Republican trifecta puts IRA under siege

Energy & Environment

The Big Story

Republican trifecta puts IRA under siege

With Republicans securing control of the House, Senate and White House in the election, they are poised to claw back major legislation Democrats have passed to fight climate change.

Chief in the GOP's crosshairs are provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act — a massive climate, tax and health care package that contains hundreds of billions of dollars worth of tax credits for renewable energy, electric vehicles, domestic manufacturing, nuclear power, biofuels and more for low-carbon energy and was projected to deliver serious reductions in planet-warming emissions. The law was a major piece of President Biden's climate agenda.

While a handful of Republicans have indicated that they don’t want to eliminate all the law's low-carbon incentives, some, like subsidies for electric vehicles, could be on the chopping block.

“I think there are some of them that should go away: the tax credits for purchasing of electric vehicles, especially up to $500,000 in income, the tax credits for charging stations,” Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa), chair of the Conservative Climate Caucus, told The Hill.

Other provisions of the law, which passed without a single GOP vote, are also likely to be repealed under the coming Republican trifecta.

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), who is poised to become the chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said in a statement this week that Republicans would move quickly to repeal a program that charges oil and gas producers if they have high levels of methane emissions.

Meanwhile, Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), who is in the running to lead the House Energy and Commerce Committee next year, told The Hill Republicans would probe investments made under $27 billion "green bank" provisions of the law that seek to fund projects that mitigate climate change or otherwise reduce pollution.

“If there’s any money left we need to stop it from going out and we need to have oversight of what went out,” he said.

Read more when the story runs tomorrow at TheHill.com.

Welcome to The Hill’s Energy & Environment newsletter, we’re Rachel Frazin and Zack Budryk — keeping you up to speed on the policies impacting everything from oil and gas to new supply chains.

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