Can Biden's climate law survive Trump?
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Over the past two years, there have been massive investments in clean energy projects across the U.S. ♪

The largest solar investment in U.S. history is headed to Dalton, Georgia. It's making a huge investment there. The solar manufacturing company Q-Cells is investing $2.5 billion. The state of North Carolina is experiencing a green energy boom. A new investment in the clean energy by the federal government will go towards projects in Nevada. $20 million will go towards lowering the cost of drilling for geothermal energy.

These efforts are directly tied to President Biden's historic law to fight climate change, the Inflation Reduction Act. Many people hear Inflation Reduction Act and think it has to do with inflation and don't realize it's actually the largest climate change legislation in U.S. history. Maxine Josselow reports on climate change and U.S. climate policy for The Post. She says this law has already had tangible impacts on communities across the country.

And there are sort of two main ways that I think about this. One is in terms of consumers who are getting some pretty generous tax credits when they buy climate-friendly technologies such as electric vehicles, rooftop solar panels, heat pumps. And then the second way is in terms of companies, whether you're an automaker or a big oil and gas company, you're really being incentivized to build factories to manufacture those climate-friendly technologies here in the United States.

Democrats passed the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022 without any support from Republicans. Now, Republicans are about to control the House and the Senate. President-elect Trump is reentering the White House. And the fate of this law is in question.

Trump has been very clear about the fact that he does not like this law. He repeatedly derides it as the green news scam and says that he wants to get rid of it on day one. But the politics and logistics of actually doing that are complicated, in part because the regions of the country that have benefited most are places that favored Trump in the 2020 election.

So, of course, I will be watching whether he's actually able to get rid of it, whether he takes a piecemeal approach and how much pushback he gets from Republicans in Congress who are seeing some of these benefits that we just talked about really flow to their districts.

From the newsroom of The Washington Post, this is Post Reports. I'm Martine Powers. It's Wednesday, December 11th. Today, the impact of President Biden's sweeping climate change law and what Trump can and cannot do to unravel it. Maxine had this conversation with my co-host, Elahe Azadi. I'll let them take it from here.

So, Maxine, before we get into the future of the Inflation Reduction Act and all the ways it's played out, can you just remind me, how did it pass? Like, when did it become a law?

I was there on the Hill reporting on the negotiations among Democrats over the Inflation Reduction Act, and it was a pretty intense negotiation process. Democrats passed the bill without any Republican votes, but that didn't mean it was smooth sailing. They still had to contend with Senator Joe Manchin, a very centrist Democrat from West Virginia where the coal industry is very big, and he's a big...

fossil fuel industry advocate and then finally get him to extract some concessions and agree to the final bill. And then President Biden signed it into law. I sort of remember when this bill was being considered and then passed and it being branded as the Inflation Reduction Act. But why is it called the Inflation Reduction Act? What does this law have to do with the climate?

So the short answer is that was Senator Joe Manchin's doing. The long answer is that, as I mentioned, Senator Manchin had a number of concerns about the bill. For a while, he was withholding his support from it entirely. And top Democrats, including Chuck Schumer, were trying to bring him back to the table. Eventually, he was able to do that.

He came around, but he said, my top concern continues to be the high inflation in this country and not climate change. And so I'll support this bill, but it has to be called the Inflation Reduction Act. So that's how it came to be called that. And Manchin himself has said that that may have been a misstep in retrospect because a lot of average Americans don't really know what the bill is about.

And so what is the goal of the law? What is it about? The way I think about it is that in climate policy, like many other aspects of public policy, you have carrots and you have sticks. And the sticks are regulations that require companies to cut their emissions, cut their pollution, and penalize the companies that don't do that.

In the Inflation Reduction Act, you don't have any sticks in part because Manchin wouldn't agree to them. You only have carrots, and that's in the form of billions of dollars of federal money that's going out the door to help both individuals and companies adopt climate-friendly technologies. They're not penalized if they don't do it,

but they get free money if they do do it. And that's sort of the philosophy behind it. President Biden set a very ambitious goal for the U.S. to zero out its planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century, by 2050. And the bill is meant to put the country on a path to do that. There's some modeling that suggests that it may significantly move the needle, but it won't be enough on its own to get there.

So Maxine, can you dig in a little more into some of the carrots, as you put it, this law has in order to move towards these climate goals? Yeah, absolutely. So, uh,

Just to give a really relatable example, let's say you want to retrofit your home and make it more energy efficient. You can go out and replace your old gas-fired water heater with an electric heat pump or an electric heat pump water heater, and you can get free government money, hundreds or even thousands of dollars to do that. That's just one example. Same thing goes for if you want to replace your old gas guzzler with

a new electric vehicle or even lease an electric vehicle, there are tax credits for that. And then if you're a corporation like a big oil company that wants to diversify away from just oil and gas and fossil fuels, you can get tax breaks for investing in things like carbon capture technology, for example, which

is a technology that sucks carbon dioxide out of the air and in some cases stores it underground where it can't warm the planet. Those are just a few examples I could go on and on. Yeah. I mean, is it mostly like tax credits, tax breaks, maybe some grants? Is that basically the scope of it?

Yeah, that's exactly right. It's a combination of mostly tax credits and grants. We've talked a lot about the tax credits. Just to go over the grants in a little bit more detail without getting too in the weeds, there are some grant programs that the IRA establishes for states that want to stand up their own energy efficiency programs, as well as for nonprofit groups that want to help finance clean energy projects.

So, okay, this bill became law about two years ago. And now I'm curious, how has the implementation played out on the ground?

Well, the Washington Post has reported extensively on this very question. My colleague Shannon Osaka on the Post Climate team, who I think you just had on the show recently, had a great piece looking at exactly where in the country the IRA is spurring investments, including new factories that are building electric vehicles and solar panels and their components.

And a really interesting trend that Shannon's piece and others have documented is that even though not a single Republican lawmaker voted for the IRA in 2022, two years later, the investments are overwhelmingly going to Republican-led states and districts that favored Trump in the 2020 election. And those districts actually receive three times as much

clean energy and manufacturing investments as those districts that lean toward Biden. Why have these redder parts of the country benefited more from this law than others? You know, there's a number of factors that people have pointed to to explain that. Some of the policies in these red states, for example, lower taxes,

tax barriers and more incentives for companies to build there. There's also this phenomenon where big factories need a lot of land and red states tend to have a lot of more rural areas where land is more plentiful and cheap.

And in addition to that, a lot of states in the southeastern U.S. in particular are what's called right-to-work states where union labor has less power. And there are some union leaders that have accused automakers of favoring building factories in those states to sort of dilute the power of unions there. Hmm. That's so interesting. And then I'm also wondering about all those tax credits. Do we know how much money people have collectivized

claimed or tried to file in tax credits.

We do. The Post has also reported on that. On the 2023 tax returns, which are the latest available, American taxpayers claimed more than $8 billion in tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act for making climate-friendly upgrades to their homes. And then just big picture, can we say how many jobs the IRA has created or

how many new projects have started as a result. Is there any way to track that or know that? Yes, there are a number of environmental groups and nonprofits that are tracking that exact question. And I'll just throw some figures out at you. So E2, a nonpartisan environmental group,

found that there were 334 projects announced since the IRA that were likely a result of the IRA tax credits, and that those projects would create more than 109,000 new jobs and at least $126 billion in direct private investment in 40 states.

So beyond the economics of it, the IRA was supposed to help the United States meet climate goals. So on that front, as climate policy, could the IRA be considered a success?

I think again, it really depends on who you ask. Hopefully that doesn't sound like a cop out answer, but there really just are a lot of different perspectives on this, even among experts on climate policy. I think in general, experts would say that the IRA is working. It is creating more investments in the US and lowering the country's emissions. At the same time,

It's fair to point out that the United States is producing more oil and gas under President Biden than any nation ever has in history. And that's a trend that largely is a result of global market forces and not anything that a president or Congress has control over. So there's limits to what the IRA can achieve and has achieved so far.

Is it clear to people living in these communities that, you know, the new plant that's opening up or these jobs are a result of this bill? Because I just wonder about the politics of this. Like, you would think, oh, one party is passing legislation that then results in material goods coming to a district or community, and then people there would be happy and want to preserve this law. But I'm not sure that that's really the case right now.

I'm not really sure that that's the case either. There's a lot of think pieces out there saying that Democrats didn't realize the political advantages of the IRA in the way that they thought they would when it was passed. Obviously, they lost the presidential race.

Republicans now have a trifecta of complete control in Washington. And there were some Democratic pundits when the IRA passed that thought voters would really reward Democrats for this bill because they would see new factories being built in their districts and they would connect that back to the law. But what's actually ended up happening is that most people have no idea that the IRA passed or what it is or that it's related to that factory going up. There's a huge lack of awareness and there's a real question of whether Democrats

Democrats and their allies were able to effectively communicate what it does. Yeah, well, Maxine, that's an interesting point because, you know, beyond these redder districts that have largely benefited economically from the IRA, I mean, I'm thinking about the companies that have benefited from the IRA. Is there any, like, business interest here that has come out in support of it? Or it might be surprising that they...

actually like this law now that it's around? Yes. Exxon CEO Darren Woods, who is

not everyone would consider a climate advocate, has come out and urged Trump not to withdraw the United States again from the Paris Agreement, but has also said that he really likes the tax credits that Exxon is taking advantage of in the IRA for something called green hydrogen, which is a clean fuel that can power ships and airplanes without any emissions, and also for carbon capture technology, which Exxon and a number of other oil companies are using.

And that's interesting because I feel like I remember reporting from the Post about how oil executives were among those business interests who were lining up to support then-candidate Donald Trump. Yes. You might be thinking of a story that I did with our colleague Josh Dossi that was the fact that Trump had a meeting at Mar-a-Lago with top oil

oil industry CEOs where he asked them for a billion dollars for his campaign while promising to roll back dozens of environmental regulations. So this definitely sets up an interesting choice for Trump as to whether he follows through on his campaign promises to get rid of what he's called the Green News scam or whether he listens to his allies and donors in the oil and gas industry.

After the break, Maxine and Elahi look at whether this law will be able to survive under Trump. We'll be right back. This episode is supported by Rocket Money.

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saving members up to $740 a year when using all of the app's premium features. Stop wasting money on things you don't use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to rocketmoney.com slash reports. That's rocketmoney.com slash reports. rocketmoney.com slash reports. So Maxine, what has Trump said he will do to the Inflation Reduction Act?

He has said that he will get rid of it on day one. So we're going to terminate the Green News scam. We're going to drill, baby, drill. We're going to get our energy way down.

He said that he'll terminate it. He uses that phrase often. And he's also said that he wants to rescind all of the unspent funds under the IRA, meaning that any funds that the government hasn't gotten out the door yet, he wants to claw back and prevent them from going out the door ever. So let's talk about what he can actually do here. So can he, first of all, just get rid of this law completely or move it off the books? Is it that simple?

The short answer is no. The president unilaterally doesn't have that authority. It would largely require an act of Congress to completely get rid of this law.

The long answer, though, is that there are things Trump could do through executive action to at the very least narrow the scope of this law. So, for example, Trump's Treasury Department could issue new guidance that narrows which consumers and companies are eligible to claim these credits to the point that it could be that there are such stringent requirements that in fact no one actually can claim these credits.

But it would require Congress to make more sweeping changes and to get rid of these credits entirely. Does he have the way you're reading the tea leaves support in Congress to do something more radical or drastic?

You know, it's something I'm following closely. I'm talking to you now from the Hill where I'm asking many Republicans those questions to try to figure that out. What I can say is there was a letter that 18 House Republicans sent to House Speaker Mike Johnson back in August, urging him not to get rid of all of these credits wholesale and saying that they actually like a lot of these credits.

A few of those members lost the reelection races, but there are still, I believe, 15 of those members back. And we now know that there are only a five vote margin that Republicans have in the House. So that could be decisive in preventing all of those credits from going.

going away. The other thing that I've heard many Republicans say, Congressman Garrett Graves, a Republican of Louisiana, has said that they're going to take a scalpel, not a sledgehammer approach. In other words, they're not going to just destroy all of these credits entirely. They're going to systematically review each one and decide whether it goes, whether it stays, or whether it stays with modifications.

Which credits, in your view, are the most vulnerable right now under Trump? Like which ones could be the ones that would be targeted?

I think without a question, the tax credit for electric vehicles is especially vulnerable. And that's just because EVs have really gotten caught up in the nation's culture wars. And a lot of Republicans view them as something that liberal elites drive and that there's something not for conservatives. Although a wild card here is Elon Musk.

who is arguably one of Trump's biggest backers and first buddy is what he's being called right now. And obviously he's the CEO of Tesla, which has benefited enormously from the EV tax credits. So that remains to be seen whether Elon Musk whispers in Trump's ear and says, don't get rid of this or whether he lets Congress get rid of it.

My colleagues reported recently that environmental justice initiatives under Biden are going to be particularly vulnerable under Trump. And environmental justice is this idea that there are communities, particularly poor and minority communities, that are overburdened by pollution and disproportionately exposed to pollution. And Trump and his allies view environmental justice with a great deal of skepticism. And so any programs that

that have the word environmental justice or phrase environmental justice in their name are likely to be targeted by Trump. And are there any parts of the law that will probably be safe and untouched by the Trump administration?

I think the tax credits for carbon capture are probably some of the safest because, as I mentioned, big oil companies really like them and are taking advantage of them. And nuclear energy is another area of bipartisan support on Capitol Hill where both Democrats and Republicans tend to like nuclear. And so I think the tax credits for those investments will be pretty safe as well.

Maxine, is one way to view this like going forward, the tax credits helping these companies will be safe, but tax credits for like individuals who are trying to get an electric vehicle or maybe a new heat pump or whatever, that that's not going to be available anymore? Like, is that kind of the way I should be thinking about it?

I don't know if it's quite that simple, but I do think you're onto something. And we do have recent reporting saying that if you're on the fence about getting a new electric vehicle or a new heat pump, now is the time to do it. Do it now before January 20th, because a lot of the tax credits for consumers in particular are particularly vulnerable.

And so in these final days of the Biden administration, is that administration trying to do anything to lessen the impact Trump could have on the IRA? I don't know. Is there anything they can do to protect parts of this law? Well, the Biden administration is racing to get money out the door. The Environmental Protection Agency has already announced the recipients of $20 billion worth of grants.

grant funding. And so you could say that the Biden administration has done everything it can to get money out the door so that it's much harder to claw back. And I think the total figure right now, John Podesta, the senior advisor on climate policy to President Biden, has said is $100 billion that's gone out the door so far. Mm-hmm.

So, Maxine, putting aside the fate of this particular law itself, when you look into the future of renewable energy in this country, what are you going to be looking to or how would you assess the future of renewable energy in this country? Will it be largely determined by the fate of the IRA? I think...

Regardless of what happens in terms of federal policies, market forces are going to continue to drive in the direction of clean energy. It's now cheaper to build a new solar plant or a new wind farm than it is to build a new coal plant in the U.S., and that's because coal just can't compete economically with cheaper natural gas, let alone with renewable energy, whose costs are continuing to go down. So that's actually the big trend that I'm watching for is coal.

What happens to clean energy regardless of what Trump does to the IRA? Well, Maxine, thank you so much for joining and explaining all this. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me again. Maxine Josolo covers climate change for The Post. She spoke with my co-host, Elahe Izadi. The Post is reporting on so many other stories today. So before we go, here are a couple more that I wanted to share with you.

Late Tuesday night, a judge rejected the sale of Alex Jones' site InfoWars to the satirical news site The Onion. Jones was forced to sell InfoWars to pay a massive settlement to the families of Sandy Hook victims. He was sued for defamation for his claims that the elementary school shooting was a hoax. But then there was a surprising offer for an InfoWars buyer, The Onion. The Onion was a big hit.

They were pushing for a deal that would make a non-profit gun safety group the exclusive advertiser for the relaunched website. But a judge said the process of the auction of InfoWars wasn't transparent enough and sent them back to the drawing board. Also, we have a birth announcement of sorts. The laying of a very significant egg from the world's oldest known wild bird, an albatross named Wisdom, who is 74 years old. Whistling

You're hearing wisdom among other birds at the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge in Hawaii. Each year, wildlife biologists there anxiously await wisdom's return. And recently, she surprised them by performing a courtship dance with a new partner and laying another egg, possibly her 60th in her lifetime. The chick hasn't hatched yet, but is due at the end of January if all goes well.

That's it for Post Reports. Thanks for listening. Today's show was produced by Sabby Robinson with help from Alana Gordon. It was mixed by Justin Garish and edited by Lucy Perkins with help from Maggie Penman. Thank you also to Roger Hodge. I'm Martine Powers. We'll be back tomorrow with more stories from The Washington Post. In the California road trip republic, we believe you take adventure for a ride. Whether coastal cruising, mountain motoring, or redwood roaming...

Discover beauty around every turn. Your road trip can kick off from anywhere. Starting route. But it should always start at visitcalifornia.com. Then buckle up, crank those tunes, and discover why California is the ultimate playground.