***UPDATE***
The special session ended on November 16th at 1:00am. HB 7 failed to pass the House and thus died before reaching the governor. Thank you for helping make sure this bad bill died a rightful death!
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The legislature convened a special session to address the state’s budget shortfall, but rather than focus on the budget, some legislators waged an ideological war against clean energy.
House Bill 7, sponsored by Rep. Alan Redfield (R-Livingston), proposed to eliminate all of the tax credits he doesn’t like, including ones that encourage average Montanans to invest in clean energy.
The purpose of the bill was not to generate revenue. The bill originally contained a repeal of tax credits for the wealthy that are significant in size and would have meaningfully helped fill the budget gap. If raising revenue were the goal, then those credits would have been repealed. Instead, those credits were spared from repeal, and so the amended bill was clearly not about revenue. The bill is instead an outright attack on those things the sponsor and others ideologically oppose – specifically clean energy.
The legislature should have been fixing the budget’s fundamental revenue problems, not conducting pet ideological wars.
This bill moved very fast – so fast that legislators, including the sponsor, admitted they did not even know what impact the bill would have. It was poor legislating at its finest.
Maintaining tax credits for the wealthy while eliminating them for average Montanans who want to make their homes more energy efficient is wrong.
Stupid, partisan bill.