GOP Senators Salvage Democrats’ ‘Green’ Energy Bailouts

Fighting against the wishes of their voters is a classic Republican pastime — and this week is no different.

When they apparently thought nobody was looking, a cabal of GOP senators comprised of Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, Utah’s John Curtis, Kansas’ Jerry Moran, and North Carolina’s Thom Tillis — who’s up for reelection next year — quietly sent a letter on Wednesday to Senate Majority Leader John Thune regarding ongoing negotiations over the party’s reconciliation package.

Their concern? That the final version of the legislation containing priorities backed by President Trump (tax cuts and border security) will also include provisions fully repealing President Biden’s wrongly named Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a 2022 law filled with Democrat-backed goodies and “Green New Deal-style” policy priorities.

Specifically, these four Republican senators asked that a final reconciliation package forgo “full-scale” cuts of tax credits for the energy sector — which includes those for so-called “renewable energy sources.”

“The United States produces some of the cleanest and most efficient energy in the world, and an all-of-the-above approach — including support for traditional and renewable energy sources —has long been a hallmark of our energy strategy,” the senators wrote. “To that end, many American companies have made substantial investments in domestic energy production and infrastructure based on the current energy tax framework. 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.”

In typical Republican fashion, the four senators tossed around unconvincing pledges to “identify waste, fraud, abuse, and necessary reforms,” while completely ignoring the inefficiencies of “green” energy and the enormous price tag associated with the Democrat-backed credits they’re defending.

According to a March 20 report by the Tax Foundation, “In the most recent Treasury expenditures report, IRA green credits are projected to cost $1.16 trillion from 2025 to 2034, owing to $830 billion in lost revenue and $330 billion in outlays.” Those projections, the report noted, “include some costs from green credit policies that predate the IRA.”

Meanwhile, a March 11 analysis by the libertarian Cato Institute estimated even higher long-term costs for the IRA’s energy-related tax credits. In its report, the organization projects “the energy subsidies in the [IRA] will cost between $936 billion and $1.97 trillion over the next 10 years, and between $2.04 trillion and $4.67 trillion by 2050.”

(The Tax Foundation estimated that full repeal of the IRA’s green energy tax credits “would raise $851 billion over the 2025 to 2034 budget window.”)

Murkowski, Curtis, Moran, and Tillis aren’t alone in their bid to salvage parts of Democrats’ disastrous IRA, however. Last month, more than 20 House Republicans sent a letter to House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith, in which they similarly expressed opposition to cutting Biden-era energy tax credits, such as those for so-called “cleaner and more efficient” energy industries.

(State GOP officials in so-called “red states” like Oklahoma and Wyoming also boast track records of pimping left-wing green energy projects).

To call this GOP-backed effort to save provisions of Biden’s IRA surprising would simply be untrue.

For years, Republicans have pleaded with voters to send them to Washington to repeal destructive Democrat policies, only to then abandon such efforts once given the power to do so. (Remember their years-long pledge to “repeal and replace” Obamacare? Good times.)

The unfortunate reality is that many of the GOPers who fancy themselves as “Republicans” aren’t conservative at all. They’re establishment political opportunists who learned to regurgitate Fox News talking points and say whatever it takes to get elected.

Until voters (and Trump) send these kinds of GOP phonies packing at the ballot box, they should expect more of the same from this all-too-often pathetic excuse for a “conservative” party.