July 3, 2025 • 33 mins
The One Big Beautiful Bill is the key policy catalyst Bloomberg Intelligence analysts are watching this week. The bill likely hands wins to Apple, Disney, Alphabet and Boeing by locking in an offshore safe harbor and restoring foreign tax credits while shielding foreign entities from IRS scrutiny. REITs are also a big winner. First Solar, Nextracker, Array, Shoals and US solar peers are in line for a boost to domestic demand over the coming year as developers rush to break ground and qualify for tax credits. Medicaid cuts and an end to ACA subsidies will be a headwind for some insurers, provider-tax changes might not become a reality and orphan drugs likely benefit from IRA changes. State AI regulations survive for now but Congress shows it wants a light touch. Congress is restoring FCC power to hold auctions of wireless licenses.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Hello, and welcome to the Votes and Verdicts podcast, hosted
by the litigation and policy team at Bloomberg Intelligence, the
investment research platform of Bloomberg LP on the Bloomberg terminal.
Bloomberg Intelligence has five hundred analysts and strategists working across
the globe and focused on all major markets. Our coverage
includes over two thousand equities and credits, and we have
(00:36):
outlooks on more than ninety industries and one hundred market indices,
currencies and commodities. This podcast series examines the intersection of
business policy and law, and today is our weekly check
in on the litigation and policy catalysts that we're watching
and that we think will impact companies across a number
of different sectors. My name's Elliott Stein. I'm an analyst
(00:59):
with the Bloomberg Intel Elegiens covering litigation in the financial sector,
and I'm delighted today as always, to be joined by
several of my Bloomberg Intelligence colleagues. We have Andrew Silverman,
who's our senior tax analyst, Rob Barnett, our senior clean
energy analyst, Dwyane Wright, who covers healthcare policy, and Matt Schattenhelm,
who covers litigation and policy in the tech, media and
(01:21):
telecom space. As always, you can find all of our
research on the Bloomberg terminal at BIG and you can
find much of our litigation and policy research on our
dashboard BI laws Go. Today is July second, twenty twenty five.
It's just after two pm. Important to timestamp these episodes
(01:44):
since much of what we will be discussing is moving
very quickly. Specifically, today, we want to focus on the
one big, Beautiful bill and talk about some of the
key industry impacts that it will have. Specifically, I want
to focus on the impacts to the renewables and clean
energy sector, which Rob will talk about, the healthcare sector,
(02:04):
which Dwayne will talk about, and what it means for
regulation of artificial intelligence, which Matt will talk about. But
to get the conversation going, let's bringing Andrew Silverman, who
covers tax policy for US. So, Andrew, the Senate passed
its version of this bill yesterday. The bill is now
(02:24):
making its way through the House. I haven't actually followed
the news too closely this morning, but maybe you haven't
tell us how it's looking over there. But why don't
you come in and tell us, you know, sort of
how you see the current status, what you see happening next,
and sort of bigger picture, who you think some of
the key winners and losers will be when this is
(02:45):
all finalized.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, well, thanks for having me Alien, It's a pleasure
to be here. And yeah, this is just about the
most exciting time for tax folks that I can think of,
at least going back to twenty eighteen. It's sort of
like the Olympics and the World Series and the Super
Bowl all and my birthday all wrapped up into.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
No.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
No, but it might as well be my birthday because
because of this one big, beautiful film. Whether whether I
support it or not, whatever, but exactly so. So yeah,
so so what what's happening right now in the House
is that they're having some of a pre vote. They're
voting on the rules for debate. And it looks the
(03:28):
last time I looked like it might not it might
not go through. Uh so we're we're in a situation
where we have three possible options. They just keep, you know,
running the vote over and over again until the House
just accepts exactly what the Senate has adopted, or the
(03:50):
House can crumple up with the Senate did and write
up a totally new bill, or the two chambers can
go into conference and and work out there their differences
there and then come up with a compromise bill, and
then the House has to debate it and pass that
bill or the and then it would go to the
Senate and they would have to debate it and pass
the bill. Rob and I were talking about this earlier,
(04:11):
and I tend to think that he's right about this,
that it would it might be a disaster if if
the House tries to make changes to this bill and
send it back to the Senate. So I think probably
the House is going to accept what the Senate has adopted.
It might not be today, but it will probably be
pretty soon, and it could be before before we see
(04:34):
the fireworks on July fourth, because this bill has the
big mo as they say in in campaign in campaign times,
big momentum.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Now, I was just going to say, you think the
deficit hogs just sort of make make their complaints, raise
their fust, but then at the end of the day
swallow it.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Yeah. Yeah, the House freem Caucus, they're good, They're going
to roll over. I think both most people are predicting that,
and and I think that it's pretty likely the President
is pushing really hard on the bill. So I think,
you know, it's important that they do something big in
this first major legislative attempt, and I think I think
(05:14):
they're gonna. I think you're going to vote for it,
regardless of their distaste for the spending. And I should say,
you know, the House had agreed to four point five
trillion dollars of tax cuts and two trillion dollars of
spending cuts revenue raisers. This comes in seven hundred and
fifty billion dollars short, so that's why they're upset. But
trying to add back in taxes making changes to it,
(05:38):
I think the Senate would just not.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Accept that, right, And so sort of moving to the
industry impacts, who do you I mean, we're going to
talk renewables and healthcare and TMT with the rest of
the folks on this episode, but more broadly, who do
you see as some of the bigger winners and losers
in terms of industries and sectors and companies?
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Right?
Speaker 2 (06:00):
I mean, I see the spill as largely an extension
or a codification of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act,
So in that sense, which which sectors benefited most from
the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Banks, manufacturers, retailers, insures,
real estate companies, and oil and gas were the biggest
UH recipients because they had the highest effective tax rates
(06:22):
and those rates came down the most for those industries.
So the extension of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
and this the OBBB is, you know, it's going to
be extraordinarily beneficial for them. So same same industries as
the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, But I mean it's
it's pretty broad the impact that this is going to
(06:45):
have on companies. The expanded interest expense deduction helps companies
that are heavily indebted or want to become heavily indebted,
like like telecom companies or real estate companies, automakers, airlines.
The R and D expensing helps tech companies and pharmaceutical companies.
The individual income tax cuts and the expanded Child tax
(07:06):
Credit helps retailers and restaurants. So it's, you know, it's
pretty wide. But I think the industry that's helped the
most by this bill is probably about the same as
in the Tax Cuts Jobs Act as well, is the
real estate industry. And that's because the partnership tax deduction
would be made permanent, at least in the Senate bill,
(07:26):
they get the interest expense deduction. As I mentioned, there's
a new opportunity zone regime, more beneficial rate rules, a
permanent new markets tax credit, and a boosted low income
housing tax credit. So it's and that's sort of just
the tip of the iceberg. So it's really it's just
a whole bunch of stuff that benefits the real estate industry,
(07:46):
I think the most of any US industry.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Very interesting. You had told me before we recorded that
you're getting a lot of questions about the Senate parliamentarian.
I don't know if you wanted to say anything about that.
I mean, if this doesn't go back to the Senate,
I guess her role has sort of done at this point.
But did you want to say anything about about what
she struck from the Senate's version and why the Senate
doesn't just ignore her?
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Right? It's interesting because you would think that this person exists,
at least in the reconciliation context to rip bills apart.
And so why would why would the two parties want
somebody like that to keep existing? You know in the
Senate there there they just seem to be sort of
(08:32):
you know, this big problem, But actually it's not really that.
I mean, I think the main reason that the parliamentarian
exists is to protect the minority party from the majority
party right, similar to the filibuster. But I think, and
I've been thinking about this a lot, actually, I think
that it actually gives the Senate an advantage over the
(08:52):
House and negotiations to have the Senate parliamentarian, because you know,
if the House demands a change to the bill that
the Senate's unwilling to go along with, the Senate can
always points to the parliamentarian and say, hey, look, you
know she's going to shoot that down, so we should
just just go with with the Senate once, because it's
it's just too complicated to go with what you want.
(09:13):
Parliamentarian is going to be a problem here, and she
has struck a whole bunch of different things from this bill,
like the federal subsidy for private and religious schools, the
religious college car round from from the university and Dowmind tax,
the deregulation of gun silencers, penalties for for government workers
(09:33):
who disclose confidential taxpayer information, the Litigation Finance tax.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
And changing into CFPBS funding too.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Exactly right, CFPB. The PCAOB is going to be eliminated
in the House bill that got struck and then famously,
Chuck Schumer, I think it was yesterday, got her to
strike the title of the act.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
That so exact. So it's no longer called the one
big beautiful.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Bill exactly it is. It is nameless.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Okay. And just one last quick question for you before
we turned to Rob. Where does this leave global tax agreements?
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Yeah? So, so this is a very America first bill.
I think it sounds the death now for the global
tax agreement. I think the revenge tax was enough to
force countries like Canada to give up their digital tax
and for the OECD to basically push the pillar to
(10:31):
Global minimum tax out the window. Right after the last
G seven summit, they decided that the Global Movement Tax
would would not apply to US companies. And it was
I think it was because of all the pressure that
was building up in this in this in this bill,
so I think I think the bill gives a huge
(10:53):
advantage to US companies over foreign companies, which is exactly
the opposite of they went what they wanted to do
in the Pillar one and pillars agreements, and I think
what it does is result in exactly what the OECD
and g's twenty countries didn't want to have, which is
another race to the bottom in terms of tax rates,
(11:14):
because there's there's no other way to compete if the
US is going to be pushing for reduced tax rates here.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Yeah, got it. You good. Probably do a whole podcast
or webinar episode on that alone. All right, Andrew, thank you.
Rob Let's bring you in and start talking some renewables
and clean energy. It seems like the center version of
the bill wasn't quite as bad as it could have
been for companies in your space. I know it got
rid of maybe some of the IRA's solar and win
(11:44):
tax credits, but it also got rid of an excise tax.
I think that would have been particularly onerous for clean
energy companies. I love the headline of this note that
you put out just this morning, Ready Set Go. Senate
bill starts one year race to build solar. I think
that sort of captures your thoughts pretty succinctly. But when
(12:06):
you come in and tell us more about how you
think this bill will impact the renewables industry.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
Yeah, I think at first blush if you were just
falling the headlines, you might have thought, hey, this is
a pretty difficult bill for the renewable industry. It does
roll back a lot of the incentives that the industry
thought it was going to have that had come about
as part of the Inflation Reduction Act. And yet you
(12:34):
look at the screen today and I see a lot
of green in MySpace, and Vestus is up, you know,
double digits, the first Solar is up. Almost any company
in the solar supply train, whether it's you know, the
companies that make the tracking technology so that the panels
(12:57):
can follow this Sun and you got next tracker, Array, Shoals,
Sun Run, Solar Developer. They're all seeing big gains off
the back of this bill. And so maybe you could
have a theory that it was expectations were so low
and it wasn't the worst case scenario. But I think
(13:19):
the real interesting paragraph in the entire bill, and I
was talking with Andrew about this before we got started,
is there's a little provision that says if you start
construction on your project within twelve months of enactment, you
can access the full credit as it is under the
(13:41):
IRA now. You don't have to complete the project for
four years. But I think you're going to actually see
a race to start projects, at least on paper, and
then you can what it's called in the industry, safe
harbor the credits, and so you're going to see actually
demand that would have had and maybe later this decade
(14:02):
get pulled into the next twelve months. So we're actually
going to see more solar as a result of this
bill and the way that the language is worded. Now,
I don't think you will see the same effect and
wind because they can't. You can't turn it around quickly enough.
The very interesting thing about solar is that it is
(14:23):
the shortest cycle project to bring onto the grid, So
I think because of that, you will just see this
mad dash. And as a result, all these companies, some
of the ones I just mentioned, are going to be
seeing expanding order back logs and then they'll be recognizing
incremental additional revenue over the next few years. So from
(14:47):
a net present value perspective, you're probably going to end
up with more solar during the Trump administration than you
would have had had you just left it alone. And
so that's in general perhaps news for the industry, despite
maybe you take a haircut to how things would have
looked later this decade or into the twenty thirties.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
And I mean, so I just have to start the
project in the next twelve months. Is there the possibility
that the projects could started but then sort of don't
really go anywhere.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
Well, of course there's always that sort of risk, But
from the way that the companies will manage this, I
think the way my understanding of the way the IRIS
handles definition have started is I think you have to
spend five percent of your capex. So there will be
probably lots of lawyering and interpretation of sort of like, well,
(15:44):
what does that, how do you define that? What does
the definition of start mean? And so there'll probably be
some scrutiny on that. But I do think that there
will be all sorts of efforts to quote unquote start
projects lock in those credits. Maybe some won't finish. And
here's the deal. If you don't start your project within
(16:04):
the next twelve months, then you have your subject to
declining values of the credits, so they start to phase
out and you have to If you don't get started
within the next twelve months, then you have to actually
be online by the end of twenty twenty seven to
(16:25):
actually get the credit. So you have all the incentive
in the world to quote unquote start the project, and
then you get four years from when you start it
to take it to completion. You get the full credit.
So you're going to see the pipeline really fill up,
and then the pipeline is going to get sort of
opaque and not very full looking out towards the end
(16:47):
of the decade. And so Andrew and I were speculating,
you know what if the Democrats retake control of one
of the branches of Congress, do they actually push to
put some of this stuff back in Later who knows,
But for now, I think the key take away is
the second half of this year and the first half
of next year is just going to be a mad
dash to do as much solar as you can from
(17:09):
in terms of booking these tax credits, which are fully
available if you can do it on those terms.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
So interesting, Yeah, I mean it's true if you read
the headlines you would sort of get a different picture,
so that that's really illuminating. Yeah, go ahead, Well, I.
Speaker 4 (17:22):
Was going to say there was a proposal, so in
the House version, there was no there was no excise
tax like the one you mentioned. And when the bill
first came out, there had there had been a proposal
to put this excise tax in on a wind and
solar and that ultimately got kicked from the final version
(17:43):
of the Senate bill. And I think the sort of
headline was that that was the reason. But my general
read is, sure, that's good one. No one wanted the
x I tax. But I actually think it's this more
narrow window to get things done and get the full
credit that's the real driver. At least that's my interpretation.
Maybe others think the tax thing is important, but I
(18:04):
actually think that this little narrow piece that I've been
talking about is where the true sort of gold within
the bill is for the renewable power sector.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Up. That makes complete sense. All right, Rob, thank you,
Super interesting. All right, Dwayne, let's bring you in and
talk some healthcare. A lot of different issues to talk about.
There's the Medicaid cuts and what it means for health insurers,
the limits on provider taxes and what it means for hospitals.
You have updated orphan drug language which affects potential price
(18:38):
cuts for drug makers under the IRA, so maybe it
maybe come in. Tell us how you think about this
bill and how it'll affect all these different industries in
the healthcare sector.
Speaker 5 (18:48):
Yeah, thanks Elliott. So it's a pretty rough bill for
health insurers, and I think we have to kind of
step back and think about how it's in a pretty
rough year already, maybe two years for a lot of
these insurers. When you think about how when we think
(19:10):
about what the insurance market looks like, it's Medicaid, it's
a c A, it's Medicare advantage. And we've seen a
lot of companies with m A business do not so
well for a couple of reasons. And then now you
have the piling on with these Medicaid cuts in I
(19:32):
think this stems from two big or a couple of
big policies within the bill. We have the long standing
goal of Republicans to implement work requirements in the program.
And when you think about all the money that's coming
out of the Medicaid program and where the uninsured losses are,
(19:53):
it's mostly from the work requirement of provisions. But it's
not that people aren't working within the Medica program. It's
that the administrative burdens for complying with the work requirements
are such that people who are eligible end up getting cut,
and we've seen that play out during the first Trump
(20:14):
administration when states tried to do it, or at least
one in particular, and we saw people fall off the rules,
not because they weren't eligible, but because they had hard
time complying with the administrative aspects of it. We've seen
another state that expanded their medicated population but tied it
to a work requirement. The enrolment has been significantly lower
(20:40):
than expected, and people are attributing it to the compliance
aspects of that law and that state law. And so
if you fast forward and think about doing this with
all fifty states asking them to upgrade their technology within
the next year and a half, I think we could
(21:00):
be seeing some similar roadblocks. And so when we're looking
at roughly eleven million people, fewer people ensure the next decade,
mostly out of Medicaid. It's largely out of that work requirement.
There's also aspects relating to Medicaid expansion eligibility determinations. Instead
(21:25):
of annual, it's bi annual, so you'll see fewer people
keep their Medicaid insurance for the twelve months.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Now.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
The other piece of this has to do with the
Affordable Care Act, and there are some pieces in the law,
and there are some pieces outside of the law. Or
we'll see some enrollment declines, mostly due to the open
enrollment window closing ability for some people to enroll, mostly
(21:56):
lower income people to enroll outside of the open enrollment window.
And then we are looking at probably about four million
people at least two million next year, four million fewer
over the next decade enrolling because of the enhanced subsidies
that expire at the end of the year. So when
(22:17):
we look at all the numbers from these policy changes,
sixteen million fewer people will have meals insurance over the
next decade. And then you have questions about, Okay, how
does this impact hospitals with increased uncompensated care. They'll be
dealing with other issues relating to the provider tax which
(22:41):
House bill had this and just to step back the
provider taxes, just to wait for states to tax their
entities give them the money back that counts as a
Medicaid payment so they can pull a federal match for that.
And Republicans call it a scheme or a scam, regardless,
it's what states use. All states used to fund their
(23:06):
Medicaid programs and pay providers and the House bill basically
said no more of these provider taxes, which we thought
was probably as far as it was going to go,
but the Senate took it a step further and basically
said no more new ones. And what we have, they're
lowing the quote unquote safe harbor or threshold that allows
(23:29):
these to move forward. And so at the end of
the day, we're probably talking about one hundred and fifty
billion coming out of the system, or at least four
state step and make up and funding. I think the
key here, though, is that the phase down starts in
twenty twenty eight. And as we've seen with other policies
where you make a cut that starts at a later date,
(23:54):
we've seen Congress come back and basically say we're going
to delay that or maybe even repeal it. We saw
that with the ACA taxes that were used to fund
the subsidies, roughly about three hundred and fifty to four
hundred billion dollars worth of taxes those ended up getting repealed.
I think we'll see something similar starting in twenty twenty eight.
(24:14):
So those are the media impacts for hospitals and then
for insurers, and then you did mention the orphan drug provision,
which I think is the pretty, I don't know, maybe
significant victory for pharma and biotech since they had two
priorities coming into this year. One was to address the
(24:36):
pill parody pill penalty provision of the IRA, and the
second was to address the orphan drug provision. And the
way it's written in law now is that if you
have an orphan drug with one indication for one disease,
you are exempt, but if you have multiple orphan drug indications,
you are not. And so this bill essentially carves out
(25:00):
those that do have multiple rare disease indications, but also
starts the clock when you lose the exemption as opposed
to when you got your first FD approval, even if
it was an orphan drug orphan indication. So thinking about
some high cost drugs moving forward, everybody knows about kate Truda,
(25:24):
which is used for just about everything. It's the top
spending drug within the Medicure Part B program. It's not
going to be exempt, but it gets an extra year
of market protections, and then there are others that will
be exempt from the next selection period. So there's actually
a win for pharma in this whereas you see insurers
(25:47):
and hospitals will be fighting to reverse a lot of
these policies moving forward.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Got it. Yeah, And on the reversal, the potential repeal
that you mentioned down the road, would that be able
to be done under reconciliation? Are they going to need
to fill a buster proof majority for that, whoever, whoever
wants to pursue it.
Speaker 5 (26:07):
Well, it's I think the thing about that is because
every state has them, you could probably pass that through
regular order, so you may be able to find sixty
votes to we well reveal it.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Okay, all right, so some wins, some losses overall for
the healthcare industry. Very interesting, Thanks, Tone, really appreciate it.
All right, Matt, let's bring you in bad and clean
up and let's talk. Why don't we start with AI regulations.
You've you've been saying for a while that the Trump
administration overall will take a sort of a light hand
(26:47):
approach to regulation of AI, at least at the federal level,
but to keep an eye on potential state regulations of AI.
And I know that there was a lot of debate
in the One Big Beautiful Bill about whether the bill
would try to preempt state laws on artificial intelligence and
at first I think the bill included that preemption, but
(27:08):
it sounds like for now the bill doesn't include provisions
that would preempt state AI laws. So why don't you
come in and tell us why this matters and how
you see the plan out.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
So, I mean, that's exactly right.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
What really stands out to me is how close Congress
came to actually doing something here. You know, the if
you look at the history of the last five to
ten years on you know, data privacy regulation and all
this stuff, it's a lot of talk and not a
lot of action, maybe aside from the TikTok law, mostly
they haven't been able to do anything. They were very
(27:41):
close to including a provision here that would have knocked
out state regulation of AI for at first ten years.
Then it was reduced down to five years. Then it
was watered down a little more and said only only
for companies or only for states that take certain funding,
but but still very close to to being a meaningful
(28:03):
limit on state regulation of artificial intelligence, and without adopting
a federal framework of regulation of artificial intelligence. That's that's
the really amazing thing is that they, you know, were
not only were going to freeze the state laws. They
weren't going to you know, put in a federal framework
in place to govern things. It would be a you know,
(28:24):
no no law at all approach. And but at the
very last minute, I I some pushback from Senator Blackburn
I think ended up dooming the deal in the Senate
and and it fell out. But to me, the takeaway here,
you know, so that's a loss for the AI companies.
Better to have no regulation at all. But I I
(28:45):
do think Congress really showed us where their thinking is
on this generally, that you know, there's not going to
be aggressive regulation here right right when you know, DC
suddenly got all I did about talking about AI two
or three years ago. There were these hearings and it
was amazing how even you know, Republican Senators Lindsey Graham
(29:08):
and others were talking about what, let's put together a
new federal agency to go regulate AI, you know, and
there was talk, you know, it felt like, you know,
a serious consideration of aggressive regulation to protect from the
harms of AI. It's that's totally gone away in in
in in Washington. And so, yes, they didn't get it
(29:31):
done here to knock out the states. But I think
we're going to see this again. We're going to see
efforts come back again to try to preempt state regulation.
We're still going to but I don't think we're going
to see any sort of aggressive regulation from a federal
perspective of this technology. The focus instead is to get
the regulators out of the way of this technology.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
And I suppose even without explicit federal preemption or preemption
language in the statute, it doesn't mean that some if
a state, you know, promulgate some sort of AI regulations,
a company could still argue that they're preempted by not
a federal law in place, but by sort of like
field preemption or something like that.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
They could, Yeah, they could try. That's still out there.
And and I really do think Congress will try again
on this, either in the next time it tries for
a reconciliation bill when it only needs fifty votes, or
even when it's dealing with sixty votes. At the same
time that it imposes, you know, it adopts a federal
sort of light touch framework, you know, they'll type state
(30:33):
preemption to that, and so, you know, so my takeaway
here is, you know, yeah, this wasn't good news. It
wasn't a huge win for the companies, but I still
think the tone that it sets generally tells us that
that I don't think the companies have to be too
worried about disruption on the regulatory side in the US
in the near term, even though states like New York
(30:56):
and California, you know, they can move ahead with if
they want to. But I think Congress is going to
be keeping a close eye on anything like that.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
It makes sense, all right, I'm just shifting a little.
You've also been tracking Congress's work to restore the SEC's power,
that's the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission power to hold
auctions of wireless licenses. What did the Senate do there?
Speaker 3 (31:23):
Yeah, so this is a case where we have a
pretty clear winner in The Senate included a provision to
restore the FCC's auction authority that expired in March of
twenty twenty three. Congress hadn't been able to get attacked
together to restore the power to hold auctions of FCC licenses.
(31:44):
This was included in both the House and the Senate bills,
and so to me, that's a pretty positive sign that
this is going to get done. The Senate provision talked
about the FCC auctioning three hundred megahertz in the next
two years, starting with something called the upper seaband. So
this is good news for T Mobile, for AT and T,
(32:05):
for Verizon, for companies that build their networks using this spectrum. Uh,
they'll have opportunities to go after this spectrum and make
their networks better, which you know, looks good to investors.
So this has been a problem for a couple of
years with the FCC being unable to do this. It
(32:26):
looks like there's going to be a path in the
in the near term for the for FCC auctions to
take off again.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
Definitely in aspect of the bill, that seems to have
been covered a lot less than some of the other
issues we talked about.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Yeah, I don't think it's as controversial as as a
lot of the other stuff. That there is still pushback
from the military about using these frequencies, so there's still
going to be fights down the road about Okay, what
exactly can the FCC take to auction, So we're not
done fighting about that, but but still progress or towards
(33:02):
holding those auctions again.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Got it, Okay, great stuff, Thanks Matt. All Right, I
think We're going to leave it there and we'll wrap
up this episode of Votes and Verdicts. As always, thank
you for listening, and also, as always, if you have
any questions about anything that we talked about on this episode,
please don't hesitate to reach out to us at your
convenience with questions. One last reminder, you can find all
of our research on the Bloomberg terminal at big You
(33:26):
can find a lot of our litigation and policy research
at BI Laws. Go and with that, thank you for listening,
and have a great day.
Hello, and welcome to the Votes and Verdicts podcast, hosted
by the litigation and policy team at Bloomberg Intelligence, the
investment research platform of Bloomberg LP on the Bloomberg terminal.
Bloomberg Intelligence has five hundred analysts and strategists working across
the globe and focused on all major markets. Our coverage
includes over two thousand equities and credits, and we have
(00:36):
outlooks on more than ninety industries and one hundred market indices,
currencies and commodities. This podcast series examines the intersection of
business policy and law, and today is our weekly check
in on the litigation and policy catalysts that we're watching
and that we think will impact companies across a number
of different sectors. My name's Elliott Stein. I'm an analyst
(00:59):
with the Bloomberg Intel Elegiens covering litigation in the financial sector,
and I'm delighted today as always, to be joined by
several of my Bloomberg Intelligence colleagues. We have Andrew Silverman,
who's our senior tax analyst, Rob Barnett, our senior clean
energy analyst, Dwyane Wright, who covers healthcare policy, and Matt Schattenhelm,
who covers litigation and policy in the tech, media and
(01:21):
telecom space. As always, you can find all of our
research on the Bloomberg terminal at BIG and you can
find much of our litigation and policy research on our
dashboard BI laws Go. Today is July second, twenty twenty five.
It's just after two pm. Important to timestamp these episodes
(01:44):
since much of what we will be discussing is moving
very quickly. Specifically, today, we want to focus on the
one big, Beautiful bill and talk about some of the
key industry impacts that it will have. Specifically, I want
to focus on the impacts to the renewables and clean
energy sector, which Rob will talk about, the healthcare sector,
(02:04):
which Dwayne will talk about, and what it means for
regulation of artificial intelligence, which Matt will talk about. But
to get the conversation going, let's bringing Andrew Silverman, who
covers tax policy for US. So, Andrew, the Senate passed
its version of this bill yesterday. The bill is now
(02:24):
making its way through the House. I haven't actually followed
the news too closely this morning, but maybe you haven't
tell us how it's looking over there. But why don't
you come in and tell us, you know, sort of
how you see the current status, what you see happening next,
and sort of bigger picture, who you think some of
the key winners and losers will be when this is
(02:45):
all finalized.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, well, thanks for having me Alien, It's a pleasure
to be here. And yeah, this is just about the
most exciting time for tax folks that I can think of,
at least going back to twenty eighteen. It's sort of
like the Olympics and the World Series and the Super
Bowl all and my birthday all wrapped up into.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
No.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
No, but it might as well be my birthday because
because of this one big, beautiful film. Whether whether I
support it or not, whatever, but exactly so. So yeah,
so so what what's happening right now in the House
is that they're having some of a pre vote. They're
voting on the rules for debate. And it looks the
(03:28):
last time I looked like it might not it might
not go through. Uh so we're we're in a situation
where we have three possible options. They just keep, you know,
running the vote over and over again until the House
just accepts exactly what the Senate has adopted, or the
(03:50):
House can crumple up with the Senate did and write
up a totally new bill, or the two chambers can
go into conference and and work out there their differences
there and then come up with a compromise bill, and
then the House has to debate it and pass that
bill or the and then it would go to the
Senate and they would have to debate it and pass
the bill. Rob and I were talking about this earlier,
(04:11):
and I tend to think that he's right about this,
that it would it might be a disaster if if
the House tries to make changes to this bill and
send it back to the Senate. So I think probably
the House is going to accept what the Senate has adopted.
It might not be today, but it will probably be
pretty soon, and it could be before before we see
(04:34):
the fireworks on July fourth, because this bill has the
big mo as they say in in campaign in campaign times,
big momentum.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Now, I was just going to say, you think the
deficit hogs just sort of make make their complaints, raise
their fust, but then at the end of the day
swallow it.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Yeah. Yeah, the House freem Caucus, they're good, They're going
to roll over. I think both most people are predicting that,
and and I think that it's pretty likely the President
is pushing really hard on the bill. So I think,
you know, it's important that they do something big in
this first major legislative attempt, and I think I think
(05:14):
they're gonna. I think you're going to vote for it,
regardless of their distaste for the spending. And I should say,
you know, the House had agreed to four point five
trillion dollars of tax cuts and two trillion dollars of
spending cuts revenue raisers. This comes in seven hundred and
fifty billion dollars short, so that's why they're upset. But
trying to add back in taxes making changes to it,
(05:38):
I think the Senate would just not.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Accept that, right, And so sort of moving to the
industry impacts, who do you I mean, we're going to
talk renewables and healthcare and TMT with the rest of
the folks on this episode, but more broadly, who do
you see as some of the bigger winners and losers
in terms of industries and sectors and companies?
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Right?
Speaker 2 (06:00):
I mean, I see the spill as largely an extension
or a codification of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act,
So in that sense, which which sectors benefited most from
the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Banks, manufacturers, retailers, insures,
real estate companies, and oil and gas were the biggest
UH recipients because they had the highest effective tax rates
(06:22):
and those rates came down the most for those industries.
So the extension of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
and this the OBBB is, you know, it's going to
be extraordinarily beneficial for them. So same same industries as
the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, But I mean it's
it's pretty broad the impact that this is going to
(06:45):
have on companies. The expanded interest expense deduction helps companies
that are heavily indebted or want to become heavily indebted,
like like telecom companies or real estate companies, automakers, airlines.
The R and D expensing helps tech companies and pharmaceutical companies.
The individual income tax cuts and the expanded Child tax
(07:06):
Credit helps retailers and restaurants. So it's, you know, it's
pretty wide. But I think the industry that's helped the
most by this bill is probably about the same as
in the Tax Cuts Jobs Act as well, is the
real estate industry. And that's because the partnership tax deduction
would be made permanent, at least in the Senate bill,
(07:26):
they get the interest expense deduction. As I mentioned, there's
a new opportunity zone regime, more beneficial rate rules, a
permanent new markets tax credit, and a boosted low income
housing tax credit. So it's and that's sort of just
the tip of the iceberg. So it's really it's just
a whole bunch of stuff that benefits the real estate industry,
(07:46):
I think the most of any US industry.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Very interesting. You had told me before we recorded that
you're getting a lot of questions about the Senate parliamentarian.
I don't know if you wanted to say anything about that.
I mean, if this doesn't go back to the Senate,
I guess her role has sort of done at this point.
But did you want to say anything about about what
she struck from the Senate's version and why the Senate
doesn't just ignore her?
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Right? It's interesting because you would think that this person exists,
at least in the reconciliation context to rip bills apart.
And so why would why would the two parties want
somebody like that to keep existing? You know in the
Senate there there they just seem to be sort of
(08:32):
you know, this big problem, But actually it's not really that.
I mean, I think the main reason that the parliamentarian
exists is to protect the minority party from the majority
party right, similar to the filibuster. But I think, and
I've been thinking about this a lot, actually, I think
that it actually gives the Senate an advantage over the
(08:52):
House and negotiations to have the Senate parliamentarian, because you know,
if the House demands a change to the bill that
the Senate's unwilling to go along with, the Senate can
always points to the parliamentarian and say, hey, look, you
know she's going to shoot that down, so we should
just just go with with the Senate once, because it's
it's just too complicated to go with what you want.
(09:13):
Parliamentarian is going to be a problem here, and she
has struck a whole bunch of different things from this bill,
like the federal subsidy for private and religious schools, the
religious college car round from from the university and Dowmind tax,
the deregulation of gun silencers, penalties for for government workers
(09:33):
who disclose confidential taxpayer information, the Litigation Finance tax.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
And changing into CFPBS funding too.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Exactly right, CFPB. The PCAOB is going to be eliminated
in the House bill that got struck and then famously,
Chuck Schumer, I think it was yesterday, got her to
strike the title of the act.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
That so exact. So it's no longer called the one
big beautiful.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Bill exactly it is. It is nameless.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Okay. And just one last quick question for you before
we turned to Rob. Where does this leave global tax agreements?
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Yeah? So, so this is a very America first bill.
I think it sounds the death now for the global
tax agreement. I think the revenge tax was enough to
force countries like Canada to give up their digital tax
and for the OECD to basically push the pillar to
(10:31):
Global minimum tax out the window. Right after the last
G seven summit, they decided that the Global Movement Tax
would would not apply to US companies. And it was
I think it was because of all the pressure that
was building up in this in this in this bill,
so I think I think the bill gives a huge
(10:53):
advantage to US companies over foreign companies, which is exactly
the opposite of they went what they wanted to do
in the Pillar one and pillars agreements, and I think
what it does is result in exactly what the OECD
and g's twenty countries didn't want to have, which is
another race to the bottom in terms of tax rates,
(11:14):
because there's there's no other way to compete if the
US is going to be pushing for reduced tax rates here.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Yeah, got it. You good. Probably do a whole podcast
or webinar episode on that alone. All right, Andrew, thank you.
Rob Let's bring you in and start talking some renewables
and clean energy. It seems like the center version of
the bill wasn't quite as bad as it could have
been for companies in your space. I know it got
rid of maybe some of the IRA's solar and win
(11:44):
tax credits, but it also got rid of an excise tax.
I think that would have been particularly onerous for clean
energy companies. I love the headline of this note that
you put out just this morning, Ready Set Go. Senate
bill starts one year race to build solar. I think
that sort of captures your thoughts pretty succinctly. But when
(12:06):
you come in and tell us more about how you
think this bill will impact the renewables industry.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
Yeah, I think at first blush if you were just
falling the headlines, you might have thought, hey, this is
a pretty difficult bill for the renewable industry. It does
roll back a lot of the incentives that the industry
thought it was going to have that had come about
as part of the Inflation Reduction Act. And yet you
(12:34):
look at the screen today and I see a lot
of green in MySpace, and Vestus is up, you know,
double digits, the first Solar is up. Almost any company
in the solar supply train, whether it's you know, the
companies that make the tracking technology so that the panels
(12:57):
can follow this Sun and you got next tracker, Array, Shoals,
Sun Run, Solar Developer. They're all seeing big gains off
the back of this bill. And so maybe you could
have a theory that it was expectations were so low
and it wasn't the worst case scenario. But I think
(13:19):
the real interesting paragraph in the entire bill, and I
was talking with Andrew about this before we got started,
is there's a little provision that says if you start
construction on your project within twelve months of enactment, you
can access the full credit as it is under the
(13:41):
IRA now. You don't have to complete the project for
four years. But I think you're going to actually see
a race to start projects, at least on paper, and
then you can what it's called in the industry, safe
harbor the credits, and so you're going to see actually
demand that would have had and maybe later this decade
(14:02):
get pulled into the next twelve months. So we're actually
going to see more solar as a result of this
bill and the way that the language is worded. Now,
I don't think you will see the same effect and
wind because they can't. You can't turn it around quickly enough.
The very interesting thing about solar is that it is
(14:23):
the shortest cycle project to bring onto the grid, So
I think because of that, you will just see this
mad dash. And as a result, all these companies, some
of the ones I just mentioned, are going to be
seeing expanding order back logs and then they'll be recognizing
incremental additional revenue over the next few years. So from
(14:47):
a net present value perspective, you're probably going to end
up with more solar during the Trump administration than you
would have had had you just left it alone. And
so that's in general perhaps news for the industry, despite
maybe you take a haircut to how things would have
looked later this decade or into the twenty thirties.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
And I mean, so I just have to start the
project in the next twelve months. Is there the possibility
that the projects could started but then sort of don't
really go anywhere.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
Well, of course there's always that sort of risk, But
from the way that the companies will manage this, I
think the way my understanding of the way the IRIS
handles definition have started is I think you have to
spend five percent of your capex. So there will be
probably lots of lawyering and interpretation of sort of like, well,
(15:44):
what does that, how do you define that? What does
the definition of start mean? And so there'll probably be
some scrutiny on that. But I do think that there
will be all sorts of efforts to quote unquote start
projects lock in those credits. Maybe some won't finish. And
here's the deal. If you don't start your project within
(16:04):
the next twelve months, then you have your subject to
declining values of the credits, so they start to phase
out and you have to If you don't get started
within the next twelve months, then you have to actually
be online by the end of twenty twenty seven to
(16:25):
actually get the credit. So you have all the incentive
in the world to quote unquote start the project, and
then you get four years from when you start it
to take it to completion. You get the full credit.
So you're going to see the pipeline really fill up,
and then the pipeline is going to get sort of
opaque and not very full looking out towards the end
(16:47):
of the decade. And so Andrew and I were speculating,
you know what if the Democrats retake control of one
of the branches of Congress, do they actually push to
put some of this stuff back in Later who knows,
But for now, I think the key take away is
the second half of this year and the first half
of next year is just going to be a mad
dash to do as much solar as you can from
(17:09):
in terms of booking these tax credits, which are fully
available if you can do it on those terms.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
So interesting, Yeah, I mean it's true if you read
the headlines you would sort of get a different picture,
so that that's really illuminating. Yeah, go ahead, Well, I.
Speaker 4 (17:22):
Was going to say there was a proposal, so in
the House version, there was no there was no excise
tax like the one you mentioned. And when the bill
first came out, there had there had been a proposal
to put this excise tax in on a wind and
solar and that ultimately got kicked from the final version
(17:43):
of the Senate bill. And I think the sort of
headline was that that was the reason. But my general
read is, sure, that's good one. No one wanted the
x I tax. But I actually think it's this more
narrow window to get things done and get the full
credit that's the real driver. At least that's my interpretation.
Maybe others think the tax thing is important, but I
(18:04):
actually think that this little narrow piece that I've been
talking about is where the true sort of gold within
the bill is for the renewable power sector.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Up. That makes complete sense. All right, Rob, thank you,
Super interesting. All right, Dwayne, let's bring you in and
talk some healthcare. A lot of different issues to talk about.
There's the Medicaid cuts and what it means for health insurers,
the limits on provider taxes and what it means for hospitals.
You have updated orphan drug language which affects potential price
(18:38):
cuts for drug makers under the IRA, so maybe it
maybe come in. Tell us how you think about this
bill and how it'll affect all these different industries in
the healthcare sector.
Speaker 5 (18:48):
Yeah, thanks Elliott. So it's a pretty rough bill for
health insurers, and I think we have to kind of
step back and think about how it's in a pretty
rough year already, maybe two years for a lot of
these insurers. When you think about how when we think
(19:10):
about what the insurance market looks like, it's Medicaid, it's
a c A, it's Medicare advantage. And we've seen a
lot of companies with m A business do not so
well for a couple of reasons. And then now you
have the piling on with these Medicaid cuts in I
(19:32):
think this stems from two big or a couple of
big policies within the bill. We have the long standing
goal of Republicans to implement work requirements in the program.
And when you think about all the money that's coming
out of the Medicaid program and where the uninsured losses are,
(19:53):
it's mostly from the work requirement of provisions. But it's
not that people aren't working within the Medica program. It's
that the administrative burdens for complying with the work requirements
are such that people who are eligible end up getting cut,
and we've seen that play out during the first Trump
(20:14):
administration when states tried to do it, or at least
one in particular, and we saw people fall off the rules,
not because they weren't eligible, but because they had hard
time complying with the administrative aspects of it. We've seen
another state that expanded their medicated population but tied it
to a work requirement. The enrolment has been significantly lower
(20:40):
than expected, and people are attributing it to the compliance
aspects of that law and that state law. And so
if you fast forward and think about doing this with
all fifty states asking them to upgrade their technology within
the next year and a half, I think we could
(21:00):
be seeing some similar roadblocks. And so when we're looking
at roughly eleven million people, fewer people ensure the next decade,
mostly out of Medicaid. It's largely out of that work requirement.
There's also aspects relating to Medicaid expansion eligibility determinations. Instead
(21:25):
of annual, it's bi annual, so you'll see fewer people
keep their Medicaid insurance for the twelve months.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Now.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
The other piece of this has to do with the
Affordable Care Act, and there are some pieces in the law,
and there are some pieces outside of the law. Or
we'll see some enrollment declines, mostly due to the open
enrollment window closing ability for some people to enroll, mostly
(21:56):
lower income people to enroll outside of the open enrollment window.
And then we are looking at probably about four million
people at least two million next year, four million fewer
over the next decade enrolling because of the enhanced subsidies
that expire at the end of the year. So when
(22:17):
we look at all the numbers from these policy changes,
sixteen million fewer people will have meals insurance over the
next decade. And then you have questions about, Okay, how
does this impact hospitals with increased uncompensated care. They'll be
dealing with other issues relating to the provider tax which
(22:41):
House bill had this and just to step back the
provider taxes, just to wait for states to tax their
entities give them the money back that counts as a
Medicaid payment so they can pull a federal match for that.
And Republicans call it a scheme or a scam, regardless,
it's what states use. All states used to fund their
(23:06):
Medicaid programs and pay providers and the House bill basically
said no more of these provider taxes, which we thought
was probably as far as it was going to go,
but the Senate took it a step further and basically
said no more new ones. And what we have, they're
lowing the quote unquote safe harbor or threshold that allows
(23:29):
these to move forward. And so at the end of
the day, we're probably talking about one hundred and fifty
billion coming out of the system, or at least four
state step and make up and funding. I think the
key here, though, is that the phase down starts in
twenty twenty eight. And as we've seen with other policies
where you make a cut that starts at a later date,
(23:54):
we've seen Congress come back and basically say we're going
to delay that or maybe even repeal it. We saw
that with the ACA taxes that were used to fund
the subsidies, roughly about three hundred and fifty to four
hundred billion dollars worth of taxes those ended up getting repealed.
I think we'll see something similar starting in twenty twenty eight.
(24:14):
So those are the media impacts for hospitals and then
for insurers, and then you did mention the orphan drug provision,
which I think is the pretty, I don't know, maybe
significant victory for pharma and biotech since they had two
priorities coming into this year. One was to address the
(24:36):
pill parody pill penalty provision of the IRA, and the
second was to address the orphan drug provision. And the
way it's written in law now is that if you
have an orphan drug with one indication for one disease,
you are exempt, but if you have multiple orphan drug indications,
you are not. And so this bill essentially carves out
(25:00):
those that do have multiple rare disease indications, but also
starts the clock when you lose the exemption as opposed
to when you got your first FD approval, even if
it was an orphan drug orphan indication. So thinking about
some high cost drugs moving forward, everybody knows about kate Truda,
(25:24):
which is used for just about everything. It's the top
spending drug within the Medicure Part B program. It's not
going to be exempt, but it gets an extra year
of market protections, and then there are others that will
be exempt from the next selection period. So there's actually
a win for pharma in this whereas you see insurers
(25:47):
and hospitals will be fighting to reverse a lot of
these policies moving forward.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Got it. Yeah, And on the reversal, the potential repeal
that you mentioned down the road, would that be able
to be done under reconciliation? Are they going to need
to fill a buster proof majority for that, whoever, whoever
wants to pursue it.
Speaker 5 (26:07):
Well, it's I think the thing about that is because
every state has them, you could probably pass that through
regular order, so you may be able to find sixty
votes to we well reveal it.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Okay, all right, so some wins, some losses overall for
the healthcare industry. Very interesting, Thanks, Tone, really appreciate it.
All right, Matt, let's bring you in bad and clean
up and let's talk. Why don't we start with AI regulations.
You've you've been saying for a while that the Trump
administration overall will take a sort of a light hand
(26:47):
approach to regulation of AI, at least at the federal level,
but to keep an eye on potential state regulations of AI.
And I know that there was a lot of debate
in the One Big Beautiful Bill about whether the bill
would try to preempt state laws on artificial intelligence and
at first I think the bill included that preemption, but
(27:08):
it sounds like for now the bill doesn't include provisions
that would preempt state AI laws. So why don't you
come in and tell us why this matters and how
you see the plan out.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
So, I mean, that's exactly right.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
What really stands out to me is how close Congress
came to actually doing something here. You know, the if
you look at the history of the last five to
ten years on you know, data privacy regulation and all
this stuff, it's a lot of talk and not a
lot of action, maybe aside from the TikTok law, mostly
they haven't been able to do anything. They were very
(27:41):
close to including a provision here that would have knocked
out state regulation of AI for at first ten years.
Then it was reduced down to five years. Then it
was watered down a little more and said only only
for companies or only for states that take certain funding,
but but still very close to to being a meaningful
(28:03):
limit on state regulation of artificial intelligence, and without adopting
a federal framework of regulation of artificial intelligence. That's that's
the really amazing thing is that they, you know, were
not only were going to freeze the state laws. They
weren't going to you know, put in a federal framework
in place to govern things. It would be a you know,
(28:24):
no no law at all approach. And but at the
very last minute, I I some pushback from Senator Blackburn
I think ended up dooming the deal in the Senate
and and it fell out. But to me, the takeaway here,
you know, so that's a loss for the AI companies.
Better to have no regulation at all. But I I
(28:45):
do think Congress really showed us where their thinking is
on this generally, that you know, there's not going to
be aggressive regulation here right right when you know, DC
suddenly got all I did about talking about AI two
or three years ago. There were these hearings and it
was amazing how even you know, Republican Senators Lindsey Graham
(29:08):
and others were talking about what, let's put together a
new federal agency to go regulate AI, you know, and
there was talk, you know, it felt like, you know,
a serious consideration of aggressive regulation to protect from the
harms of AI. It's that's totally gone away in in
in in Washington. And so, yes, they didn't get it
(29:31):
done here to knock out the states. But I think
we're going to see this again. We're going to see
efforts come back again to try to preempt state regulation.
We're still going to but I don't think we're going
to see any sort of aggressive regulation from a federal
perspective of this technology. The focus instead is to get
the regulators out of the way of this technology.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
And I suppose even without explicit federal preemption or preemption
language in the statute, it doesn't mean that some if
a state, you know, promulgate some sort of AI regulations,
a company could still argue that they're preempted by not
a federal law in place, but by sort of like
field preemption or something like that.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
They could, Yeah, they could try. That's still out there.
And and I really do think Congress will try again
on this, either in the next time it tries for
a reconciliation bill when it only needs fifty votes, or
even when it's dealing with sixty votes. At the same
time that it imposes, you know, it adopts a federal
sort of light touch framework, you know, they'll type state
(30:33):
preemption to that, and so, you know, so my takeaway
here is, you know, yeah, this wasn't good news. It
wasn't a huge win for the companies, but I still
think the tone that it sets generally tells us that
that I don't think the companies have to be too
worried about disruption on the regulatory side in the US
in the near term, even though states like New York
(30:56):
and California, you know, they can move ahead with if
they want to. But I think Congress is going to
be keeping a close eye on anything like that.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
It makes sense, all right, I'm just shifting a little.
You've also been tracking Congress's work to restore the SEC's power,
that's the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission power to hold
auctions of wireless licenses. What did the Senate do there?
Speaker 3 (31:23):
Yeah, so this is a case where we have a
pretty clear winner in The Senate included a provision to
restore the FCC's auction authority that expired in March of
twenty twenty three. Congress hadn't been able to get attacked
together to restore the power to hold auctions of FCC licenses.
(31:44):
This was included in both the House and the Senate bills,
and so to me, that's a pretty positive sign that
this is going to get done. The Senate provision talked
about the FCC auctioning three hundred megahertz in the next
two years, starting with something called the upper seaband. So
this is good news for T Mobile, for AT and T,
(32:05):
for Verizon, for companies that build their networks using this spectrum. Uh,
they'll have opportunities to go after this spectrum and make
their networks better, which you know, looks good to investors.
So this has been a problem for a couple of
years with the FCC being unable to do this. It
(32:26):
looks like there's going to be a path in the
in the near term for the for FCC auctions to
take off again.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
Definitely in aspect of the bill, that seems to have
been covered a lot less than some of the other
issues we talked about.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Yeah, I don't think it's as controversial as as a
lot of the other stuff. That there is still pushback
from the military about using these frequencies, so there's still
going to be fights down the road about Okay, what
exactly can the FCC take to auction, So we're not
done fighting about that, but but still progress or towards
(33:02):
holding those auctions again.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Got it, Okay, great stuff, Thanks Matt. All Right, I
think We're going to leave it there and we'll wrap
up this episode of Votes and Verdicts. As always, thank
you for listening, and also, as always, if you have
any questions about anything that we talked about on this episode,
please don't hesitate to reach out to us at your
convenience with questions. One last reminder, you can find all
of our research on the Bloomberg terminal at big You
(33:26):
can find a lot of our litigation and policy research
at BI Laws. Go and with that, thank you for listening,
and have a great day.
Host
Elliott Stein
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