Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, has said that he won't vote to pass the Senate's version of President Trump's "Big Beautiful Budget Bill." (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

The future of renewable energy in Texas may rest in the hands of an Austin congressman eager to dismantle the industry.

After a marathon voting session Tuesday, the U.S. Senate finally passed President Donald Trump's “Big Beautiful” tax cut bill by a 51-50 margin. The bill will now be sent to the House, where Rep. Chip Roy, an Austin Republican and policy chair of the far-right Freedom Caucus have given it a lukewarm reception for not going far enough in cutting government spending. With a razor-thin Republican majority in the House and Democrats unanimously opposed to the bill, Roy and the other so-called fiscal hawks have outsized leverage as Trump's self-imposed July 4 deadline looms.

Roy is correct on one point: the bill, which most Americans oppose, is not fiscally sound. As written, it would add $3.3 trillion to the national debt by extending tax cuts and gut our social safety net, thereby making a historic transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class to the richest Americans.

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The bill would also cripple renewable energy development, a sector Texas has dominated for years. That’s potentially very bad news for our bank accounts and the overall reliability of our electric grid.

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