20 April 2023 Ways & Means holds Green Energy hearing as debt limit bill released The April 19 House Ways and Means Committee "Hearing on the U.S. Tax Code Subsidizing Green Corporate Handouts and the Chinese Communist Party" featured a relitigating of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) enacted in 2022. Republicans asserted that the IRA green energy provisions incentivize the use of materials derived from other nations and that, based on calculations from analysts, the IRA will cost more than $1 trillion, far more than projected by the government at the time of its enactment. Democrats contended that the IRA's energy credits would push the US toward a green energy future while protecting workers with prevailing wage and apprenticeship requirements and sought to level the GOP's same criticisms of the IRA toward the 2017 TCJA, a signature Republican law. In an opening statement, Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) said, "Solar cells manufactured in China and assembled into panels in the U.S. will qualify for these special interest tax breaks — even if they are implicated in human rights abuses. The world's largest solar manufacturer is a Chinese company that just had its solar shipments confiscated at the border last fall over forced labor concerns. They are now planning to partner with a business in Ohio to utilize these very credits to build a facility here in the United States. Are these the type of businesses we should be rewarding?" Materials from the hearing are available here. The Limit, Save, and Grow Act of 2023 is available here.
Document ID: 2023-0739 | |||||
