The House Ways & Means Committee started at 2 p.m (EDT) Tuesday marking up the 389-page “big, beautiful bill.” That’s Donald Trump’s nickname for tax legislation that congressional Republicans hope soon to pass via reconciliation since they can count on few if any Democratic votes to pass the bill conventionally. Doing so would require 60 votes to overcome a filibuster in the Senate, where there are currently only 53 Republicans. The first hurdle, however, is the House, where groups of Republicans have serious complaints about various proposed provisions in the bill. Since the partisan division in the House is so thin, it would take only a few defectors to sink the whole thing. Expect bigly pressure from the White House.
Whatever else eventually emerges from the mark-up committee, the destruction now included in the text regarding existing climate-related policies aren’t likely to be much changed while other issues could be. Main target: The investments in the Democrat-passed Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. As noted by the 5-year-old climate advocacy group Evergreen Action — founded by former staffers of Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s 2020 presidential campaign — those were “strategically designed to make energy bills more affordable, revitalize American manufacturing, and create millions of good jobs for working Americans, while cutting pollution.”
The Republican bill would terminate a wide collection of IRA climate-related provisions at the end of 2025, with the rest phased-out under burdensome parameters that will make them difficult to use until they expire as late as 2031.
Cross-posted at The Journal of Uncharted Blue Places
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All three clean vehicle credits would be terminated (two in 2026 and one in 2027). Funding would be slashed for Department of Energy loans that are awarded to companies developing clean energy technology, especially the low-carbon kind. The bill would rescind grants for programs that reduce air pollution in marginalized communities. The list goes on and on.
Silvio Marcacci at Forbes pointed out two months ago that the IRA’s tax credits and funding programs had “supercharged the economy.” Through the end of President Biden term in January, the Clean Investment Monitor estimates that these policies have attracted $600 billion private investments for 750 or so projects. And best of all, according to a detailed report from Climate Power, it has generated 406,000 new jobs.
Modeling by Energy Innovation, Marcacci continues. showed that “If the IRA is repealed by Congress, in 2030 our economy would lose nearly 790,000 jobs and $160 billion in GDP. Between 2025 and 2035, American households would be forced to pay $32 billion in higher cumulative household energy bills. In 2035, we’d lose $190 billion from national GDP.”
Said Energy Subcommittee ranking member Rep. Kathy Castor of Florida: "Giving giant tax breaks to billionaires while increasing electric bills for American families is wrong. Republicans are sacrificing America's energy dominance while setting up a 'pay to play' scheme for polluters to bribe the Trump Administration to obtain energy permits. Dismantling our landmark Inflation Reduction Act will kill jobs, hurt businesses, and drive-up Americans' energy costs."
Sunrise Movement executive director Aru Shiney-Ajay stated: "Republicans just proposed cutting thousands of jobs, billions of dollars in clean energy funding, and billions of dollars in healthcare funding from their own districts. Why? Because Big Oil and healthcare CEOs told them to. This is not how a democracy should function. This is oligarchy in action. Young people fought tooth and nail for the funding now on the chopping block."
Here’s a snapshot of some relevant provisions from pages 3-4 of a 47-page analysis from committee chairman Jason Smith:
President Joe Biden made a point of getting as much IRA money out the door as possible before his term ended, obligating it before congressional Republicans could put a stopper in the outflow. But along with repeals of energy and environmental programs Republicans propose to claw back approved but unobligated funds before those programs expire. They say this will save $6.5 billion.
Under environment in the bill, which you can access from this set of links, Sections 132-138 of the Clean Air Act would be repealed and any unobligated funds rescinded. Among other things, these include regulations on clean, heavy-duty vehicles, grants to reduce pollution at U.S. ports, the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, an air pollution program for schools, residential solar credits, and environmental and climate justice block grants. You can read the whole depressing list here.
Evergreen Action has been closely following developments in the Trump administration’s proposed dismantling of the Inflation Reduction Act. In what it called a “rapid analysis” Monday, the group analyzed proposals of the Energy and Commerce and the Ways and Means committees at considerable length. Here’s a small taste of their lengthy analysis:
- The bill allows natural gas pipeline projects to pay a fee of $10 million to bypass the normal permitting process and then guts the normal judicial review process by severely limiting who can bring forward lawsuits. Similarly, the bill says applicants should pay $1 million for the Department of Energy to deem a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export permit in the “public interest,” essentially allowing the fossil fuel industry to buy one of the necessary approvals. This makes a farce of our permitting process and essentially legalizes corruption with a pay-to-play privilege for gas pipelines.
- Clean Energy Investment and Production Tax Credits (45Y and 48E) are changed to begin phasing out in 2029, and are fully eliminated at the end of 2031. Additionally, the specified calendar years no longer refer to the date of “commencement of construction” but instead to the date “placed in service,” which will effectively kill most new projects and jeopardize the financing of many projects already underway. This is a radical shift in U.S. energy tax law.
- Skyrocketing energy prices: Full repeal of the clean energy tax credits would raise American household energy bills. It could increase annual energy bills up to $140-$220 per household across the country in 2040, and over $500 per year in some states. The W&M proposal, which guts the tax credits, would approach those levels.
How much retreating may be done in the mark-up and the full House vote is hard to predict. If the bill were up for a vote tomorrow, it would fail handily. Unhappy Republican critics wanting to add more and deeper cuts or to save pieces of the IRA or DOE projects in their own districts could upset plans to get to a vote sometime next week. Then, of course, there’s the Senate where more changes will be in the offing. Then the two houses will have to reconcile their versions of the reconciliation bill.
Popcorn would normally be prescribed for what could be entertaining if the likely outcome weren’t so horrendous. Because, whatever hiccups the bill encounters, keep expecting what’s been expected since November 6: This president, this Congress, and the highest court in the land are determined to roll back the clock on climate and environmental policies and spending — way back. And they seem well along on the path to accomplishing just that. The details matter, but the fundamental objective is obvious.
The climate and biodiversity crises can’t be erased by ignoring them. Nor can they be addressed by pretending that burning more fossil fuels is good for us and other species on the planet while flipping off scientists who say otherwise. In demolishing policies designed to accelerate the green transition, Republicans are accelerating the arrival of the reckoning Mother Gaia has already begun to deliver.
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