Utilities get tax break with no strings attached—ratepayers won't see savings
H.R. 2872 — RESILIENCE Act of 2025 · Filed by Carol Miller (R-WV) · 11 cosponsors · Introduced Apr 10, 2025 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
Enter a ZIP to see where your representative and both senators stood on this bill.
Looked up on this device — your ZIP is never stored on our servers.
What it does
This bill amends the tax code to allow utilities to deduct repair and maintenance costs of infrastructure property on their tax returns, provided those costs are also recorded as depreciation expenses on their financial statements. The bill targets public utilities that own infrastructure subject to federal depreciation rules, permitting them to reduce their adjusted financial statement income by the amount of these repair deductions, effective for tax years beginning after December 31, 2024.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is a targeted tax deduction for public utilities' repair and maintenance costs. While framed as infrastructure resilience, the actual function is narrowly beneficial tax relief for a specific industry sector.
What the text implies
- The deduction applies only to costs already recorded as depreciation on financial statements, creating a double-benefit structure: utilities deduct the same cost both as depreciation (reducing book income) and as repair/maintenance (reducing taxable income), potentially allowing accelerated cost recovery.
- The bill does not require utilities to pass savings to ratepayers or invest in resilience; the tax benefit flows directly to utility shareholders and parent companies, with no public-interest condition attached.
The full analysis lists 4 implications of this text.
Who stands to gain
publicly traded utilities (electric, gas, water); utility holding companies; utility shareholders