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- Sen. John Curtis doubts Congress can pass President Donald Trump's tax bill by July 4.
- Curtis emphasizes quality over the deadline.
- Elon Musk opposes the bill, but Curtis dismisses his influence on the process.
WASHINGTON — Utah Sen. John Curtis is raising doubts about whether Congress can pass President Donald Trump's "big beautiful bill" by the Fourth of July, urging his colleagues not to sacrifice quality to meet a self-imposed deadline.
The Senate has yet to release its version of the massive tax reconciliation bill as Republicans continue negotiations on certain provisions passed by the House. But some senators such as Curtis question whether they can iron out their differences before July Fourth, the date that GOP leaders set as the deadline to get the package passed by Congress and on Trump's desk.
"I think a lot of us would be surprised if it passed by July 4," Curtis said on Friday at the Politico Energy Summit in Washington. "I think that's a false deadline. I don't think that we need to put a specific deadline on it. Let's get it right."
Curtis' comments come as the climate conservative has pushed for changes to the House language repealing or phasing out a number of green energy tax credits previously approved in the Inflation Reduction Act. Those provisions have divided Republicans as some such as Curtis have warned against repealing certain credits that boost energy production.
Curtis said he backs some phaseouts of the inflation act but warns they must be done in a "thoughtful" way to ensure businesses are not unfairly affected.
"I think that banks, the investors have invested billions of dollars based on the rules of the road, and you have employees who have set careers based on these things," Curtis said at the event. "Let's just be thoughtful in how we phase them out. Let's not destroy careers and things like that."
Curtis' skepticism of the timeline underscores a broader challenge for Republican leaders as they scramble to get their party on board to advance the bill. Republicans can only afford to lose three GOP senators and still pass the package, with an even slimmer margin in the House.
But the task to wrangle all corners of the GOP became even harder last week when multibillionaire and former DOGE head Elon Musk came out against the resolution, arguing it does not go far enough to cut spending.
Curtis brushed off Musk's opposition as a misunderstanding of the federal government, suggesting the Tesla CEO would have little influence over the package's future.
"If he would stop and slow down and realize the way Washington works, because what he does with a business is very different in the culture, and everything is so different than what we do in Washington, D.C.," Curtis said. "I'm a U.S. senator voting on this bill, and I don't know why he hates it. You can see how he's missed an opportunity."
The Senate is expected to release text of the reconciliation bill as soon as this week. After that, it's not clear how soon senators will vote on it — or whether it could be passed by the House a second time before the Fourth of July.
