House Speaker Mike Johnson said Tuesday that he’d seek big cuts to the 2022 climate law while also arguing that some of it was worth saving.
During remarks at an event hosted by the America First Policy Institute, Johnson pledged to “cut the wasteful Green New Deal spending in the Democrats’ so-called Inflation Reduction Act” if his party wins back a governing trifecta in the November elections.
And he said he agreed that Republicans would reap major savings by repealing the full Inflation Reduction Act and rescinding its funds that had not yet been spent — money that could offset the costs of a massive tax overhaul package the GOP hopes to pass next year.
But Johnson also told CNBC just before taking the stage that he had no desire to gut the IRA’s entire suite of clean energy tax incentives, saying, “You’ve got to use a scalpel and not a sledgehammer, because there’s a few provisions in there that have helped overall.”
He wouldn’t get into specifics about which tax credits he thinks are working well and which ones aren’t. Those details matter to the rank-and-file members of his conference whose districts are benefiting from a wide array of investments attributable to various IRA programs.
Taken together, Johnson’s various comments on the IRA on Tuesday were something of a mixed message: that he would do little to support the environmental initiatives established by the law if Republicans retain the House and he remains speaker but also that he wouldn’t come full-bore after the green energy credits — at least not yet.
Still, Johnson is sending an important signal to the growing chorus of Republicans who have been clamoring for GOP leaders to take a softer stance on this major chunk of the climate law.
In August, 18 House Republicans signed on to a letter urging Johnson not to target the tax credits in a potential partisan tax bill, warning of a “worst case scenario” where companies would be forced to pull out of projects before the financial rewards could be felt by the communities the lawmakers serve.
Back in Washington this month, it has become more evident that there is an even larger universe of Republicans who want the tax benefits left alone.
Many more members are either opting to make their opinions known privately or insisting publicly they have no preconceived notions on the matter. Such talk constitutes a major concession in a party that has, at times, made demonizing the Inflation Reduction Act a key component of its campaign messaging.
Former President Donald Trump, in his campaign for reelection, has called the climate law a “con job” that ought to be completely overturned.
Yet House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) and House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) have requested meetings with the organizers of the August letter in a sign that party leaders are taking the issue seriously.
In an email, Johnson’s spokesperson declined to comment further on the speaker’s plans for the IRA tax credits, pointing instead to Johnson’s remarks at the AFPI event “as delivered.”
Other rollback plans
Johnson’s comments give him some wiggle room. If he wants to remain speaker, he’ll need to navigate a conference made up of disparate ideological factions.
The IRA remains hugely unpopular among conservatives, with members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus making clear they are prepared to pressure leadership to do away with the whole thing. Johnson cannot afford to alienate those members and cannot appear too sympathetic to the climate law.
Indeed, Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council in the Trump administration, appeared onstage with Johnson during the second half of the AFPI event. He called the IRA “stupid” and got Johnson to agree that repealing the law would result in as much as $1 trillion to put toward a Republican tax bill and that clawing back unspent portions of it would yield further savings.
Kudlow specifically bemoaned $7 billion that had yet to be spent on “electric chargers,” alluding perhaps to electric vehicle charging stations but offering no further explanation as to what he was referencing.
The IRA did not include direct funding for electric vehicle chargers; the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law included $7.5 billion to stand up a nationwide charging network, though the rollout has been sluggish.
Pledging ‘blow torch’ to regulatory state
The Inflation Reduction Act aside, Johnson said he would also target other climate policies championed by Democrats.
“Under the Biden-Harris regime, we’ve seen Green New Deal regulations, unrealistic EV mandates, the cancellation of the Keystone Pipeline,” Johnson said in his prepared remarks. “We’ve seen pauses on LNG permitting, reduced oil refining capacity and a litany of prohibitively expensive emissions standards.”
He continued, “These mandates … have ignored the untapped resources within our soil, and they’ve ignored the science supporting natural gas that have made fueling up at the gas station and cooling or heating your home astronomically more expensive.”
Johnson also promised to “hold the handle” of the “blow torch” Trump wants to take to the “regulatory state.”
The comments put environmental advocates on alert.
“Speaker Mike Johnson’s pledge to gut popular investments in our clean energy future if Republicans take control of Congress shows that he’s willing to throw even members of his own caucus under the bus to do Donald Trump’s bidding,” said Evergreen Action Executive Director Lena Moffitt in a statement.
Johnson, she added, “is hell-bent on dragging us back to Trump’s disastrous energy policies that will cost Americans nearly 2 million jobs and more than $30 billion in energy costs while putting countless lives at risk from the worsening impacts of climate change.”
