Democrats’ Clean-Energy Tax Credits Are Popular – and Expensive

Bracewell’s Liam Donovan told The Washington Post’s “The Climate 202” that even if Republicans win full control of Washington in the 2024 election, they won’t necessarily seek to scrap all clean-energy tax credits, especially as the money keeps flowing into red states and districts.

“Just as a matter of good tax policy, you don’t want to go after things people have made long-term investments in,” said Donovan. “People are sinking billions and billions of dollars into clean-energy projects across the map based on long-term certainty.”

The clean-energy tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act, which President Biden signed last August, were initially projected to cost $270 billion over the next decade. But recently, the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation released a “very preliminary” new score of the tax credits, putting the cost at $663 billion.