Conservative Groups Call on Congress to Roll Back Climate Law

A coalition of nearly five dozen free-market groups on Friday will call on Congress to prioritize the demolition of the 2022 climate law, one of the Biden administration’s signature achievements.

The best way forward is to use the budget reconciliation process in the next Congress to eliminate subsidies embedded within the law, “in a manner to ensure a net tax cut,” wrote the groups, led by the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Lawmakers should also use Congressional Review Act resolutions and press the administration with heavy oversight to “help set the stage for dismantling the IRA’s ‘green’ subsidies at the start of the 119th Congress,” the groups wrote.

The letter singled out tax credits of up to $7,500 for electric vehicles and subsidies for offshore wind as primary targets.

The groups also called on lawmakers to scrub provisions in the climate law that “favor electric stoves over gas versions, compromising consumer choice,” as well as programs like the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund.

The climate law’s subsidies could end up totaling more than $1 trillion, according to the letters.

Other signatories include members of Heritage Action for America, Americans for Tax Reform, the Heartland Institute, the American Energy Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, and Tea Party Patriots Action.

Their message—timed to coincide with the two-year anniversary of the climate bill—echoes concerns with the measure raised by many congressional Republicans.

Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), chair of the House Budget Committee, said Thursday that the climate law “flooded our economy with federal subsidies in the form of tax credits for green energy corporations.”

The bill’s defenders note that many of the law’s benefits won’t show up in the federal budget for years, but are represented for now as costs only.

The Congressional Budget Office has forecast that the climate law will result in a $58 billion net decrease in the unified deficit by 2031.

A group of 18 House Republicans recently called on House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) not to repeal the clean-energy tax credits in the climate law, cautioning that doing so could scare off private investment.