President Joe Biden is hitting the campaign trail — for the Inflation Reduction Act.
The Biden administration’s education push around the landmark climate law’s investments is in full force this week. They invited reporters on two press calls yesterday to talk about developments in clean energy, and on Thursday, Biden is visiting Westby, Wisconsin, to announce more than $7 billion for solar, wind, transmission and other electrification projects in rural areas across 23 states.
While the White House announces new federal funding nearly every week — and often more than that — Biden himself is rarely involved in those announcements.
His trip Thursday is just one of several visits to swing states this week, including Michigan and Pennsylvania, each of them around the president speaking with local communities about the impact of the IRA.
Biden will be accompanied by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who seemed to warn Republicans this week that attempts to tighten or limit the climate law would harm the rural communities many Republicans represent.
“I’m really deeply concerned about that because you can see … the opportunity over the course of the next several years to make investments in rural job growth and rural economic opportunity,” he said about any efforts to “take some resources away from the Inflation Reduction Act.”
The longevity of the IRA has come under particular focus in recent weeks, as it was the subject of a recent Donald Trump presidential campaign event and as Republicans hone in on a message around energy prices.
Trump targeted Democrats’ efforts to spur the transition away from fossil fuels to clean energy, attacking them for spiking electricity costs and falsely accusing Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris of shutting down American energy infrastructure.
“Most Americans are unaware that Harris and Biden have been shutting down entire swaths of our energy and electricity infrastructure without replacing it or even talking about it, leading to spiking electrical prices and energy prices and also an energy shortfall like we’ve never had before,” Trump said last week at a Michigan rally.
The Biden administration has acknowledged that gaps in the transition to renewable power are leading to price increases, and they are calling for faster and more extensive investment in transmission infrastructure and expanding renewable energy sources.
The IRA will be a serious subject of debate in the new year if Democrats don’t gain control of Congress. House Speaker Mike Johnson has floated the idea of cutting back aspects of the policy in exchange for extending tax cuts Trump signed into law in 2017.
Though that won’t necessarily be an easy ask of all Republicans: Already a group of House Republicans, who initially opposed the IRA, have called on Johnson to protect the energy tax credits within the law because of the investment spurred in their districts.
Ultimately, for Biden, this campaign is also a matter of legacy. He is now racing to cement his place as the leader who catalyzed the nation’s clean energy transition — and pushed the country toward an industrial policy that reinvents American manufacturing. And so far, the polling shows that most Americans just don’t see him that way.
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Anna Kramer is a reporter at NOTUS.