House Republicans are looking for new ways to lessen cuts to Medicaid in their reconciliation bill amid a wave of backlash from constituents and their own colleagues. Renewable energy and climate programs are poised to be their biggest targets.
The Energy and Commerce Committee is laying the groundwork to pursue even more aggressive rollbacks of climate initiatives — namely vehicle emissions regulations and electric vehicle subsidies — as a way to avoid reductions to federal safety net programs.
That fresh push, confirmed by Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), comes as House leaders managed to muscle through their fiscal 2025 budget resolution Tuesday on a 217-215 vote, allowing Republican committee chairs to formally begin the process of laying out specific plans for cuts and other revenue raisers in reconciliation.
The budget plan would extend tax cuts passed under the Trump administration, boost energy production and increase funding for the military and border security. That funding would be offset by cuts across a host of federal programs.
The resolution also includes language similar to “Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act,” which would give Congress — not federal agencies — final say over the implementation of major rules. It would lift the debt ceiling by $4 trillion.
“While there is still much more to do, we are determined to send a bill to President [DOnald] Trump’s desk that secures our border, keeps taxes low for families and job creators, restores American energy dominance, strengthens America’s standing on the world stage, and makes government work more effectively for all Americans,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said in a statement.
Republicans have been talking about repealing Inflation Reduction Act tax credits and other environmental programs for months, but their search for additional sources of revenue has gained new urgency in recent days as growing numbers of Republicans have expressed concerns about dipping into Medicaid and nutrition programs.
The hunt for farther-reaching cuts could have major implications not only for the United States’ energy transition and efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but also for businesses and individuals who were counting on certain tax credits and regulations to stay in place. It could ultimately hurt a group of more than a dozen Republicans who have called for leaders to preserve IRA tax credits.
“When you’re looking for the low-hanging fruit to meet the target of $2 trillion [in total cuts], you should start with [former President Joe] Biden’s spending spree,” Arrington said in a brief interview Tuesday.
“You would have to repeal the EV mandate, and you should also consider repealing every one of the policies in terms of the green energy subsidies that came out of the IRA,” he said.
Arrington and other House leaders insist that they can rid Medicaid of fraud and waste to pay for their tax cut extension without slashing Americans’ health care coverage.
Democrats and outside observers say that even though the resolution does not mention Medicaid by name, Energy and Commerce can’t possibly reach the level of savings leaders want them to achieve — $880 billion — without slashing Medicaid funding by possibly hundreds of billions of dollars.
Multiple Republicans involved in the talks declined to discuss specifics about which additional programs could be targeted and said their plans remained undecided as of Tuesday.
“Those are all details that have got to get worked out,” said Natural Resources Chair Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.), whose committee is hoping to provide revenue for reconciliation by boosting energy production on public lands.
Since the House has now passed its budget blueprint, Westerman said, Republicans can “start working on what’s actually in the reconciliation bill and how does each committee meet their targets.”
Eyeing emissions rule, tax credits
Other Republicans are more bullish about finding additional savings by going after Biden-era energy programs. Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas), who represents the fossil fuel-rich Permian Basin, said Republicans will “absolutely, 100 percent” look for more energy-related cuts to prevent Medicaid reductions.
“When you look at the IRA, the ‘Green New Scam’ that was implemented, then you are putting everything on the table” for cuts, he said. “So the EV mandates, the fact that we had a tremendous amount of money that went out the door in the form of grants to NGOs [nongovernmental organizations], to environmental groups. … One hundred percent, we’re looking at all of those.”
POLITICO previously reported that House Republicans are eyeing clawbacks of clean energy incentives, tariff revenue and savings from the Department of Government Efficiency as potential alternatives to Medicaid cuts.
Arrington, pointing to Congressional Budget Office estimates, said Tuesday that he thinks repealing EPA’s rule regulating vehicle tailpipe emissions could garner more than $100 billion in savings for Energy and Commerce.
He has said in the past that undoing the rule, which Republicans interpret as a de facto “EV mandate,” would reduce claims for EV tax credits and increase revenues from the gas tax.
Arrington said repealing the rule would “absolutely” pass muster under reconciliation rules, but the basis for that claim was not entirely clear. Provisions passed under reconciliation must have a clear budget nexus, among other requirements.
Pfluger said the Republican Study Committee, which he chairs, will host Alex Epstein for a meeting Wednesday. He said Epstein, the president of the Center for Industrial Progress, will discuss “ways we can look at the IRA provisions and which ones should be on the menu selection list to undo.”
‘The numbers don’t add up’
The debate over Republicans’ possible cuts to Medicaid boiled over in both the weekly House Republican leadership press conference and an oversight markup of the Energy and Commerce Committee.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) explained with visible frustration that Republicans were simply voting to “start a process” of looking for cuts. He said at the press conference that Democrats who say Republicans will cut Medicaid are “lying.”
Bobby Kogan, senior director of federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress and a former Democratic aide on the Senate Budget Committee, is among the outside observers saying Republicans’ plans would put Medicaid on the chopping block.
“It is quite literally mathematically impossible to achieve $880 billion in Energy and Commerce cuts without huge cuts to health coverage,” he posted on X. “There is not close enough money they oversee that isn’t health coverage.”
During the markup of the Energy and Commerce Committee’s oversight plan — not directly related to reconciliation — Rep. Kim Schrier (D-Wash.) introduced an amendment that would have put in writing that the panel planned to investigate cuts to federal Medicaid funding.
The amendment was defeated along party lines, 22-27, but only after sparking a back and forth in which members fired accusations at one another.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said Republicans’ assertion that they will not cut Medicaid is flawed by “a fundamental math problem.”
“There’s just kind of this vague magic wand around ‘waste,’” she said. “Waste is being used as a very large word here. … I think the problem here is that the numbers don’t add up.”
Energy and Commerce Republicans also rejected Democratic amendments that would have put down a marker for the committee to conduct oversight of the Department of Government Efficiency and the Trump administration’s firing of workers across EPA, the Department of Energy and other agencies.
Reporters Kelsey Brugger and Garrett Downs contributed.
