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On this episode of The Unregulated Podcast Tom Pyle and Mike McKenna discuss the fallout of recent Biden admin revelations, the battle over the “Big, Beautiful Bill,” and the future of the Inflation Reduction Act.
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The Republican controlled Congress is now considering a plan to fully repeal President Biden’s poorly named Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022. There are many reasons to fully repeal the IRA; however, the “Green New Deal” elements are especially troubling.
The IRA’s energy subsidies are projected to cost taxpayers between $936 billion and $1.97 trillion over the next decade, with potential liabilities reaching up to $4.7 trillion by 2050. This enormous price tag makes a promising target for the Trump administration in its efforts to stop runaway spending.
Despite this being a slam-dunk for the Republicans, a group of GOP Representatives and Senators recently signed letters asking to protect the IRA’s fiscally irresponsible tax credits.
“We request that any proposed changes to the tax code be conducted in a targeted and pragmatic fashion that promotes conference priorities without undoing current and future private sector investments which will continue to increase domestic manufacturing, promote energy innovation, and keep utility costs down. We believe we can work together so that all these goals are achievable.” -Republican Letter-Signers (Full list below), March 9, 2025
Many of the signers were openly calling for the full repeal just a few short years ago. Here’s what they were saying before they had a chance to actually make a difference:
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (AK)
“It contains hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending, and hundreds of billions more in new taxes that will burden the American people and American businesses for years to come. Even floor debate – with amendment votes starting just before midnight on Saturday, and continuing through Sunday afternoon – was designed to avoid public awareness and scrutiny…There is no doubt in my mind, based on both substance and process, that the Senate should not have passed it.” –The Center Square, August 8, 2022
Sen. John Curtis (UT)
“This bill, the Inflation Reduction Act (despite multiple studies showing it won’t reduce inflation) is not transformational. The only transformational thing about the Democrats’ tax and spending spree is how it will raise taxes and give the federal government massive command and control over our economy and in people’s lives. In a twist of irony, the bill will tax and audit the middle class to give money to the Democrat’s preferred large corporations to invest in decarbonization. We should be protecting the middle class from increased energy costs, not using them to subsidize corporate tax credits.” –Congressional Western Caucus, August 15, 2022
Sen. Thom Tillis (NC)
“It’s an insult to the intelligence of North Carolinians when politicians like President Biden and Governor Cooper claim that raising taxes and spending $740 billion on their far-left priorities will actually reduce inflation and stop the Biden recession.”
Sen. Jerry Moran (KS)
“The idea that spending more money and increasing taxes will be helpful in combating inflation is false and confirmed by the Congressional Budget Office. Rather than taking steps to curb spending and expand energy production, the so-called Inflation Reduction Act will raise taxes on small businesses and working families, including by hiring 87,000 more IRS agents to target more Americans with tax audits. Instead, the Senate should be focused on pro-job, pro-growth policies to reduce the cost of gas, goods and services for Kansans.” -Office of Senator Jerry Moran, August 7, 2022
Rep. Andrew Garbarino (NY-02)
“This bill means $745 billion in new spending, including over $400 billion for the ‘Green New Deal’ and $80 billion in new funding for the IRS to hire 87,000 new agents to go after the middle class and small businesses…This bill is bad for Long Islanders and bad for the American people. Shame on Congressional Democrats for forcing through this irresponsible legislation to score a political win at the expense of American taxpayers.” -Office of Congressman Andrew R. Garbarino, August 12, 2022
Rep. Mark Amodei (NV-02)
“When you look at the overall policy, let’s just say for Nevada, these two pieces of funding do not make up for the damage these two pieces of legislation can do or are threatening to do.”
Rep. Don Bacon (NE-02)
“This reckless and partisan bill is bad for Nebraska families, bad for Nebraska businesses, and bad for America’s energy sector. Democrats have been misinforming the American people on what’s really in this bill, and even President Biden’s favorite economist, Mark Zandi, says it won’t reduce inflation. We can’t keep asking the American taxpayers to shoulder the burden for the Democrats’ reckless spending.” -Office of Congressman Don Bacon, August 12, 2022
Rep. Dave Joyce (OH-14)
“The Majority just created hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending and implemented hundreds of billions of dollars in tax hikes. Those of us who live in the real world know that Washington can’t tax and spend its way out of this inflation crisis. That’s why I voted no.” -Congressman David Joyce, August 12, 2022
Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (NJ-07)
“Fiscal policy should be guided by what economists are saying, not Nancy Pelosi. Tom Malinowski just voted YES on a Liberal Spending Spree that will raise your taxes and hire 87k new IRS agents that will target New Jersey’s families.”
Rep. Buddy Carter (GA-01)
“The Inflation ‘Reduction’ Act is full of empty promises that harm some of Georgia’s flagship companies. In an ironic and careless twist, this legislation punishes one of Georgia’s largest employers and local providers of electric vehicles (EV), Kia Motors.” -The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, September 16, 2022
Rep. Young Kim (CA-40)
“The only thing the Inflation Reduction Act is reducing is the amount of hard-earned money in the wallets of American taxpayers.”
Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-01)
“This enormous spending package is bad for Iowans, bad for patients, bad for the economy and hardworking Americans, and bad for the future of American innovation.”
-Office of Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks, August 12, 2022.
Rep. Dan Newhouse (WA-04)
“President Biden’s policies have placed America’s food, energy, economic, and national security at risk and this bill will do nothing to reverse any of that. Instead this legislation will make our situation even worse.”
Rep. David Valadao (CA-2)
“The so-called ‘inflation reduction act’ is being paid for on the backs of hardworking, middle-class valley families struggling to put food on the table and gas in their cars. the law did nothing to lower prices, offshored our critical supply chains and jobs to China, and supercharged the IRS to audit more small businesses and working families.”
Send a message to Congress demanding they FULLY repeal Biden’s disastrous inflation bill using our tool below:
In 2022, President Biden and a Democratic Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). No Republican voted for it in the House or the Senate. The IRA should be repealed because:
Excessive Fiscal Burden
Inefficiency and Market Distortion
The IRA’s subsidies have led to market distortions, such as negative electricity prices, where producers continue generating power despite losses to claim subsidies. This undermines the efficiency of wholesale electricity markets, turning them into “subsidy clearinghouses” rather than platforms for cost-effective energy distribution. For years, we have fought the Wind Production Tax Credit for exactly this reason. In fact, the wind lobby agreed to phase out the Wind Production Tax Credit in 2012, but the IRA continues this and similar subsidies.
Limited Job Creation at High Cost
While the IRA has led to the announcement of numerous federally subsidized projects, over 40% have been delayed or canceled. The jobs that have been created are estimated to cost taxpayers between $2 million and $7 million each, raising questions about the cost-effectiveness of these investments.
Failing to Repeal the IRA Will Hinder President Trump’s Plan for American Energy Dominance and Break His Campaign Promise to “Terminate the Green New Deal.”
GOP Representatives and Senators who have signed letters asking to protect the IRA’s fiscally irresponsible tax credits:
Much like Columbus Day, The Unregulated Podcast is back after a brief hiatus. This week Tom Pyle and Mike McKenna review the first 100 days of the Trump administration’s work on energy issues, what to expect from the looming budget battle, and do a post-mortem of the Iberian “green” blackouts.
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WASHINGTON DC (5/1/25) – Today, the House of Representatives passed H.J. Res. 88, providing for congressional disapproval of the CAA waiver for California’s Advanced Clean Cars II regulation. The vote was 246-164. Notably, 35 Democrats joined 211 Republicans in support of the resolution, including two Democrats from California. This vote will be included in our American Energy Scorecard.
AEA President Thomas Pyle issued the following statement:
“Imposing California’s agenda on all Americans flies in the face of the freedoms this country was built on. The California Air Resources Board is not a national regulator, but these waivers certainly grant it that power. The Biden administration’s Clean Air Act waivers must be firmly rejected to protect Americans’ right to choose the types of vehicles that best suit their needs and to prevent California’s regulatory agencies from dictating the future of American transportation.
“By invoking the Congressional Review Act to overturn California’s car ban, House Republicans are signaling their commitment to the promises they made to voters. The resolution now moves to the Senate, where elected representatives—not career bureaucrats—will determine the fate of the California waiver. Senators should follow the House’s lead to uphold consumer choice in the auto market and preserve the freedom of mobility, a cornerstone of America’s growth and vitality for over a century.”
AEA Experts Available For Interview On This Topic:
Additional Background Resources From AEA:
For media inquiries please contact:
[email protected]
On April 30th, 2025 the American Energy Alliance, along with 31 other market advocacy organizations, sent a letter to all members of Congress calling on them to repeal all Green New Deal inspired subsidies passed in Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. The text of the letter is available below.
Dear Members of Congress,
We, the undersigned organizations, are writing in support of repealing the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) green new deal subsidies to pay for tax cuts in reconciliation.
As the cost of the IRA’s market-distorting energy subsidies accelerate, Congress can put an end to bad policy while delivering tax cuts to all Americans.
Failure from Congress to pass tax cuts would result in the expiration of several of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act’s (TCJA) provisions – the largest tax increase in American history: the standard deduction (claimed by 90 percent of Americans) would be halved, a family of four earning $80,610 would see a $1,695 tax hike, and more than 26 million small business would be hit with a 43.4 percent tax rate.
Lawmakers, in compliance with the Byrd rule, are in the process of finding ways to “pay for” extending the TCJA’s tax cuts and President Trump’s other, important initiatives. We assert that tax hikes are not the answer. After all, roughly 70 percent of the corporate tax, for example, is borne by workers through lower pay and less jobs while roughly 30 percent of the tax falls on consumers through higher prices.
Rather than entertaining anti-growth tax hikes on businesses, Biden’s disastrous green energy subsidies could pay for a significant portion of President Trump’s agenda and their repeal would restore a freer market in the U.S. energy sector, ensuring more affordability, reliability, and innovation.
The cost of the IRA’s Green New Deal subsidies has become unsustainable. The IRA created or expanded several energy subsidy provisions: four clean vehicle credits, residential clean energy credit, energy efficient home credit, clean hydrogen production credit, clean electricity production tax credit, advanced energy project credit, etc.
When passed, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimated that energy-related IRA subsidies would cost about $370 billion over a ten year window. Just two years later, the CBO itself puts the cost at over double its original estimate – $786 billion.
Worse, in April 2023, the Penn Wharton Budget Model, which initially estimated $384.9 billion over ten years, updated their estimate to $1.05 trillion over ten years for just the climate and energy provisions.
As of November 2024, the U.S. Department of the Treasury expenditures report now estimates that the IRA green credits will cost $1.16 trillion from 2025 to 2034.
Most recently, in March 2025, the Cato Institute released a policy analysis finding the upper bound cost of the IRA green credits to be $1.97 trillion over ten years.
Because repealing a credit doesn’t necessarily raise what the credit costs, the Tax Foundation estimates that repealing the green new deal credits would raise $851 billion over the 2025 to 2034 budget window.
The IRA’s green new deal subsidies are bad policy. Green energy credits distort the market, threatening affordability, reliability, and innovation. They also overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy in blue states.
The massive subsidies for “clean” energy cause producers to create more electric supply than there is demand during certain hours of the day – that artificially drives down the price of energy at those times undercutting the ability of reliable baseload and dispatchable generators to recoup costs. This distortion causes consistent and affordable energy generation producers to charge more and, increasingly, shut down altogether. In the long run, we are left with less available reliable power, as we saw in Spain and Portugal this week, which ultimately means higher prices for less reliable forms of energy.
The subsidization of these existing technologies discourages people from exploring new, innovative forms of energy generation, as producing “clean” energy is already so artificially lucrative. Such a heavy, one-sided incentive structure ultimately handicaps innovation.
Additionally, data from JCT reveals EV subsidies overwhelmingly benefit the rich. Surely, these tax savings would be better spent ensuring low rates for Americans in all income brackets.
More than 83 percent of current EV credits claimed go to tax filers with an annual income of $100,000 or more. Taxpayers with an annual income exceeding $1 million account for 8 percent of all credits claimed. This should come as no surprise given the sticker price of a new electric vehicle typically ranges from $40,000 – $80,000. Subsidizing luxury cars is targeted welfare for the wealthy.
Furthermore, EV subsidies primarily benefit Democrat-run states. Eight of the top ten states for EV sales are states represented by two Democrat Senators. Of the 250,000 all-electric vehicles sold in the U.S. in 2020, according to data from the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, Californians alone accounted for over 93,000 EVs purchases. For comparison, West Virginia had only 195 EVs registered in 2020.
The IRA’s green new deal subsidies are bad policy and are costing Americans exponentially more each day. In this way, their repeal would be ideal as both a way to bring parity to the U.S. energy sector and to pay for tax cuts for all Americans.
Onward,
Grover Norquist
President, Americans for Tax Reform
Saulius “Saul” Anuzis
President, American Association of Senior Citizens
Phil Kerpen
President, American Commitment
Steve Pociask
Chief Executive Officer, American Consumer Institute
Thomas Pyle
President, American Energy Alliance
Brent Gardner
Chief Government Affairs Officer, Americans for Prosperity
Ryan Ellis
President, Center for a Free Economy
Daniel Mitchell
President, Center for Freedom and Prosperity
Jeffrey Mazzella
President, Center for Individual Freedom
Daren Bakst
Director, Center for Energy and Environment and Senior Fellow
Competitive Enterprise Institute
David McIntosh
President, Club for Growth
Andre Beliveau
Senior Manager of Energy Policy, Commonwealth Foundation
John C. Goodman
President, Goodman Institute for Public Policy Research
Cameron Sholty
Executive Director, Heartland Impact
James Taylor
President, The Heartland Institute
Ryan Walker
Executive Vice President, Heritage Action for America
Katie Clancy
Illinois Center-Right Coalition Chair
Patrice Onwuka
Director, Center for Economic Opportunity,
Independent Women’s Forum
Gabriella Hoffman
Director, Center for Energy and Conservation
Independent Women’s Forum
Alfredo Ortiz
CEO, Job Creations Network
Seton Motley
President, Less Government
Charles Sauer
President, Market Institute
Paul D. Craney
Executive Director, Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance
Tim Jones
Fmr. Speaker, Missouri House
Chairman, Missouri Center-Right Coalition
Gordon Gray
Executive Director, Pinpoint Policy Institute
Lorenzo Montanari
Executive Director, Property Rights Alliance
Mike Stenhouse
Founder/CEO, Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity
Paul Gessing
President, Rio Grande Foundation
James L. Martin
Founder/Chairman, 60 Plus Association
James Erwin
Executive Director, Digital Liberty
Interim Director, Shareholder Advocacy Forum
Kevin Riffe
West Virginia Center-Right Coalition Chairman
The American Energy Alliance supports H.J. Res. 87 providing for congressional disapproval of the Clean Air Act waiver for California’s Advance Clean Trucks regulation; H.J. Res. 88 providing for congressional disapproval of the CAA waiver for California’s Advanced Clean Cars II regulation; and H.J. Res. 89 providing for congressional disapproval of the CAA waiver for California’s regulations on medium to heavy duty trucks and other engines.
California’s special waiver from certain Clean Air Act provisions was created to give the state the ability to address specific state level atmosphere issues. It was not authority to make the California Air Resources Board into a super regulator who can set regulatory policy for the entire country in defiance of Congress and the Constitution. These three regulations are about imposing California’s policy preferences on all Americans. Congress should emphatically reject this unwarranted and unconstitutional overreach.
YES votes on H.J. Res. 87, 88 and 89 are votes in support of free markets and affordable energy. AEA will include the votes in its American Energy Scorecard.
When Interior Secretary Doug Burgum ordered a halt to the Empire Wind Project, which proposed building a subsidy-driven, expensive offshore wind farm in federal waters off the coast of New York state, supporters of the project decried the move, alleging it was the first such action ever taken by a government.
Governor Kathy Hochul, a proponent of the Norwegian-owned project, accused the federal government of “overreach” and vowed to “fight this every step of the way to protect union jobs, affordable energy, and New York’s economic future.” Never mind that the “affordable energy” she cites is over three times as expensive as a natural gas plant would produce – if only she’d stop blocking gas pipelines and allow drilling in New York’s share of the Marcellus formation, the same resource that’s brought Pennsylvania both wealth and energy security.
Supporters of the “green transition” piled on, alleging that Secretary Burgum had sent a “chilling” message to all energy projects, and claiming that his decision to review the hastily approved permits was unique, or groundbreaking, or something new.
Nothing could be further from the truth. On the very first day of President Biden’s presidency, he issued an executive order revoking a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline. With the stroke of a pen, he idled thousands of pipeline workers on a project that had already crossed the U.S.-Canada border, and upon which billions of dollars had already been spent.
In fact, a quick review of Biden’s actions as president shows a long string of broken promises, agreements, contracts, and laws, all in pursuit of “net-zero,” the “green transition,” and his pledge to “end fossil fuels,” which animated his entire administration.
Here is a brief list of some of Biden’s actions, some of which are still being litigated:
These represent only a small handful of the detrimental contributions of the Biden administration; the Institute for Energy Research compiled over 250 examples of actions they took to limit energy and mineral development (necessary for energy uses, including “green energy”) during their tenure.
Secretary Burgum’s decision to pause and review the Empire Wind Project fits squarely within the norms that the federal government itself has established. If anything, it should prompt a long-overdue conversation about the chaos and inconsistency of a permitting process that can greenlight flawed projects while stonewalling essential infrastructure. What the moment truly calls for is not selective outrage, but comprehensive reform—so that energy development in America can proceed transparently, lawfully, and in the public interest.
WASHINGTON DC (4/29/25) – Since taking office on January 20, 2025, President Donald J. Trump, alongside Congressional Republicans, has spearheaded a transformative agenda to secure American energy abundance, reduce costs for consumers, and bolster economic growth. Together, they have taken over 75 actions to unleash our energy potential.
AEA President Thomas Pyle issued the following statement:
“In its first 100 days, the Trump administration—working with Congressional Republicans—has launched an ambitious and transformative energy agenda. Through over 75 actions, including executive orders, regulatory reforms, and legislative victories, they have dismantled barriers to energy production and strengthened the position of the United States as the global energy leader. Sustaining this momentum in the coming months will be critical to fulfilling the promises made to voters.
“The administration and Congress must prioritize repealing the Biden administration’s waiver that allows California to set its own vehicle emissions standards—effectively mandating a shift to electric vehicles—and rolling back the energy-related provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act through the reconciliation process. We are excited to continue monitoring this progress and commend the administration’s commitment to energy abundance.”
AEA Experts Available For Interview On This Topic:
Additional Background Resources From AEA:
For media inquiries please contact:
[email protected]
President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans ran on a plan for American energy: make it easier to produce and more affordable to purchase. Since President Trump took office, his administration and congressional allies have taken over 75 actions to unleash America’s energy potential. A list of those actions appears below.
January 20, 2025
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