More House Republicans Back the IRA
March -> April 2025
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Let’s start with a short history of House Republicans going to bat for the IRA tax credits:
🗓️ August 2024: a group of a group of 18 House Republicans, led by Climate Solutions Caucus co-Chair Rep. Andrew Garbarino, wrote a letter to Speaker Johnson urging him against repealing the IRA clean energy tax credits. But they did not specify the which tax credits they supported, and which ones they were willing to sacrifice to help pay for extending President Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. In our December issue we profiled the 14 remaining House Republican signatories - detailing the clean tech projects and corporate headquarters in their districts, the legislation they’ve supported in the past, and their committee assignments and caucuses. We wanted to get a better understanding of the IRA tax credits that mattered most to their constituents and, therefore, the ones that they’d most likely support through the reconciliation process.
🗓️ January 2025: 19 House Republicans spoke up in favor of IRA tax credits before the House Ways and Means Committee - 12 of which weren’t signatories of the August 2024 letter. Remember, Ways and Means is in the driver’s seat for the Reconciliation process that will ultimately decide the fate of the IRA’s clean energy tax credits. We analyzed the testimony of all 19 members in our February issue, digging into the language that Republicans felt compelling in their advocacy with their fellow colleagues.
🗓️ March 2025: Rep. Garbarino led a second letter with 20 other House Republicans touting the IRA, this time addressed to House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith. This letter echoed the themes raised in the first, but it also featured new arguments around energy affordability and provided more clarity around some of the IRA provisions these 21 House Republicans would like to keep. And Jason Smith appears to be seriously weighing these demands. He recently said that the narrow margins in the House "requires balancing the individuals who have certain green energy tax credits that they strongly support, versus those who just want to rip them out by the roots. It has to be a constant balance."
In this edition, we’re going to profile the 7 new signatories: the IRA-backed investments in their districts, their committees of jurisdiction, and their policy priorities to help inform our understanding of which tax credits they support.
But first, let’s dive into the letter with some analysis of the quotes that stood out to us:
💰 “As Members of the House Republican Conference, we write to emphasize the importance of prioritizing energy affordability for American families and keeping on our current path to energy dominance amid efforts to repeal or reform current energy tax credits.”
DC CleanTech Analysis: While the first letter emphasized investor certainty, the second underscores the importance of the IRA for keeping energy costs down for consumers. Garbarino references affordability for American families in the opening sentence, and returns to that theme five more times in the course of the letter. By underscoring the importance of affordability and linking the tax credits to the goal of energy dominance, Garbarino is framing his argument in terms prioritized by President Trump himself. It’s as if Garbarino is writing the letter to Trump as well as Jason Smith. The President’s Unleashing American Energy Executive Order emphasizes affordability in the very first paragraph, blaming the Biden Administration for an energy policy that raised costs for Americans. By underscoring the importance of keeping consumer energy bills low, the Garbarino letter contains a veiled threat: gutting the IRA will inflict higher energy costs on American families and businesses - do so at your own risk.
💡Many credits were enacted over the course of a ten-year period, which allowed energy developers to plan with these tax incentives in mind. These timelines have been relied upon when it comes to capital allocation, planning, and project commitments, all of which would be jeopardized by premature credit phase outs or additional restrictive mechanisms such as limiting transferability.
DC CleanTech Analysis: Garbarino’s first letter made a general case for the IRA but was light on specifics. Here we begin to get a sense of some priorities, namely avoiding premature credit phase out and limiting tax credit transferability. As Republicans consider how to begin paying for extending the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act through reconciliation, some have suggested an early phase out of the IRA’s tax credits - most of which expire in 2032. Others have raised limiting the IRA’s tax credit transferability provisions, which allow project developers and manufacturers with insufficient tax liability to monetize the tax credits they earn. Tax credit transferability is a big and rapidly growing business for the financial sector. Crux, a leading platform for tax credit transfers, has highlighted its $25 billion tax credit transaction database, nearly $20 billion of which took place in 2024. The Garbarino letter is clear: hands off transferability and early credit phase outs.
⚡️As energy demand continues to skyrocket, any modifications that inhibit our ability to deploy new energy production risk sparking an energy crisis in our country, resulting in drastically higher power bills for American families. This is especially true for energy credits with direct passthrough benefit to ratepayers, where such repeals would increase utility bills the very next day.”
DC CleanTech Analysis: More specifics! And again, the focus on affordability. The tax credits most likely to have direct passthrough benefits to ratepayers are the “tech neutral” clean energy investment and production tax credits, 48E and 45Y. Those incentivize utilities clean energy investment and production, and if removed, would lead to much higher costs for those producers (as much as 50% in some cases) that would immediately be passed on to businesses as families. We knew that the tech neutral credits were important and likely among the ones supported by the Garbarino signatories - but now that becomes much more evident.
And while it’s essential to dig into the specifics of the letter, it’s also important to zoom out and understand the larger context. Every member of Congress has several priority issues, some of them at times in competition with one another. Just because these 21 members are defending the IRA doesn’t mean it’s the hill they’ll die on. For some it very well could be. But for others it may be preserving Medicaid or SNAP benefits. For others it will be lifting the State and Local Tax deduction cap. And other macro issues could weigh on Congress by the time the Reconciliation process comes to a vote. For example, if President Trump’s myriad tariffs (25% on autos, 25% on Canada and Mexico, 20% on China, 25% on aluminum and steel - all of which stack by the way) inflict real pain on American automakers, will Congress think twice about eliminating EV tax credits that benefit domestic manufacturers and support jobs in their districts? The bottom line is that it’s impossible to know how all of these factors will weigh on each member, but at the bare minimum, we should understand which members that are inclined to support the IRA and and the tax credits that mean the most to them.
So with no further ado, let’s dig into the signatories! Remember, the profiles of the original 14 signatories are available in the December issue.
Representative Gabe Evans: Colorado’s 8th Congressional District
🔵 Blue State
⚖️ Swing district
Notable clean tech investments:
⚡️According to the Clean Investment Monitor, the CO-08 has seen more than $655 million in actual clean tech manufacturing, utility, and industrial capex spending since the IRA was passed in 2022. An additional $250 million has yet to have been spent on those initiated projects. This investment has resulted in 15 new facilities out of a total of 20 announced facilities in the district.
🔋Solid Power is planning a $593 million battery manufacturing facility in Rep. Evans’ district, and received a $50 million grant from DOE in September, 2024 funded by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. That was part of DOE’s Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains’ (MESC) $3 billion funding round for critical minerals and battery supply chains. Information regarding projects financed by MESC through that program has since been removed from DOE's website but is detailed in our October edition.
🔋Amprius Technologies announced a $192 million silicon-anode lithium ion battery production facility in the CO-08 that would create 332 jobs.
💨Vestas has invested more than $1 billion in Colorado to manufacture wind nacelles and blades at facilities in the CO-08 and within a short commute of the district, in Windsor, CO.
⚡️The Colorado headquarters of Xcel Energy, one of Colorado’s major utilities and one of the largest employers in Denver, is minutes from Rep. Evans’ district. Xcel has ambitious climate goals, including an 80% Co2 emissions reductions by 2030 from 2005 levels, and net zero by 2050.
🏆 Leading State Sector: Colorado is the sixth biggest wind power generating state in the country.
National Lab Connection: The CO-08 is commuting distance to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, which employs 3,675 people and contributes $1.3 billion to Colorado’s economy on ~$775 million in annual funding from the U.S. Department of Energy .
🔑Key Committee: Rep. Evans serves on the House Energy and Commerce Committee and on the Energy Subcommittee.
Most Impactful IRA Tax Credits for Rep. Evans’ Constituents:
Representative John James: Michigan’s 10th Congressional District
⚖️ Swing State
⚖️ Swing District
Notable clean tech investments:
🚗 GM has invested $1.2 billion in Southeast Michigan since 2014 and employs 25,000 people in the region.
🚗 GM has invested $4 billion to build EVs at the Orion Assembly Plant, employing 345 people - just a 15 min drive from James’ district.
🚗 The MI-10 is home to GM’s Tech Center - it’s primary design and engineering facility that employs thousands.
🚗 Stellantis recently committed to investing an additional $333.1 million in James’ district to produce the future electrified Jeep Wagoneer and the 2025 Ram 1500 electric truck.
🔑Key Committee: Rep. James is a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Political Ambitions: James has statewide ambitions. He ran for Senate in 2018 and in 2020, when he narrowly lost to incumbent Democrat Gary Peters. He is also reportedly interested in making a run at the Governor’s mansion. It’s very hard to run for statewide office in Michigan if you take votes that hurt the massive investments automakers have made to transition to EVs and put the jobs associated with those investments at risk.
Previous Public Support for the IRA: Rep. James testified on behalf of the IRA, particularly for the auto sector, before the Ways and Means Committee in January. We analyzed his remarks in our February edition.
Most Impactful IRA Tax Credits for Rep. James’ Constituents:
Representative Vince Fong: California’s 20th Congressional District
🔵 Blue State
Notable clean tech investments:
⚡️According to the Clean Investment Monitor, the CA-20 has seen more than $5 billion in actual clean tech manufacturing, utility, and industrial capex spending since the IRA was passed in 2022. An additional $6 billion has yet to have been spent on those initiated projects. This investment has resulted in 46 new facilities out of a total of 80 announced facilities in the district.
☀️The CA-20 is a hot bed for solar power production, and among the top solar producing congressional districts in the country, with more than 3,000MW installed. Terra-Gen’s Edwards Sanborn solar facility is one of the largest solar-plus-storage projects in North America and is partially situated on land leased from Edwards Air Force Base in the CA-20. The Solar Star solar farm located on the southern edge of the district can generate 579MW of electricity - enough to supply 255,000 households with energy.
💨The CA-20 is also a leader for wind power, and is home to the Alta Wind Energy Center, the largest wind farm in the United States, boasting an installed capacity of 1,550MW.
🌽 Bakersfield is also a hub for renewable natural gas, renewable diesel, and ethanol production. Among several producers in the region, Bakersfield Renewable Fuels has begun biodiesel production at a converted refinery that it plans to expand to produce over 200 million gallons/year.
⚡️The CA-20 is also a short distance from Lancaster, which has established a public hydrogen utility and is planning to be a key part of the California Hydrogen Hub.
🏆 Leading State Sector: California is the top solar power producing state in the country. California is also a major wind producing state, and only trails Texas, Iowa, and Oklahoma for number of wind turbines installed.
🔑Key Committees: Rep. Fong is a member of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, and Transportation and Infrastructure Committee
Most Impactful IRA Tax Credits for Rep. Fong’s Constituents:
48E Clean Electricity Investment Tax Credit
Representative Jeff Hurd: Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District
🔵 Blue State
⚖️ Swing District
Notable clean tech investments:
⚡️According to the Clean Investment Monitor, the C0-03 has seen more than $1.5 billion in actual clean tech manufacturing, utility, and industrial capex spending since the IRA was passed in 2022. An additional $3.5 billion has yet to have been spent on those initiated projects. This investment has resulted in 16 new facilities out of a total of 34 announced facilities in the district.
The CO-03 is home to several major utility scale clean energy and transmission projects including:
☀️The 175 MW Pike Solar Facility
🔋 The 100MW Jackson Fuller Energy Storage Facility
⚡️The Renewable Energy Gateway Access Loop: A 120 mile transmission line to bring more renewable power from eastern Colorado into Colorado Springs.
☀️The Delta Montrose Electric Association was selected by the Biden Administration’s USDA Powering Affordable Clean Energy (PACE) program to receive a $72 million partially forgivable loan to finance a grid-connected solar system.
☀️Lightsource bp has developed two solar projects representing a $500 million investment in the CO-03.
🏆 Leading State Sector: Colorado is the sixth biggest wind power generating state in the country.
🔑Key Committees: Rep. Hurd is a member of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee; Transportation and Infrastructure Committee; and Natural Resources Committee
Most Impactful IRA Tax Credits for Rep. Hurd’s Constituents:
48E Clean Electricity Investment Tax Credit
45Y Clean Electricity Production Tax Credit
Representative Dan Newhouse: Washington’s 4th Congressional District
🔵 Blue State
Notable clean tech investments:
⚡️According to the Clean Investment Monitor, the WA-04 has seen more than $871 million in actual clean tech manufacturing, utility, and industrial capex spending since the IRA was passed in 2022. But an additional $4.5 billion has yet to have been spent on those initiated projects. This investment has resulted in 4 new facilities out of a total of 15 announced facilities in the district.
The WA-04 is home to several major utility scale clean energy projects including:
☀️Hecate Energy has planned a solar project capable of delivering up to one gigawatt of power over an 8,000-acre area of the Hanford site within the WA-04.
💦 The central Washington region encompassed by the WA-08 is also critical for hydropower and home to some of the country’s most important dams and new pumped storage projects are planned.
🔋Group 14 was awarded $100 million by the DOE’s Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains (MESC) to expand its $600 million silicon battery materials manufacturing capacity in Woodinville, in the WA-04. We covered this MESC round of battery grants in our October issue.
☢️ Nuclear fuel supply chain companies in the WA-04 have received more than $90 million in IRA 48C allocated advanced manufacturing tax credits, as covered in our February issue
National Lab Connection: The WA-04 is home to the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) which employs nearly 6,500 people and contributes nearly $2 billion to the local economy on an annual budget of $1.64 billion from the DOE.
The WA-04 is also home to the Hanford site, a former Manhattan Project and Cold War nuclear production site that employs roughly 13,000 people and has an annual budget of $3.05 billion to clean up the waste from those decades of serving its national security missions. The nuclear, engineering, and other technical expertise developed at PNNL and Hanford attract nuclear and other advanced energy companies to the region. French nuclear fuel producer Framatome has sited its U.S. manufacturing facility in Richland in the WA-04.
Previous Public Support for the IRA: Rep. Newhouse testified on behalf of the IRA, particularly for the auto sector, before the Ways and Means Committee in January. We analyzed his remarks in our February edition.
🔑Key Committees and Caucuses: Rep. Newhouse is a member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development and on the Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party. He is also the Chairman of the Congressional Western Caucus, and a member of the Congressional Biomass Caucus and Fusion Energy Caucus.
Most Impactful IRA Tax Credits for Rep. Newhouse’s Constituents:
48E Clean Electricity Investment Tax Credit
Representative Ryan Mackenzie: Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District
⚖️ Swing State
⚖️ Swing District
Notable clean tech investments:
🚛 DOE-MESC awarded $208 million of Inflation Reduction Act funding to Volvo Technology of America to reequip and upgrade three facilities, including one in the PA-07) to produce more battery electric and hydrogen fuel cell trucks under the Volvo and Mack Trucks brands. The DOE funding going to the PA-07 is expected to be matched by $138 million capital investment from Volvo. Volvo and Mack Trucks have also announced that they are using renewable biofuel diesel to move new trucks off the production line in an effort to meet their ambitious sustainability goals.
☢️ The Limerick Nuclear Power Plant, capable of generating 2.3 GW is within commuting distance of the PA-07.
🏢 Corporate Headquarters: Allentown in the PA-07 is home to Air Products, a major industrial gas company and producer of clean hydrogen.
Most Impactful IRA Tax Credits for Rep. Mackenzie’s Constituents:
Representative Rob Bresnahan: Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District
⚖️ Swing State
⚖️ Swing District
Notable clean tech investments:
☢️ The 2.2 GW Susquehanna Nuclear Power Plant is located within minutes of the PA-08 and is one of the largest employers in the county.
Most Impactful IRA Tax Credits for Rep. Mackenzie’s Constituents:
Government Financing Note: Given the federal government funding freeze, we’ve suspended our monthly clean tech financing report. We’re not covering reissued funding opportunities since we posted the originals in previous issues. We’ll pick the funding report back up in the near future as the government returns to a normal cadence and issues new funding opportunities.
