Unlikely That House Republicans With Biden Energy Projects In Their Districts . . .Oh, Wait, They DID Vote To Kill Them
After days of intense political infighting between ultra-conservative and moderate Republicans, the House of Representatives voted along party lines on Thursday morning to approve a sweeping tax bill that seeks to eviscerate the heart of landmark climate legislation passed by Democrats just three years ago. The 2022 climate law on the chopping block, the Inflation Reduction Act (or IRA), was the first legislation in more than a decade to attempt to slash American greenhouse gas emissions and the centerpiece of former president Joe Biden’s legislative agenda. It provides hundreds of billions of dollars in tax credits, loans, subsidies, and grants to utility companies, automakers, consumers, and others to become more energy efficient and switch to sources of carbon-free power.
Until recently, the conventional wisdom in Washington was that lawmakers in districts receiving this cash would be disincentivized to undo the legislation supplying it, even under an ultra-conservative president like Donald Trump. “Repeal is extremely unlikely,” Neil Chatterjee, a former Republican commissioner of the United States Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, wrote in an opinion piece for The Hill last August titled “The Solar Investment Tax Credit is safe from repeal even if Republicans win in 2024.” In March, 21 House Republicans signed an open letter calling for any changes to the IRA tax credits to “be conducted in a targeted and pragmatic fashion.”
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Republicans represent 18 of the top 20 congressional districts benefiting the most from clean energy investments since the passage of the IRA, according to the research firm Atlas Public Policy. The top three districts on that list, in North Carolina, Georgia, and Nevada, had together received nearly $30 billion from the legislation as of March this year. But in the end, all of the Republican lawmakers representing those 18 districts voted in favor of effectively ending the investments. Democrats, whose caucus has shrunk due to the deaths of three members this year, were united in opposition.
In the end, the moderate Republican caucus was willing to trade IRA tax credits for other policy priorities. Moderates in high-tax states like New York were willing to use Biden’s tax credits as a bargaining chip for a higher limit on itemized state and local tax deductions — $40,000, up from the current cap of $10,000 — a political win that those lawmakers could reap the benefits of immediately and allowed them to sidestep having to defend legislation passed by a Democratic administration.
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https://grist.org/politics/house-republican-tax-bill-inflation-reduction-act-repeal-clean-energy-tax-credits/