Steve Milloy
Contributor
President Trump campaigned on “ending the Green New Scam.” That’s the trillion dollar-plus climate spending in Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. The repeal of the pointless and inflationary subsidies should be a no-brainer layup for congressional Republicans. The opportunity to do so is coming up as part of the President’s much-anticipated Big Beautiful Bill. But now there’s drama.
The Inflation Reduction Act passed in August 2022. Not a single Republican in the House or in the Senate voted for it. The bill was able to avoid filibuster in the Senate because the Senate Parliamentarian controversially determined that it qualified to be considered under the Senate’s reconciliation process. Even so, the IRA only passed Congress because then-Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate. (RELATED: STEVE MILLOY: What Exactly Have NIH Grants Got Us?)
The good news is that, because the IRA was enacted by reconciliation, it can also be repealed by reconciliation. That is exactly how Republican leadership plans to pass the Big Beautiful Bill, possibly as early as Memorial Day. The problem is that, while all Republicans seem to want to pass some sort of Big Beautiful Bill, not all want that bill to repeal the Green New Scam.
A group of at least 21 Republican House members, none of whom voted for the Inflation Reduction Act in August 2022, signed a March 9 letter to Speaker Johnson warning against repealing the subsidies. “We have 20-plus members saying, ‘Don’t just think you can repeal these things and have our support,’” Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.), who organized the letter, told Politico.
What exactly is behind this resistance to a President to whom many of the letter signatories may very well owe their seats?
While it’s often difficult, if not dangerous, to get in between politicians and their subsidies, the Biden administration made it especially so with the sheer amount of Green New Scam spending.
As of September 2024, Biden spent $147.4 billion in 41 states, including $63.7 billion in just seven 2024 battleground states. Eleven of the 21 signatories to the March 9 letter are from states that received at least $4.7 billion dollars. Eight signatories are from blue states and two are from ethanol subsidy-loving red states. Biden’s Green New Scam spending might be corrupt but it wasn’t stupid. These subsidies were obviously intended to purchase red state politicians so that it could be held over their heads and used against future repeal attempts.
In response to a recent X post by me about the letter, signatory Rep. Don Bacon (NE-02) wrote “Biofuels are important to Midwest. It is the reality.” He later added, “You might as well accept it… some of the tax incentives are going to remain. For one, folks already have invested billions based on the promise.”
Another piece of the resistance, according to two House members supporting the repeal with whom I talked, is coming from the oil and gas industry. The Inflation Reduction Act contains $8 billion in tax credits earmarked for carbon dioxide emissions capture and sequestration. This includes: (1) $85 per ton of emissions captured and sequestered from manufacturing and refining operations; and (2) $60 per ton of emissions captured during oil production.
None of this carbon capture and sequestration activity is meaningful to the climate. At best, it would amount to roughly 114 million tons of emissions captured and stored by 2031. Over that time period, global emissions will be on the order of 420 billion tons. That latter amount is about 3,700 times more emissions than the relatively trivial amount of emissions the oil industry would be paid $8 billion to capture.
The subsidy is outrageous waste, if not also fraud and abuse. First, the oil industry already has a tried-and-true business model that mints money without subsidies. Second, regardless of one’s views of climate science, the emissions capture and sequestration would be climatically insignificant. As trivial as the captured emissions would be to the climate, it’s not even clear that such a large amount of emissions could actually be physically captured and sequestered. Finally, President Trump is already undoing Biden’s regulations that hamstrung the oil and gas industry.
Yet the ungrateful oil industry is still demanding the subsidies. Its friends in Congress are willing to risk the Big Beautiful Bill, including maintaining the vital Trump 2017 tax cuts, for the sake of petty and pointless subsidies.
Candidate Trump made his campaign promises. Americans voted for them and elected a Congress to enact them. No one voted for the subsidies. President Trump has issued the necessary Executive orders and directives. It is now time for congressional Republicans to do what they were elected to do: Repeal the Green New Scam.
Steve Milloy is a biostatistician and lawyer, publishes JunkScience.com and is on X @JunkScience
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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I have never been in favor of using reconciliation to pass new legislation but what’s good for the goose…
In reality, it’s just a matter of Senate rules that can be changed at any time by a majority of 1 vote in the Senate. Ditto with the filibuster itself.
Senators preen and pride themselves on being “the greatest deliberative body in the world”, which is why they made the filibuster rule which has changed multiple times and disappeared and reappeared multiple times. But being more deliberative than the House, while a good thing, is still not a license to deny majority rule. So what happens is Senators put a fig leaf on their undermining of the filibuster rule by calling it “budget reconciation”, which fig leaf can be hauled out twice per fiscal year. I just don’t see why they don’t go ahead and return the filibuster rule to what it once was, which was enabling extended debate but eventually a simple majority vote could end a filibuster. Then the majority rules, while preserving the extended debate which was supposed to be the entire point of the filibuster.
nailed it! That should be done right after The Big Beautiful Bill passes. 🙂
Is it reconciliation, appeasement or capitulation?
As I have been pointing out repeatedly, many Republicans and interests they represent are deeply invested in the scam.
When it’s time to cut spending, nobody wants to stand up and be counted.
It’s really not that … see my comment above.
It’s just part of the political logrolling that has always been a part of politics in every nation in all of history. You want this, I want that, what are you going to give me if I give you that?
That’s why there’s a need for a constitutional amendment to balance the budget.
They should be asked to justify their votes based on conservative principles.
This is really nothing more than the standard tactic of certain Congressmen or Senators who want to make a deal. They state an objection to something the vast majority of their caucus and the President desperately wants, citing their constituents. Then the back door negotiations take place, and of course every Congressman can be bought – it’s just a matter of the price, i.e., what the Congressman wants in return for their vote. They can then go back to their constituents who got screwed and say, “Hey, I tried to do that on your behalf, but the Speaker or President made me an offer that is too good to refuse that affects all my other constituents.
Less than two decades ago, that’s what happened with Obamacare. The Dems had been itching for decades to get Federal control of health care, and finally with the Dems having a clear majority in both houses of Congress, including a filibuster proof 60 vote majority in the Senate, plus of course their own President, they were all teed up. Except that a handful of Dems objected to this or that, and over time were eventually bought off.
It became known infamously as “The Louisiana Purchase” due to one Senator from LA having his hand out.
The final reconciliation bill is going to end all of the green new deal stuff, but there may be some temporary concessions, maybe a couple of years to transition away from the subsidies for certain fortunate rent seekers, plus other goodies for the Congressmen who are holding out.
It’s how politics works in the real world.
By the way, this is the same way that Abraham Lincoln obtained the votes of Democrats from Union states for the 13th Amendment ending slavery. Many of them were literally bought – given lucrative Federal jobs.
Same as it ever was. He said it, most memorably:
1 April 1815 – 30 July 1898 *
Laws are crap, their makers are crap, those who apply them are crap etc.
To put Bismarcks words in a simple form:
” don’t buy those sausages the butcher won’t eat”
Many of those who work in meat processing plants don’t consume their own products why should we? That’s probably the reason why politicians give a rats furry unwashed behind about what they decide. Laws are for the common folk…not “us”.
Memento Covid BS, Net Zero, etc.
“It’s how politics works in the real world.”
True, but Trump doesn’t play the usual political games. Probably failed to take political science at college. 🙂
And those are many of the reasons people believe the system is broken.
It’s politics as it’s played in the real world, all over the world. Particularly in representative democracies.
As Winston Churchhill famously quipped:
Political decision making can actually be rather un-messy if that’s all that matters. It’s called “being the king”, or “dictatorship”. If Josef Stalin thought a member of the Duma was being uncooperative, he had the guy shot in the back of the head in one of their not so nice prisons … or sent them to life (actually, death) in the Gulag Archipilego in Siberia. Very unmessy, well, except for the uncooperative representativel.
Xi has already done that in his past. One wonders if Covid was a bio weapon 🧐
The Inflation Reduction Act was a backdoor passage of the Green New Deal with enough pork chops tied to her ugly legs in order to induce at least the dogs to play with her.
“The problem is that, while all Republicans seem to want to pass some sort of Big Beautiful Bill, not all want that bill to repeal the Green New Scam.”
I suspect most are saying that to appease some of their constituents but in fact they really want it to pass. If they think it’ll pass with them not supporting it- they’ll play that game, otherwise, if necessary they’ll support it- or they should be booted out of the GOP.
A weak Republican who votes with us 60% of the time is better than a Democrat who votes against us 90% of the time.
Not if that also means they sometimes vote with the Democrats on stupid stuff like ‘common sense gun control’ and ‘bipartisan immigration’, which even if it fails to become law, provides the Left with endless opportunities for demoguery. In other words, like renewable energy, RINOs are not only unreliable, but may actually be harmful at times.
Very nice Steve.
“Yet the ungrateful oil industry is still demanding the subsidies. Its friends in Congress are willing to risk the Big Beautiful Bill, including maintaining the vital Trump 2017 tax cuts, for the sake of petty and pointless subsidies.”
No tax cuts for companies receiving subsidies.
I got to wondering, are subsidies taxed?
Definitely time to write your congressman about repealing the IRA (GND) and likely cc-ing the other 20 potential holdouts. Overflow their inboxes with “Repeal the Green Subsidies” subject line e-mails. Let them see the People don’t want the waste.
https://www.house.gov/representatives
https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm
Before voting, Bacon and the rest should be forced to reveal how they and their friends will lose if the scam is ended.
From the article: “For one, folks already have invested billions based on the promise.”
“Folks”. That made me laugh. That should be “Rich folks”. This is not about the guy next door doing some investing.
Rich folks give politicians big donations if those politicians help them out.
I would suggest that people find out if their congresscritter is one of these signatories and write them a nasty letter about how they are selling out to Special Interests and won’t be getting the writers vote if they continue down this path.
The whole Inflation Reduction Act needs to be repealed as it not only has subsidies included, but it also gives the EPA the authority to regulate CO2. The law has to go.
If these Republican subsidy farmers want subsidies so bad, they can write up a new bill giving themselves these same subsidies. See if it can pass Congress.
If you don’t vote for Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, you are voting with the Democrats and doing great damage to the future of the United States. You need to find a way to vote for this bill. Campaign donations are not the end all and be all.
“Biofuels are important to Midwest. It is the reality.” He later added, “You might as well accept it… some of the tax incentives are going to remain. For one, folks already have invested billions based on the promise.”
Biofuels are a scam. You might as well accept it. The rest of the nation should not be made to suffer just because some people have speculated on bad policy and graft.
It’s another game of follow the money, eh?