House passes the Inflation Reduction Act

Speaking Security Newsletter | Note n°168 | 12 August 2022

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Following the Senate’s lead, the House just passed the Inflation Reduction Act along party lines. It offers $369 billion over ten years for climate, a number that Democrats will describe enthusiastically as historic or less enthusiastically as a step in the right direction, depending on which one you ask.

Both takes are correct, which is why it’s so disappointing. The only reason the IRA (formerly, Build Back Better or ‘the reconciliation bill’) is a climate bill at all is because Biden cut three-quarters of the infrastructure bill’s funding. The reconciliation bill was supposed to be the vehicle for all the climate (and other) stuff that were cut out of the infrastructure bill. If it actually served this purpose, the IRA should’ve had $1.244 trillion in climate funding, not $369 billion.

Combined with the infrastructure bill’s climate funding and expressed as a per year average, the IRA doesn’t bring us anywhere close to the amount in the THRIVE Act ($10 trillion over 10 years) or even the amount Biden campaigned on ($2 trillion by the end of his first term on green infrastructure alone):

-Stephen (@stephensemler; stephen@securityreform.org)

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