Republicans Are Splitting Their Party Over Clean Energy
It’s going to be tough for the GOP to convince rural America to reject all the jobs and investment that come with that new battery plant.
An economic boon for rural America.
Photographer: Bing Guan/Bloomberg
The Republican effort to demonize clean energy across red-voting America has reached a reckoning. The next six months will determine the success or failure of President Joe Biden’s combined climate and reindustrialization initiative, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). It will also reveal whether the GOP can hold its coalition together in the face of a clean-energy dilemma, and whether Democrats can use the economic boon that the IRA provides to split Republicans around pocketbook issues.
When Biden signed the IRA his mood was celebratory. The legislation will “take the most aggressive action ever — ever, ever, ever — in confronting the climate crisis…,” he said, and “save working families thousands of dollars” with $370 billion in rebates for efficient and electric appliances, rooftop solar and a $7,500 tax credit to buy new or used electric cars.