Inflation Reduction Act has led to a clean energy boom, new reports show
The IRA has generated billions of dollars in private investments since President Joe Biden signed the legislation in 2022.
A pair of reports focused on the first two years of the Inflation Reduction Act show that the law has led to a significant increase in private investments in clean energy manufacturing.
The MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research and the Rhodium Group released an Aug. 7 report showing that investments in clean technology and infrastructure totaled $493 billion between 2022 and the first half of this year. That is a 71% increase over the two years before President Joe Biden signed the legislation on Aug. 16, 2022.
“Clean energy and transportation technology is proving to be one of the largest industries in the US economy,” the report says, adding, “Since the IRA’s enactment, clean investment has accounted for more than half of the total US private investment growth.”
Investments in zero-emission vehicles, fuel cells, solar power collection and storage, and heat pumps were among the expenditures featured in the report.
An Aug. 14 report from the clean energy advocacy group E2 determined companies have announced at least 334 clean energy and clean vehicle projects since August 2022. If completed, it notes, those projects are projected to create 109,278 new jobs.
The Inflation Reduction Act is the largest federal investment in green technologies in U.S. history. The law provides tax credits and incentives for companies aimed at facilitating investment in projects that will cut America’s greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse gases are the largest contributor to global climate change.
The Biden administration has called the IRA, along with the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the CHIPS and Science Act, part of his Investing in America agenda meant to spur a return to domestic manufacturing.
The IRA’s passage in Congress came on a party-line vote because the Republican Party stood in unified opposition to its passage. The legislation secured passage in the Senate with a tiebreaking vote by Vice President Kamala Harris.
A group of House Republicans recently sent a letter to Speaker Mike Johnson in which they admitted that the law had created good jobs and asked Johnson to preserve the tax credits that were in the legislation.
Former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, has said he opposes the clean energy incentives in the IRA.
“On day one of my new administration we’re going to throw out Bidenomics and we’re going to replace it with MAGAnomics,” Trump said at a May 1 rally. “Upon taking office, I will impose an immediate moratorium on all new spending grants and giveaways under the Joe Biden mammoth socialist bills like the so-called Inflation Reduction Act. We’re going to save all that money. It’s not helping you at all.”
