Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., on Wednesday railed against the Biden administration’s efforts to “implement the IRA as a radical climate agenda instead of implementing the IRA that was passed into law," and vowed to "push back on those who seek to undermine this significant legislation for their respective political agenda."
“This country needs leadership, and my hope is that elected leaders in both parties and in the White House put down their political swords, stop playing to the ideological extremes and focus on the very goal of this legislation — to help our hard working families and build a better, stronger and more secure nation for this generation and the next,” Manchin, who helped write the bill and usher it through Congress, said in a lengthy statement.
The law is now at the core of Biden’s pitch to voters going into the 2024 presidential campaign. But with inflation less of a pressing concern, the president is putting more emphasis on provisions of the law aimed at combating climate change, creating jobs, and lowering people’s health care bills.
While the law may not have crimped inflation over the past year, it could well do more in that regard going forward, since it is just now starting to be implemented. Along with the CHIPS Act, there are also signs that the Inflation Reduction Act helped stimulate roughly $500 billion in corporate announcements to invest in new factories. This has potentially helped strengthen the job market despite efforts to bring down the inflation many economists believed would pull the United States into a recession. That recession — as Biden predicted — has not materialized.
Manchin lauded certain parts of the bill.
“With respect to energy security, and contrary to those in the Biden administration who seek to undermine this goal, this law re-established an all-of-the-above energy policy and empowered the growth of fossil fuels and renewables,” he said.
“If implemented as designed the IRA will ensure that all Americans have more reliable and more affordable power for years to come.”
“Make no mistake, the IRA is exactly the kind of legislation that in normal political times both political parties would proudly embrace because it is about putting the interests of Americans and West Virginians first,” Manchin continued. “Going forward I will push back on those who seek to undermine this significant legislation for their respective political agenda, and that begins with my unrelenting fight against the Biden Administration’s efforts to implement the IRA as a radical climate agenda instead of implementing the IRA that was passed into law.”