The package, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, passed the Senate on Sunday on a 51-50 party-line vote, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote. “The Senate is making history,” said an excited Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer after pumping his fists in the air as Democrats cheered and their staff responded to the vote with applause. “To Americans who have lost faith that Congress can do great things, this bill is for you,” he said. “This bill is going to change America for decades.” Schumer said the legislation contains “the boldest clean energy package in American history” to fight climate change while lowering consumer costs for energy and some medicines. The action sends the measure to the House of Representatives for a vote, likely on Friday, when representatives plan to reconvene briefly during a summer recess. They are expected to approve it, which would then send the bill to the White House for Biden’s signature. In a statement, Biden said he looks forward to signing the bill. Democrats hope the bill’s passage will help the party’s House and Senate candidates in the Nov. 8 midterm elections, at a time when Biden is suffering from anemic public approval ratings amid high inflation. Senators engaged in a 24-hour voting marathon that began Saturday and stretched late into Sunday. Democrats shot down about three dozen Republican amendments intended to torpedo the legislation. Conservative lawmakers slammed the bill as wasteful spending, with top Republican Senator Mitch McConnell accusing Democrats of voting to “double down on their financial disaster.”
“The largest climate investment in US history”
The legislation aims to reduce carbon emissions and shift consumers to green energy, while lowering prescription drug costs for seniors and toughening taxes on corporations and the wealthy. The bill would invest nearly $375 billion over the decade in strategies to combat climate change, including investments in renewable energy generation and tax credits for consumers to buy new or used electric vehicles. It breaks down $60 billion in clean energy production tax credits and $30 billion in wind and solar production tax credits, which are seen as ways to boost and support industries that can help reduce the nation’s dependence on fossil fuels. The bill also provides tax breaks for nuclear power and carbon capture technology that oil companies such as Exxon Mobil have invested millions of dollars to promote. For consumers, there are tax breaks as incentives to go green. One is a 10-year consumer tax credit for renewable energy investments in wind and solar power. There are tax breaks for buying electric vehicles, including a tax credit of $4,000 for buying used electric vehicles and $7,500 for new ones. Overall, Democrats believe the strategy could put the country on a path to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2030 and “would represent the largest climate investment in U.S. history by far.” “This is a historic achievement,” said Gregory Watson, president of the American Renewable Energy Council. “This is the first time in the United States that we’ve seen Congress make a serious effort to address the climate problem. And this bill, the programs in it, are what we’ve supported for many years, and I think it will have a huge impact in enabling the transition to clean energy that we know we’re going to need to deal with climate change,” he told Al Jazeera. .
Lower prescription drug costs
On the health care front, the bill would allow the Medicare program to negotiate prescription drug prices with pharmaceutical companies for the first time, saving the federal government about $288 billion over the 10-year budget. This new revenue will feed back into lower costs for seniors for drugs, including a $2,000 out-of-pocket cap for seniors who buy prescriptions from pharmacies. It also extends expiring subsidies that help 13 million people afford health insurance. The final cost of the bill was being recalculated, but in total it would raise more than $700 billion over a decade. The money would come from a 15 percent minimum tax on a handful of companies with annual profits of more than $1 billion, a 1 percent tax on companies that buy back their own stock, boosted tax collections and state savings from lower drug costs. With about $740 billion in new revenue and about $440 billion in new investments, the bill promises to make up about $300 billion in deficit reduction. The latest package is just more than a tenth of the size of Biden’s original 10-year rainbow $3.5 trillion of progressive ambitions in his Build Back Better initiative. It abandons previous proposals for universal preschool, paid family leave and expanded child care assistance. That plan collapsed when conservative Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat, objected, saying it was too costly and would drive inflation. Nonpartisan analysts said the deflationary law would have little effect on rising consumer prices. Republicans said the bill would undermine an economy that policymakers are trying to keep from falling into recession. They said the bill’s business taxes would hurt job creation and push up prices, making it harder for people to cope with the nation’s worst inflation since the 1980s. “Democrats have already robbed American families once through inflation, and now their solution is to rob American families a second time,” argued McConnell, the Senate minority leader. He said the spending and tax increases in the legislation would eliminate jobs while having a negligible effect on inflation and climate change.
