A Republican electoral sweep next week could cripple the Democrats’ historic climate law and its billions of dollars in green energy subsidies — but GOP candidates are struggling with what to say about it.
President Donald Trump has called the Inflation Reduction Act a “con job” and promised to “rescind all unspent funds” from it. Other top Republicans frequently trash what they call the Democrats’ radical green energy policies.
But the party has increasingly grappled with blowback from industries and communities benefiting from the law — a divide that Democrats have seized on.
In one Virginia House race, Democrat Missy Cotter Smasal accused Republican Rep. Jen Kiggans of trying to have it both ways on a local offshore wind project.
Kiggans gave a speech supporting the project, then “fell in line with her party bosses” to vote for legislation that would have slashed the IRA’s wind incentives, Cotter Smasal said during an October debate.
“That’s irresponsible,” Cotter Smasal said.
Not a single Republican voted for the IRA when it passed in 2022. Since then, as the law has helped spur hundreds of billions of dollars in announced manufacturing projects across the country, it has become increasingly difficult for many GOP lawmakers to explain their positions.
In a sign that Republicans are recognizing the inherent political challenges of ignoring or neglecting an economic boon to their constituents, 18 GOP moderates signed a letter in August urging leaders to keep at least some of the law’s tax incentives if the party retakes power in Washington.
In September, House Speaker Mike Johnson — a frequent critic of the IRA — expressed support for bringing down “a scalpel and not a sledgehammer” on the law.
Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance of Ohio has also demonstrated this divide. He told a Michigan crowd that a $500 million grant from the Biden administration, meant to help a General Motors plant transition to electric vehicle production and save 650 jobs, was only “table scraps.”
But Vance also argued that neither he nor Trump “has ever said that we want to take any money that’s going to Michigan autoworkers out of the state of Michigan.”
Democrats have struggled for two years to get the message out on their IRA victory, specifically in translating their historic legislative achievement into enthusiasm at the polls: Surveys show many Americans still don’t even know about the largest climate bill ever, and most aren’t sure it’s helped them.
Now Republicans are the ones flailing, their mixed messages on the IRA becoming a political liability for vulnerable incumbents as their party looks to grow its razor-thin House majority.
Former Florida Rep. Carlos Curbelo, a Republican who worked to push action on climate change during his time in the House, said the party needs “to reach a healthy consensus” around how to confront climate change.
Factions of the party are clashing on the issue, he said: “There will be a messy process to reach some kind of consensus, or at least a majority position.”
Dems on offense
Republicans appear largely in agreement that most unspent IRA money — including dollars earmarked for programs such as grants for disadvantaged communities — can be reused for GOP priorities. They are broadly skeptical about tax credits for electric vehicles.
A more serious intraparty schism exists over whether to repeal the IRA’s billions of dollars in green energy tax incentives that overwhelmingly benefit red districts.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for the White House, warned at a September fundraiser that Trump “intends … to repeal our climate investments and send thousands of good-paying clean energy jobs overseas.”
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’ running mate, used Vance’s comments to accuse Republicans of plotting to repeal the whole Inflation Reduction Act.
“That would threaten hundreds of thousands of new manufacturing jobs, including those right here in Michigan,” Walz said during remarks in Warren, Michigan. “The ones that JD Vance said … were ‘table scraps.'”

The issue has come up in at least five congressional debates among candidates vying for seats held by vulnerable House Republicans.
“We’ve got to have a vision about how we get to true energy independence and lower costs,” Democrat Josh Riley, an attorney challenging Republican Rep. Marc Molinaro in an upstate New York district, said in their Oct. 11 debate. Riley mentioned local green energy developments such as a new battery plant in Endicott.
“My opponent,” Riley continued, “voted to kill all of those investments in green energy manufacturing under the Inflation Reduction Act. That’s deeply irresponsible.”
Kirsten Engel, the Democratic environmental attorney challenging Arizona GOP Rep. Juan Ciscomani, called her opponent “inconsistent” for supporting the clean energy credits after “one of your first votes when you were elected” was against the IRA.
And former Democratic Rep. Mondaire Jones, who voted for the IRA during his previous stint representing a Hudson Valley district in New York, hit Republican Rep. Mike Lawler for having “ran against it” in his 2022 campaign.
‘We should be protecting these’
The Republicans on the receiving end of the Democratic debate zingers have focused on their own actions as a way of distinguishing themselves from their party.
Kiggans explained her work in support of the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project and her role as a vice chair of the House Conservative Climate Caucus.
Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.), in an Oct. 21 debate, pushed back on Democrat John Avlon for bringing up LaLota’s vote to repeal the tax credits.
LaLota noted that he had signed the August letter by 18 House Republicans “urging that some of those energy tax credits embedded in the IRA are good and we should keep them.”
Molinaro similarly said he had led a “bipartisan coalition in supporting renewable and alternative energy.” He said he had also “called on the administration and Congress to ensure that we continue to direct tax credits and assistance” to industries such as solar and batteries.
Yet, the Democratic-aligned group Climate Power says Republicans who signed the letter have voted dozens of times on various messaging bills and amendments targeting the climate law. House Republicans overall have voted 54 times to roll back the law, according to the group.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise , in a recent interview with Punchbowl News, said a victorious GOP would scrap credits for electric vehicles and use “energy policies” to pay for tax cuts next year.
Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.), a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and a vice chair of the Conservative Climate Caucus, had his own twist on Johnson’s “scalpel and not a sledgehammer” remark.
“I would hope they would take a scalpel and a sledgehammer to it,” Walberg told POLITICO’s E&E News, “and where they couldn’t get some of the sinew and needed a scalpel to get the rest of it out, with a sledgehammer.”
Ultimately, the mixed messages won’t matter on the campaign trail, said one former House Republican leadership aide, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. That’s because members who support the IRA’s tax credits can argue that their voice would matter next year in the event of a GOP-controlled Congress.
Shane Skelton, a lobbyist and former aide to ex-House Speaker Paul Ryan, agreed: “If [Republicans] get a majority, that majority is going to rest on the shoulders of swing seat members in California, in New York, especially the Long Island area, in other areas. It’s going to be members who are majority makers.”
Curbelo also believes his party holds an enormous amount of power and responsibility in charting the course for the IRA’s future.
“Republicans are going to be the ones who determine where this goes — not Democrats,” he said.