Republican Lawmakers Want To Keep Parts Of Biden’s Climate Law — But Trump Might Not

A key GOP lawmaker said Wednesday that he would want to keep “a lot” of President Joe Biden's clean energy tax breaks even if Donald Trump wins back the White House. But a member of Trump's 2016 transition team said the former president would most likely have other plans for that money.

Tom Pyle, president of the conservative American Energy Alliance, said during POLITICO’s Energy Summit that the tax credits and spending in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act could fund Trump's own agenda.

"If Donald Trump wins the election he's going to take a look at the revenue, the potential revenue you can generate from funds in the IRA that haven't been spent, to fund his priorities," Pyle said.

The dueling sentiments point to the chances that a second Trump administration could bring a clash between the GOP's presumptive nominee — who has denounced Biden's green incentives as a "scam" — and the red-state lawmakers, Republican governors and big business groups that stand to benefit from the hundreds of billions of dollars in energy incentives.

Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.), who co-chairs the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus, said during the summit that although no Republicans voted for the IRA, many of its provisions have GOP support. He said many of those incentives would likely stay even if other parts of the Inflation Reduction Act are repealed, he said.

“I know I would not be supportive in repealing a lot of those tax credits. I think a lot of them should stay,” he said, noting that “you’re seeing a lot of companies spend a lot of money in red states” to get the tax credits for electric vehicle manufacturing, new nuclear power plants, clean energy research and development and more.

Republicans in the House “are seeing the investments that are happening because of these tax credits and the benefits,” Garbarino continued.

Another potential beneficiary is the investment firm headed by Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, which as POLITICO reported Wednesday has put millions of dollars into a California solar finance company.

Garbarino noted that the IRA included other provisions that have faced significant GOP opposition, such as additional funding for the Internal Revenue Service and allowing Medicare to negotiate on drug prices.

He argued that companies in the energy industry need reliable energy and climate policy that doesn’t change with every election. “It has to have lasting effect, and it can’t be tit-for-tat every time the House flips.”

Garbarino’s remarks are the latest sign that Trump might not be able to fulfill his promise to repeal the IRA if he wins November’s election. Some House Ways and Means Republicans are exploring potential IRA tax credits to support, while big business groups like the American Petroleum Institute and U.S. Chamber of Commerce have also indicated they’ll want to keep major climate and clean energy parts of the law.

Pyle argued that many of the IRA's benefits have been overblown.

While the fossil fuel industry can take advantage of some of the IRA's tax credits, he said the Biden administration’s rules implementing them are limiting those gains, such as restrictions on the use of natural gas to produce hydrogen. He added that those credits are “not anywhere near the level” of the incentives the law devotes to renewable energy.

Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa), who chairs the House’s Conservative Climate Caucus, was less committal about opposing an all-out IRA repeal.

She recognized that some parts do have GOP support, such as incentives for biofuels, a major industry in Iowa. But she argued that the IRA isn’t serving its purpose of bringing clean energy manufacturing to the United States, and said Trump will likely look at it as a law that supports China.

“What we're seeing is that the Chinese Communist Party benefits from many of these tax credits. That wasn't the purpose of the IRA, and I don't think people really thought that out,” she said.

Miller-Meeks acknowledged, however, that she joined some Republicans last year in pushing to save a small set of IRA credits from repeal in the “Limit, Save, Grow Act,” the House GOP’s measure to raise the federal debt ceiling.

Those were credits that companies were already using, she argued. But it could be a template for future repeal attempts.

“There were already plans made, there was already land purchased or land leased. And so I think that you will see that continue,” she said.

While she said she supports reducing greenhouse gas emissions, she considers energy reliability to be more important.

“The United States is not going to put up with brownouts when we know that we have energy that can go online and go online today,” Miller-Meeks said.