ICYMI: WSJ: Trump Vowed to Kill Biden's Climate Law. Republicans Say Not So Fast."

President Biden 's Inflation Reduction Act is unleashing a clean energy and manufacturing renaissance - especially in Republican states and districts. It's why, as the Wall Street Journal reports, Republican elected officials are clamoring for the law to stay - so they can continue to reap its benefits in terms of investments and jobs going to their communities.

Read more from the Wall Street Journal on how the law that passed without a single Republican vote is becoming increasingly popular among Republican officials:

Read more below:

The Wall Street Journal: Trump Vowed to Kill Biden's Climate Law. Republicans Say Not So Fast.
[Scott Patterson, 11/30/2024]

Donald Trump's campaign-trail vow to end President Biden's signature climate law is running into a cold reality: Too many Republican lawmakers want to keep it.

The Inflation Reduction Act has channeled billions of dollars to renewable-energy projects across the country, with Republican-led states getting the lion's share of the funding. Even though not a single Republican in the House or Senate backed the Democratic package, today there likely isn't enough support in Congress to pass a repeal, according to Capitol Hill watchers and former Trump administration officials who worked on energy policy.

"There are too many things in there that are too important to too many constituencies" to throw out the law, said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R., N.D.).

A clash between Trump and congressional Republicans over the fate of the IRA would mark a high-stakes showdown determining the fate of hundreds of projects, billions of dollars and tens of thousands of jobs. It would pit Trump against some of his staunchest oil-and-gas supporters, who have plowed money into projects funded by the climate law, while presenting another test of how hard GOP lawmakers are willing to push back against the president-elect.

With a majority of just about a half dozen seats in next year's House and a 53-47 margin in the Senate, the IRA repeal is one of a number of Trump pledges that might fizzle out. Already, his attempt to strong-arm the Senate into confirming some cabinet picks without a vote got the brushoff from lawmakers.

Trump pledged on the campaign trail to terminate the 2022 law, which he called the "green new scam." He has repeatedly railed against clean-energy technologies such as wind power and electric vehicles and the subsidies that fund them. Trump also has said climate change is a hoax. Ending the law would stall or halt a raft of clean-energy projects that would benefit from tax credits, grants and loans.

Short of a full repeal, the Trump administration could still push to cut or curtail a number of the law's federal tax credits. Credits for wind power and electric vehicles could be among the first on the chopping block, experts said.

In August, 18 Republican House members sent a letter to Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.), asking him to stick with incentives for clean-energy projects in the IRA. Most of those House members were re-elected. Johnson has indicated he isn't planning to repeal the law.

Rep. Buddy Carter (R., Ga.), who signed the letter, said that while he thought the IRA was a bad idea, he doesn't support full repeal. "We need to just look at it instead of taking a sledgehammer to it," he said. "We need to dissect it carefully to see what might be in there that's working."

Carter's home state, Georgia, has among the highest number of clean-energy projects and jobs funded by the IRA. That includes a $7.6 billion Hyundai Motor Group manufacturing complex to make electric vehicles in Carter's district. The company said it accelerated construction of the project due to IRA incentives.

A Trump transition team spokesman didn't respond to a request for comment.

Trump has also criticized Biden's 2022 Chips Act, which was designed to recharge U.S. computer-chip production. Unlike the IRA, the Chips Act passed with bipartisan support. Some industry executives who have spoken to people within Trump's orbit expect the law to survive.

Uncertainty about Trump's plans for Biden's climate law has sent a wave of paralysis through clean-energy companies and roiled the sector's stocks. Plans for new projects, and even projects already started, are being reassessed, industry experts said. Energy lobbyists are getting flooded by calls from panicked clients worried about their projects.

"Because of all the work that was done in climate under the Biden administration, everybody was full steam ahead," said Katherine Hamilton, chair of 38 North Solutions, a Washington, D.C. clean-energy consulting firm. "Now it's wait, what's going to happen?"

Trump's pick to chair his newly created National Energy Council, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, highlights another reason the administration likely won't repeal the IRA: the powerful corn lobby.

North Dakota is one of America's top producers of ethanol, a corn-based gasoline substitute. The IRA has substantial subsidies for ethanol production, and a big part of future ethanol sales will rely on decarbonizing its production by capturing the carbon and storing it underground due to regulations in key markets in the U.S. and overseas.

"We see carbon capture and sequestration as being vital to the [ethanol] industry's future," said Geoff Cooper, chief executive of the Renewable Fuels Association, which represents ethanol producers and opposes a full repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act.

Without IRA tax credits, he said, many carbon-capture projects won't get built. By his count, more than two dozen Republican House members oppose repeal of the law.

Burgum's home state, North Dakota, will be a big winner from carbon capture and sequestration. He has said the state has the capacity to store 250 billion tons of carbon dioxide underground, a potential boon to state coffers from revenues the projects will generate.

Big carbon-capture projects are already under way in North Dakota. Bank of America is providing $205 million in exchange for tax credits from an ethanol producer that captures the carbon produced at a plant in the state.

Billionaire fossil-fuel wildcatter Harold Hamm, a major Trump donor and top adviser to his transition team, has invested $250 million in an ethanol carbon-capture project that could reap a windfall from IRA tax credits. Carbon dioxide collected from dozens of ethanol plants would be stored underground in North Dakota.

Other fossil-fuel companies, such as Occidental Petroleum, have poured billions of dollars into carbon-capture projects. Exxon Mobil last year paid nearly $5 billion to purchase a pipeline operator that would transport carbon dioxide for storage. Energy Transfer, an oil-and-gas pipeline giant co-founded by Trump-backer Kelcy Warren, is helping to develop a carbon-capture hub in Louisiana.

Such deals are why many in the fossil-fuel industry who opposed the law when it passed have embraced provisions that earmark billions of dollars for low-carbon energy projects.

A wild card for the IRA's clean-energy subsidies will be Trump's plans to extend tax cuts signed into law during his first administration. Lawmakers are expected to comb through clean-energy provisions and other parts of the federal budget for spending and tax credits they can slash to help offset the costs of the tax cuts.

The administration could adjust guidance for some provisions, such as EV credits, that make them harder or virtually impossible to use. Lawmakers could put new, shorter time limits on when certain tax credits expire, such as incentives for the generation of electricity from wind, solar and other renewable sources.

As the administration begins weighing which incentives get cut and which don't, companies, lobbyists and trade groups are expected to besiege lawmakers on Capitol Hill to press for protection of their technologies and projects.

"It's going to be a brutal fight," said Prof. Jesse Jenkins, an expert on energy and climate change at Princeton University who helped lawmakers craft the IRA.