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‘Big Beautiful Bill’ passes Senate with Mike Lee and John Curtis’ votes

Vice President JD Vance cast the tie-breaking vote to ensure Donald Trump’s domestic policy agenda passed the U.S. Senate.

(Haiyun Jiang | The New York Times) From left: Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., speak to reporters outside the Senate chamber after passing President Donald Trump's domestic policy bill at the Capitol in Washington on Tuesday, July 1, 2025. The Senate passed the Republican domestic policy bill carrying President Trump's agenda, 51 to 50, with Vice President JD Vance casting the tiebreaking vote.

After days of debate and haggling, Republican senators — including Utah Sens. Mike Lee and John Curtis — voted Tuesday morning to advance a heavily amended version of the “Big Beautiful Bill,” the megabudget bill backed by President Donald Trump that could result in nearly 12 million people across the country losing health coverage, including nearly 200,000 in Utah alone.

The bill passed by a vote of 51-50, with Vice President JD Vance breaking the tie. Three Republicans, Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Rand Paul of Kentucky, broke with the party and joined with all Senate Democrats to vote against the bill.

“The Big Beautiful Bill delivers for Utahns,” Curtis said in a statement immediately after its passage. “It secures the border, provides permanent tax relief for working families and strengthens our military.”

As the Senate worked to finish the bill language and corral votes, Curtis — who founded the Conservative Climate Caucus while in the House — said he secured a number of changes to energy credits included in the bill, including, among other things, the removal of a proposed new tax on solar and wind projects and the elimination of a ban on solar leasing, his office shared in a news release.

Energy projects that started before the bill is enacted will also be protected from “surprise penalties” and “shifting goal posts,” according to Curtis’ office, and energy projects “will retain 100% credit value under current rules through December 31, 2027.”

The Utah senator said he was grateful to Senate leaders “for including my changes to the energy credits — key for business certainty and for Utah’s energy future.”

According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the Senate’s version of the legislative package would add $3.3 trillion to the deficit over the next decade. That’s almost $1 trillion more than the House version of the bill, which the CBO estimated would add $2.4 trillion.

The House originally passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act on May 22 by just one vote. All four members of Utah’s all-GOP House delegation, which includes Reps. Blake Moore, Celeste Maloy, Mike Kennedy and Burgess Owens, voted in favor of the legislation.

Lee did not provide a comment on his vote for the bill.

Tax cuts and credits

The tax cuts central to the “Big Beautiful Bill” are an extension of the cuts passed eight years ago, and the legislation includes an expansion of the Child Tax Credit, a credit for families with young children. The extension and expansion of the CTC was primarily sponsored in the House by Moore, who represents Utah’s 1st Congressional District.

Currently set at $2,000, the CTC was set to revert to an earlier $1,000 credit prior to the expansion in the budget bill. The Senate version of the bill would expand the credit to $2,200, $300 less than the House version.

Some of the bill’s most significant spending cuts come in the form of changes to Medicaid, Punchbowl News reported, as the legislation cuts $1 trillion from the program via increased eligibility checks, the imposition of national work requirements for some program beneficiaries and steep cuts to provider taxes.

Health insurance and SNAP

The bill also would allow for the expiration of premium tax credits that help millions of people across the country afford healthcare through the Affordable Care Act.

The CBO estimates that 11.8 million people could lose health coverage under the bill, while a Washington Post assessment released Tuesday was even higher, estimating that the health insurance of some 17 million Americans was at risk.

In Utah, according to an estimate done by the Congressional Joint Economic Committee’s Democratic staff released Monday, the changes to Medicaid and the ACA under the Senate bill could put the health coverage of more than 188,000 people at risk.

That’s an increase from an earlier estimate by the committee’s minority staff that projected, based on the House bill, that 31,000 Utahns could lose access to Medicaid, while another 109,000 could lose access to the ACA.

The legislation also includes changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps. The program currently is federally funded, but under the Big Beautiful Bill, some program costs would be shifted onto states if they have a payment error rate of more than 6% beginning in fiscal year 2028.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Utah had a 5.74% payment error rate during fiscal year 2024.

Public land sales and AI rules are out

An earlier version of the bill included a proposal by Lee to sell millions of acres of federally-owned land, but the senator removed the provision after weeks of bipartisan pushback.

A provision in the House bill that would have banned states from regulating artificial intelligence for ten years also attracted significant controversy in recent weeks, including pusback from Utah’s top elected officials who opposed the moratorium. An earlier version of the Senate bill tied the ban to broadband funding, but the regulatory moratorium was later removed from the legislation entirely.

The legislation will now return to the House, which will need to vote to approve the Senate changes before it heads to Trump’s desk. As of Tuesday, it was unclear if Republicans in the House would back changes made in the Senate.

A spokesperson for Moore’s office said the congressman was still assessing the Senate’s changes. Maloy, Kennedy and Owens did not respond to requests for comment on the Senate bill’s passage and whether they support the changes.