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Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act —the president’s signature piece legislation with provisions spanning climate change, infrastructre, health care, inflation reduction, job creation, and more — on Aug. 16, 2022, two years ago on Friday. Republicans have spent the time since its signing publicly bashing it, but many of them are now scrambling to ensure the legislation isn’t repealed.
Earlier this month, 18 Republican House members wrote a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) urging him to “to prioritize business and market certainty as you consider efforts that repeal or reform the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).”
The signatories, which include Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa.), Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.), Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), and Anthony D’Esposito (R-N.Y.), wrote that they’ve heard “from industry and our constituents who fear the energy tax regime will once again be turned on its head due to Republican repeal efforts.”
“Prematurely repealing energy tax credits, particularly those which were used to justify investments that already broke ground, would undermine private investments and stop development that is already ongoing. A full repeal would create a worst-case scenario where we would have spent billions of taxpayer dollars and received next to nothing in return,” they added.
According to an analysis by Climate Power, in the two years since its enactment, the Inflation Reduction Act has created at least 334,565 new clean energy jobs, and over $372 billion in green energy investments across 47 states. The IRA is particularly helping out parts of the country represented by Republican lawmakers.
“A bulk of the new clean energy projects are located in congressional districts represented by Republican members of the House of Representatives – totaling 190,727 new jobs and over $286 billion in investment across 354 clean energy projects in 150 Republican-held districts,” the Climate Power study found. A separate analysis by Politico found that “roughly two-thirds of the major projects are in districts whose Republican lawmakers opposed the Inflation Reduction Act.”
Republicans have spent the past two years bashing the IRA, though, as acknowledging its impact would betray the party’s determination to denigrate Biden — as well as anything resembling climate action — at all costs. Despite their grandstanding in Congress, some of the same lawmakers who have loudly panned the legislation have been caught bragging about how it has benefitted their districts and states.
Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), who once called the IRA a “socialist spending spree,” bragged in 2023 about the investments made by Louisiana in wind energy through funding provided by the legislation. “We can be exporters of this innovation,” he said in an interview with nola.com. “We can build the vessels but also the turbines and the foundations.”
“Wind is the newest form of energy we will dominate. We need to open more of it,” Scalise added.
Reps. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.), and Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) have both championed legislation aimed at repealing the Inflation Reduction Act while touting the various jobs and benefits the package brought to their state.
Biggs touted the “fantastic news” that a battery plant opening in Arizona “expects to employ thousands of people and will help us unleash American energy.” Ogles, then mayor of Maury County, Tennessee, bragged in 2021 about the establishment of an Ultimum cell manufacturing plant in his district. “This partnership not only continues our legacy as a leader in manufacturing and job growth, but once again positions Tennessee at the epicenter of innovation,” he wrote.
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), who called the IRA a “reckless” piece of legislation that “does little to address the root causes of inflation” before voting against it, later celebrated the expansion of a South Carolina Volvo factory to focus on the production of electric vehicles resulting from the IRA.
The widespread post-Covid economic benefits of the IRA have stood in defiance of this Republican criticism. On Wednesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that inflation had dropped below three percent in July to its lowest levels since March 2021. Weekly unemployment continues to fall, and mortgage applications have hit a 19-month high.
As Donald Trump and Kamala Harris gear up for the final stretch of the 2024 election cycle, the economy is a top issue among voters — and the successes of the IRA should be a hallmark of Democrats’ messaging. The legislation has been so successful that shit-talking Republicans are touting its benefits and fighting to keep it in place — even if they’re too scared to praise it by name publicly.
