WASHINGTON: The Republicans’ tax package would boost traditional forms of energy such as oil and gas while also supporting renewable energy such as wind and solar power — and even extend a hand to buyers of electric cars.
An agreement by House and Senate negotiators would open Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, while preserving tax credits for wind power and other clean energy. The bill also would extend a tax credit of up to $7,500 for purchases of plug-in electric vehicles such as the Tesla Model 3 and Chevrolet Bolt.
Republicans rolled out the bill late Friday.
Opening the remote Arctic refuge to oil and gas drilling is a longtime Republican priority that most Democrats fiercely oppose. The 19.6-million-acre refuge in northeastern Alaska is one of the most pristine areas in the US and is home to polar bears, caribou, migratory birds and other wildlife.
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski and other Republicans say drilling can be done safely with new technology, while ensuring a steady energy supply for West Coast refineries.
Murkowski, who chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said opening the refuge to drilling is “the single-most important step we can take to strengthen our long-term energy security and create new wealth.”
The House and Senate are expected to vote on the $1.5 trillion tax legislation next week as GOP leaders push the most sweeping rewrite of the tax code in more than three decades.
The bill preserves a phase-out of tax incentives for both the solar and wind industries passed in 2015. Tax credits for wind are set to expire in 2020, and solar credits in 2022.
The wind-energy credits are popular with some Republicans, including Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley and South Dakota Sen. John Thune, who worked to defend them after they were curtailed in a version passed by the House.
Electric cars comprise just about 1 percent of sales nationwide, but several states have mandates that such “zero emission vehicles” make up a much larger portion of vehicle sales. Manufacturers worry that eliminating the tax credit would have made those targets virtually impossible to meet.
The Arctic refuge has been the focus of a political fight for nearly four decades. Former President Bill Clinton vetoed a GOP plan to allow drilling in the refuge in 1995, and Democrats led by Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell defeated a similar plan in 2005.
Most congressional Republicans support the drilling plan, including veteran Alaska Rep. Don Young, one of the plan’s negotiators. Young called drilling “crucially important to the nation” and said it would decrease US dependence on foreign oil and create jobs for Alaskans.
Democrats and environmental groups say the GOP plan risks spoiling one of the nation’s most pristine areas and is especially unwise at a time when US oil production is booming, with imports declining and exports reaching record levels.
Lawmakers “do not need to ruin a wildlife refuge and an ecosystem that is intact just to give tax breaks to big corporations,” Cantwell said. “We can do better than this.”
— AP
US tax bill boosts oil, gas drilling — and renewables
US tax bill boosts oil, gas drilling — and renewables
Saudi Arabia’s venture scene goes global
- 2026 to see more exits, more AI, and a bigger push to tell Saudi’s story abroad
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s business landscape is set to see a “record year of liquidity events” in 2026, Philip Bahoshy, CEO of venture data platform MAGNiTT, has told Arab News.
Setting out his expectations for the upcoming 12 months, Bahoshy said he expects a shift from the domination by funding momentum seen in 2025 to one defined by exits.
The CEO thinks Saudi Arabia is “likely to see one, if not two, IPOs happening within the Kingdom,” and alongside public listings he forecast “a record year of merger and acquisition transactions,” positioning M&A as another major route to liquidity for founders
and investors.
Being cautious about using hype-driven labels like unicorns, Bahoshy still expects that 2026 will see the emergence of multiple billion-dollar companies.
All this comes after a year in which Saudi Arabia’s venture capital market increasingly attracted international investors alongside a growing base of local institutional capital, with marquee events helping pull global players into the Kingdom and the wider Gulf Cooperation Council region.
Maturity, focus, appeal
Bahoshy summed up Saudi Arabia’s venture capital market in 2025 in three words — “attractiveness, focus and maturity.”
In his view, the ecosystem is “maturing” after “about five years or six years now of investment,” with capital increasingly reaching “every stage of the funnel.”
Bahoshy said he has long argued the market needs investment “across each stage, early stage, medium stage, late stage,” and he framed 2025 as a year when that breadth became more visible.
He contrasted the current cycle with recent years, noting that “two years back, it was mega deals,” while “last year we saw the underlying ecosystem.”
In 2025, he said, the market showed “a balance of early stage, middle stage and late stage investment,” which he described as “a positive sign of a continually evolving ecosystem.”
Bahoshy also pointed to “focus by the government on problem-solution” as another marker of maturity.
On the international front, he said global players are arriving “not just because it makes sense for political reasons,” but because of “the companies and the scale that they’ve achieved.”
Heading for records
Bahoshy said Saudi Arabia’s venture market closed 2025 with strong momentum, with leading indicators suggesting an unusually active finish to the year.
His remarks point to a market where deal flow remained steady through the back half of the year rather than tapering off, supporting a narrative of sustained fundraising appetite among investors and continued capital formation among startups.
Balancing the funnel
Bahoshy said the spread of activity across mega rounds, later-stage deals, and earlier funding in 2025 was not accidental, but the result of a deliberate effort to “make sure that each step of the stage, the funding stage, has been taken care of.”
In his account, government-backed infrastructure has been built to support the full pipeline, “whether it’s through incubators and accelerators at early stage … accelerator programs that are both private and public,” and “seed funds that continue to get capital from some of the fund to fund structures to support at the seed and series A stages.”
A bigger push to tell Saudi’s story abroad
Beyond deal outcomes, Bahoshy framed 2026 as a year to refine Saudi Arabia’s investor strategy.
He said “a lot of work has been done to bring people to the Kingdom,” and described that as “a credit to the Kingdom.”
In his view, the next phase is expanding outbound engagement — “the type of delegation trips that they do” — citing recent visits to London, Silicon Valley, Korea, and Hong Kong.
He argued the Kingdom has already achieved “the 70 percent, 80 percent attractiveness of bringing people to the Kingdom,” and now needs to “share the story outwards.”
He also expects artificial intelligence to take a much larger share of venture deployment.
“I anticipate that AI will contribute close to 20 to 30 percent or 25 percent plus of all venture capital deployed in the Kingdom,” Bahoshy said.
