Washington Update: ASA Advocates on Capitol Hill as Budget Battle Intensifies

Last week, ASA Advocacy was on Capitol Hill as part of High Performance Buildings Week, joining other building trade associations to advocate for several issues of concern to our industry, including resilient buildings, workforce development, tax policy, and water quality.  The High Performance Buildings Coalition (HPBC) represents over 30 national associations and met with key committee members and staff to help advance industry priorities ahead of legislation to be taken up after the passage of the budget reconciliation bill. 
 

The Senate mirrored their House colleagues with plenty of weekend work and late nights to get the budget reconciliation bill passed on Tuesday, with Vice President JD Vance casting the tie breaking vote to get the bill across the finish line.  Since there were significant changes made to the bill since being sent over from the House, the House Rules Committee convened at 1:30 PM on Tuesday to review and approve the Senate’s changes, wrapping up at 1:00 AM on Wednesday with a 7-6 vote to approve.  Reps. Chip Roy (R-TX) and Ralph Norman (R-SC) voted against moving the bill out of committee.  The bill went to the floor Wednesday morning. 
 

 As with any piece of major legislation, there will be significant negotiations to try and convert those opponents into supporters.  On Tuesday, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) said, “Everybody's got different questions about pieces, but ultimately they recognize that this bill is still over 85 percent of what the House said…the plan is to bring it to the floor as the Senate sent it to us.” 
 

Some of the significant changes include phasing out clean energy tax provisions (rather than terminating them immediately), expanding subsidies for oil pipelines and coal, expands access to health savings accounts, removing fees on electric and hybrid vehicles, removing an AI moratorium on states, and along with other issues.
 

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and President Trump will be redoubling their efforts to make sure current Republican opponents support the bill when it comes to the floor.  With a July 4^th deadline set by Congressional leadership and the White House, it leaves a very short amount of time to get this budget reconciliation bill done.
 

Once reconciliation is over, there are other major pieces of legislation waiting in the wings to get done, including the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the Farm Bill (which includes the ASA-supported Healthy H20 Act), the Workforce Investment and Opportunity Act, as well as the FY2026 budget – which at this point appears to be culminating in a Continuing Resolution at the end of the year. 
 

While it is only July, Congress has a significant amount of work ahead, while the results of trade negotiations and tariff levels remain to be seen.  A trade deal with India appears to be close, talks continue with the EU, while any deal with the Japanese appears to be on the rocks.  Talks with Canada seem to be warming again after Prime Minister Mark Carney agreed to walk back a digital services tax that the US saw as a direct hit on American technology companies.  Since President Trump has taken office, the federal government has received $160 billion in tariff revenue with current rates in place.