Politics

Key Senate Committee Looks To Nuke Biden Climate Spending In ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’

(Photo via Giorgio Trovato / Unsplash)

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) released its portion of the GOP’s reconciliation bill text late on Wednesday, which includes major cuts to green energy tax credits and initiatives enacted under former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

The bill text calls for the repeal of unobligated IRA funds under the EPW’s purview. If the EPW GOP has its way, the “one, big beautiful” bill will also stall the implementation of the IRA’s methane emissions fee for a decade and repeal President Joe Biden’s final rule on tailpipe emission standards, a key plank of the Democrats’ de facto electric vehicle (EV) mandate.

“This legislative text puts in motion plans that Senate Republicans pledged to take, like stopping Democrats’ natural gas tax and rescinding unobligated dollars from the so-called Inflation Reduction Act,” Republican West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, Chairman of the EPW, said Wednesday. “I look forward to working with my colleagues to move our legislative package forward to enact President Trump’s agenda, which the American people overwhelmingly support.”

EPW Bill Text by audreystreb on Scribd

Critics of the tailpipe rule characterized it as a de facto EV mandate because it would effectively force manufacturers to significantly increase their EV production over the next decade to be in compliance, while the methane fee has been described as a natural gas tax given that methane emissions are commonly associated with natural gas production and use.

“These unobligated funds from Democrats’ IRA were put towards duplicative and wasteful initiatives with little oversight or accountability to the American taxpayer,” a summary of EPW’s reconciliation text reads.

“Stopping Democrats’ natural gas tax is essential to American energy dominance and protects American energy producers and workers from a constraint on natural gas production that would lead to increased energy prices, job losses, and a boost to Russia’s production of natural gas,” the bill portion summary continues.

Though many GOP senators argue that IRA subsidies for green energy are wasteful and point to the fact that not a single Republican voted for the bill when it was passed in 2022, several senators are now expressing the desire to salvage or adjust some of the tax credits that House Republicans proposed to curb in May. With the GOP currently holding 53 Senate seats, just four Republican defections would be enough to derail the reconciliation package.

At least four GOP Senators have already signaled willingness to defend some of the IRA credits. Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, John Curtis of Utah, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and Jerry Moran of Kansas wrote to Senate Majority Leader John Thune on April 10, arguing that “a wholesale repeal, or the termination of certain individual credits, would create uncertainty, jeopardizing capital allocation, long-term project planning, and job creation in the energy sector and across our broader economy.”