House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., speaks to reporters at the U.S. Capitol after the final votes of the week Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024.
Tom Williams | CQ-Roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images
US House Speaker Mike Johnson said he would keep some of the clean energy tax credits enacted under President Joe Biden but seek to eliminate others as next year’s looming tax battle comes into focus in Washington.
In an interview with CNBC, the Louisiana Republican said it would be impossible to “blow up” the entirety of Biden’s deflationary law, a sweeping climate and economic package signed into law in 2022.
“You have to use a scalpel and not a sledgehammer, because there are some provisions there that have helped overall,” Johnson said at the Riggs Hotel Washington DC on Tuesday. He added that most of the law was “horribly harmful to the economy.”
Johnson declined to specify which provisions he would support keeping in place, saying he “hasn’t put any of that on the table yet.”
Johnson is not the only Republican who wants to keep parts of the IRA intact, nor is he the only one who would not specify what, specifically, he would leave in its place.
More than a dozen members of Johnson’s own party, many of whom are facing tough re-election races, asked the speaker at a letter last month to keep some of the tax deductions and deductions in the IRA.
They noted that certain provisions had led to greater growth and development in their districts. The letter did not specify what specific measures the lawmakers wanted to follow.
“Premature elimination of energy sector tax credits, particularly those that have been used to justify investments that have already begun, would undermine private investment and halt growth that is already underway,” the 18 lawmakers wrote in the letter.
“A full repeal would create a worst-case scenario where we would have spent billions of taxpayer dollars and received next to nothing in return,” they wrote.
Johnson spoke to CNBC immediately following his speech on the economy at an event hosted by the America First Policy Institute. The non-profit think tank is run by seeds of the Trump White House and is associated with the policies of former President Donald Trump.
In his speech, Johnson took a hard line against tax credits and reductions in the IRA, which include benefits for electric vehicles, solar and wind installations, biofuels, nuclear power and energy-efficient buildings. among others.
“We’re going to cut wasteful Green New Deal spending in the Democrats’ so-called anti-inflation bill,” he told AFPI.
Lawmakers are already gearing up for a battle over whether to extend parts of the 2017 tax law, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which expires at the end of next year.
Johnson has said he would extend and build on the Trump-era package of tax cuts — assuming Republicans retain control of the House next year.
Eager to offset the extension of the tax cuts, several Republicans, including trump, have already considered recapturing IRA tax credits as a potential source of revenue.
