House Budget Committee Wrangles with Reconciliation Bill Disconnected from Reality

Five Republican members of the House Budget Committee voted against the House Reconciliation bill today on the grounds that the budget cuts it imposed were not severe enough. The move means House leadership will need to cobble together a new version of a bill that already cut critical federal programs too deeply, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). Like many House members, UCS also is concerned about the bill’s wholesale roll back of federal climate incentives that are driving a clean energy boom.

“This bill will raise costs for consumers and folks in need, while destroying American innovation and lowering taxes for the already super rich,” said David Watkins, director of government affairs for the Climate and Energy Program at UCS. “Not only is this bill shockingly cruel in the depth of cuts it would impose, it shows the majority and president are totally cut off from reality. In their fantasy world, people deserve to fall through the massive holes cut in the U.S. social safety net, consumers should pay more for energy and transportation to support the oil and gas industries, and billionaires deserve lower taxes. In addition, Congress went out of its way to create a loophole by which the administration can target nonprofits the president doesn’t like without due process—stunning and shameful.”

Below is information about the sections of the bill UCS analysts are following.

Energy sections of the bill, including those that would:

o Undermining the clean electricity tax credits threatens to send electricity prices soaring, severely slowing the deployment of the lowest-cost sources of electricity generation right as demand is expected to surge.

o Shifting eligibility to “placed in service” would further accelerate the credit phaseout and threaten to fully derail future projects.

Clean transportation sections of the bill, including those that would:

o While drivers can save hundreds of dollars a year in reduced fuel and maintenance costs by switching to electric, the upfront cost of electric cars and trucks can be a hurdle, which is why the tax credits were targeted to increase everyone’s accessibility to EVs.

o Lack of access to charging stations is cited as one of the most common barriers for drivers interested in switching to electric. Repealing this credit would only benefits the oil industry, at the expense of suppliers manufacturing the charging infrastructure, union workers installing and maintaining the chargers, and drivers and fleet operators looking to save money and clean the air by switching to electric.

o Eliminating the global warming pollution rules would increase fuel and maintenance costs for new vehicles by $6,000 over the life of the vehicles; rolling back the commonsense CAFE standards would increase fuel costs by $23 billion through 2050.

o The vehicles, vessels, and equipment that move freight create hot spots of some of the worst air quality in the country and contribute significantly to climate change. There is no safe level of soot to breathe, and despite making up a small fraction of vehicles on the road, heavy duty vehicles are disproportionately responsible for global warming emissions, soot and smog-forming pollution.

SNAP and ag sections of the bill, including the plan to:

Defense sections of the bill that would:

Effectively repeal the clean electricity tax credits through nearly immediate phaseout, unworkable supply chain restrictions, and limited access to transferability, which would slow the vital buildout of new sources of electricity generation and undermine the market signal to increase domestic manufacturing.

Cut targeted investments in critical grid infrastructure, including transmission, intended to alleviate the challenges of rapidly rising electricity demand and increase the reliability and resilience of the electricity system.

Cut numerous programs intended to help people, communities and companies transition to cleaner and more efficient ways of using energy.

Repeal tax credits that help people make their homes more energy efficient, which would force people to pay more to heat and cool their homes.

Restrict access to, and shorten the timeframe of, the advanced manufacturing credits, which would slow the nation’s pivot to forward-looking investments in the clean economy.

Repeal the clean hydrogen production tax credit, which would functionally tip the scales in favor of fossil-based hydrogen production given the continuation of the 45Q carbon capture credit.

Create numerous attempted shortcuts and bailouts for fossil fuel interests, including pay-to-play provisions.

Defund and delay implementation of a program that incentivizes the cleanup of methane pollution from oil and gas systems.

Functionally repeal clean vehicle tax credits, which would make it harder for drivers and fleets to switch to electric vehicles (EVs).

Repeal clean vehicle infrastructure tax credits, which would make it harder for drivers and businesses to invest in electric vehicle charging infrastructure in the locations that need it the most: rural and underserved areas.

Cut fuel efficiency (CAFE) and pollution standards for cars and trucks, attacking one of the largest federal actions ever taken on climate change and directly impacting people’s wallets.

Claw back congressionally approved funds for the Clean Heavy Duty Program and Clean Ports Program (CPP), which would delay the replacement of heavy-duty vehicles, such as school buses and vocational vehicles, with zero-emission models and make it harder for U.S. ports to invest in zero-emission equipment.

Increase farm bill spending by roughly $60 billion by slashing the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which helps millions of low-income Americans, both rural and urban, to put food on their tables. In doing so, the bill abandons the systems approach we need to fix the nation’s food and farm system.

Spend $25 billion on the development of a hugely expensive, unrealistic, and counterproductive homeland missile defense system called Golden Dome, which includes a system of space-based weapons that would try to destroy nuclear-armed missiles as they launch. UCS analysis has shown that such systems are very expensive, technically challenging to build, and readily defeated as well as globally destabilizing and likely to lead to less security, not more.

Increase spending on the troubled, behind-schedule and very over-budget Sentinel land-based ballistic missile program, which UCS recommends cancelling, given it is expensive, dangerous and unnecessary.

This post was originally published on Common Dreams.