Green Spending Has a New Ally: Republicans
More than a dozen GOP lawmakers are urging Speaker Mike Johnson to leave alone cleantech subsidies embedded in the Inflation Reduction Act.
Republican districts are seeing the benefits of Biden’s climate legislation.
Photographer: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images North AmericaHouse Republicans’ doughty opposition to green spending has cracked in the face of a devious opponent: green spending.
Speaker Mike Johnson just received a letter signed by 18 members of his caucus urging him not to mess with the clean technology subsidies embedded in the Inflation Reduction Act, a law that half of them voted against (the other nine are freshmen elected a few months after it passed). While the signatories deplore the “partisan process” by which the IRA passed — under budget reconciliation — they also say they “hear from industry and our constituents who fear the energy tax regime will once again be turned on its head,” if Republicans win big in November and decide to dismantle the law. The result could be a loss of promised jobs and investment and perhaps abandoned, half-built factories left as a permanent reminder in their districts.