Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned voters in the key battleground state of North Carolina that jobs could be lost if Republicans weaken the Biden administration’s signature legislation to encourage investment in manufacturing and clean energy.
Yellen said Republican-led states like North Carolina benefit greatly from tax incentives under the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 and eliminating them would be a “historic mistake,” according to a draft of a speech she will deliver Thursday at a community college in Raleigh. The Treasury Department released the transcript ahead of her speech.
North Carolina has a Republican former president in this election cycle. Donald Trump And the Democratic Vice President Kamala HarrisThis is the state that President Trump won in North Carolina in the 2020 presidential election.
Yellen said 90,000 North Carolinian households have applied for more than $100 million in residential clean energy credits and $60 million in energy efficiency credits, according to Treasury data.
“Pushing back on this could increase costs for working families at a time when we need to continue to take steps to keep prices down,” Yellen said in her speech. “That, along with the significant investment in manufacturing that we’re seeing here and across the country, could jeopardize jobs that, in many cases, don’t require a college degree. And that could work to the advantage of other countries that are investing to compete in critical industries, like China.”
“As we saw clearly in North Carolina, this would be a historic mistake,” she said.
Some Republicans have called on leaders to reconsider eliminating the IRA energy tax incentive.
A group of 18 House Republicans in August He urged House Speaker Mike Johnson to reconsider the effort. I’m trying to remove this.
“Especially prematurely eliminating the energy tax credit, which has been used to justify investments already underway, would undermine private investment and halt development already underway,” the letter said. “A complete repeal would result in a worst-case scenario where taxpayers would spend billions of dollars for next to nothing.”
But Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy Tweeted on social media site X The lawmakers who signed the letter said they wanted to “continue to provide ‘green’ support to the Democratic Party’s corporate friends.”
“Republicans must ignore the K-Street lobbyists and refuse to fund the corporate climate cronies who are destroying our country,” he said.
Republicans oppose the inflation-control bill because they argue the spending is wasteful and benefits China.
According to IRS data released in August, 3.4 million U.S. households claimed $8.4 billion in residential clean energy and home energy efficiency tax credits in 2023, most of which went to solar panels and battery storage.
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