:05I'm going to be brief.

00:06I promise Senator Hollins, I'm sorry, Senator, it's going to be about five minutes.

00:12This is an easy one.

00:13Number one, I should have probably said this earlier, I don't, my colleagues on the other

00:17side of the aisle, I completely disagree with the narrative of the billionaire taxes.

00:22Folks, this is actually reducing or making sure that we don't raise taxes on people like

00:27me that grew up in trailer parks, didn't get my degree until I was 37, struggled to make

00:32ends meet.

00:33Those people benefit from that.

00:34I've read the bill.

00:35I think most of you know I'm detail-oriented.

00:38It's not what it seems.

00:41So I also should thank Senator Crapo.

00:43He's a good friend, great leader.

00:45I should have thanked him for the hard work that he's doing.

00:47I got a little bit focused on the Medicaid failed baseline that's in the bill, but I should

00:53have started with that.

00:54So thanks to Mike Crapo and to Senator Thune, who I admire as our leader.

00:58Mr. President, I'm here to talk about the production tax credit and the investment tax

01:01credit, though.

01:02It's another classic example where think tanks and people that haven't worked a day in business

01:08are setting policy in the White House without a clue about what they're potentially doing

01:12to our grid.

01:14A lot of people probably – I had Alex Weinstein, who is a self-described philosopher and expert

01:19in this area in my office, talking with three people, practitioners that actually work in

01:24it.

01:25One of them is someone who specializes in power purchase agreements for large businesses.

01:29Walmart is one of the most sophisticated buyers of electrons in the world.

01:33They map out their power requirements years in advance.

01:36They want to make sure that their food doesn't spoil and they've got power running.

01:41They've already made several power purchase agreements with projects underway, folks.

01:46And this bill is basically gutting it.

01:50And everybody's high-fiving.

01:51What's amazing to me, Mr. President, is the mark that we laid down the other day almost achieved

01:59the same level of cuts of the House bill within $30 billion.

02:03Within $30 billion.

02:05And instead of thinking that was progress, somebody got cute and decided to take away

02:09in-construction and put it in service.

02:11Let me tell you why that's disingenuous.

02:13I was a partner at Pricewaterhouse, worked in the utilities practice, large utilities

02:17like TECO, Duke, Florida Progress, AEP.

02:21I know this industry.

02:23I understand base load.

02:24I understand peaking, and I understand this technology, which is increasingly becoming

02:29viable because of storage as a part of augmenting base load.

02:34Well now we've got the Walmarts and all of these data centers and everything that we want

02:38to bring back on shore putting in these power purchase agreements, teed to these projects

02:43like solar in particular, like wind, and other innovative, renewable natural gas, methane,

02:51hydrogen.

02:52I can go on.

02:54But somebody, a self-described philosopher in a think tank that I admire a lot, but I realized

03:00if you're a philosopher and you're in a think tank, you by definition have never worked

03:04in an operational role.

03:06So you can't possibly understand what happens to this pipeline of power purchase agreements

03:12and the future of our grid.

03:13So here's what's going to happen.

03:15Wipe it clean.

03:17Put an excise tax in.

03:19Effectively throw the football in the end zone, spin it, walk away, and do the party dance.

03:25And what you have done is create a blip in power service because there isn't going to

03:32be a gas-fired generator anytime soon.

03:35Folks, the generator is necessary to create power with gas, best case five years from now.

03:41That's best case.

03:43Five years from now.

03:45So you can't get that online at the same time this whole pipeline is going down.

03:49So I want that philosopher to tell me that he understands how to plan out power over time

03:57and to let me know that when all these projects fail, some will make it, some will get subsidized,

04:02some will go bankrupt, so it won't be Armageddon, but it's going to be a problem.

04:09So they better get it right.

04:11It's another example, folks, when you rush a bill and you don't think through the implementation,

04:16you don't get it right.

04:18And so I hope that my colleagues recognize it's half-baked.

04:22It's another reason why we should go back to the house, Mark, get Medicaid right, so

04:27I can come on the floor and tell my colleagues on the other side of the aisle why they're

04:30wrong on all the attributes of the house, Mark.

04:34Why they are wrong on some of their characterizations of the tax bill.

04:38And why they will be wrong on an energy policy that makes sense.

04:42But I have to vote against a bill from my own party that I have never parted from before,

04:48because we're rushing to an arbitrary deadline with people who have never worked a day in

04:52this industry, maybe philosophized and written a few white papers on it, but haven't gotten

04:58their hands dirty.

04:59I have.

05:00And this is another segment of the bill that needs to change.

05:02Thank you, Mr. President.

05:03Mr. President.

05:05Mr. President.

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