Patrick Schilling: Legislative director, Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.)

Patrick Schilling, the legislative director for Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), was a key source of knowledge for Republicans who pushed hard to roll back green energy tax incentives as part of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” of President Trump’s legislative priorities — particularly those in the House Freedom Caucus.

The tax credits emerged as a key sticking point in the megabill and the Freedom Caucus, which Perry previously chaired, successfully pushed GOP leadership to alter the legislation after the first draft was unveiled to speed up the phaseout.

Schilling has worked on the issue in Perry’s office for years, over multiple Congresses. Natural gas energy production is a major part of the Pennsylvania economy, and Perry had put the focus on energy "affordability, reliability, and abundance.”

It started as work on stand-alone bills Perry introduced to repeal the tax credits. Then, the work got more serious as they helped former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) craft the Limit, Save, Grow Act in 2023, which was the House GOP's opening salvo to negotiations for a debt limit deal and amounted to a “more concentrated effort” to articulate the kind of tax credits they wanted to claw back.

When Republicans won trifecta control of Washington in 2024, the opportunity to repeal the tax credits arrived — and Schilling had already done the groundwork.

“I was pleased to be able to help both my boss and the other members of the caucus kind of navigate themselves around these really wonky, weird tax credits and the subversiveness of the subsidies in the market,” Schilling said.

“I spent a lot of time previously looking at these things when it was kind of a pie-in-the-sky, umbrellas-in-the-desert type situation, about getting rid of them,” he added. “It was really cool to go from that to it actually somewhat materializing into some policy wins.”

Schilling, a Pennsylvania native, started in Perry’s office as an intern and has worked for him for a decade, which is a long time compared to the typical Capitol Hill staffer's tenure. 

But Schilling gets a special satisfaction being able to deliver wins for his home state, and is motivated by trying to fix the “fiscal mess that we find ourselves in.”

“Somebody needs to be here to sort that out,” Schilling said. “I want to do my part and try to help out.”