The IRA amounts to a slim version of the Build Back Better proposal and includes troubling sweetener provisions for fossil fuels that will extend risks and harms for frontline communities. These provisions split climate advocate support for the IRA to a noticeable degree. The pressure on President Biden to declare an emergency and use his maximum institutional powers as a counterweight is expected to ramp up.
Washington, D.C.—On August 7th, Pablo DeJesús, Executive Director, Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice joined social justice advocates engaged in health, tax, and climate policy to lift up the Senate's work of the weekend.
On Saturday, August 6th, Vice President Harris cast a tie-breaking vote in the affirmative for the motion to proceed, a step needed to begin vote-a-rama, where amendments to the IRA would be offered. Despite several late-night amendment proposals, the Senate passed a clean IRA without anti-immigrant provisions on Sunday. Next, the House will consider the measure.
“We successfully helped defend this legislation, and we did so without sacrificing our immigrant friends, neighbors, and family members. I'm proud of UUSJ's part in that," said Pablo DeJesús.
"The Inflation Reduction Act provides needed compassion and relief in the healthcare space, by lowering prescription drug costs. It even requires the U.S. Secretary of Health to negotiate drug prices for people on Medicare, while extending helpful Affordable Care Act subsidies."
"And it's a major first step toward tax fairness. It requires both billion-dollar corporations and the wealthiest individuals to pay taxes. Until now, large corporate actors have paid an average effective tax rate of just 1.1% and the richest 1% of Americans have evaded paying 160 billion in taxes each year.
"Finally, this is the first legislation in three decades to provide substantive funding allocations by Congress to help our nation face the realities of the climate crisis. By some accounts, the $370 billion for green projects is the single biggest U.S. investment for action on climate change.
"These are all things that matter to Unitarian Universalists as we manifest our commitments to economic justice, environment and climate justice, and immigration justice. They address interlocking systemic inequity and dysfunction, we are called by our faith to confront and remedy," said Pablo DeJesús.
In achieving a compromise, first with Senator Manchin (D-WV) and then Senator Sinema (D-AZ), the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022 has troubling deficiencies. Fair taxation advocates will need to persuade that narrowing loopholes is the minimum required. Climate advocates will have to monitor and refute leasing issues.
Senator Sinema pledged her vote of support for IRA once the carried interest tax provision was stripped out. A statement on the matter signals willingness to collaborate with Senator Warner (D-VA) to seek a better balance under separate efforts. The move is understood to protect the caucus from opposition criticism that the IRA taxes U.S. manufacturing.
More disturbing, the approach by Senator Manchin to the deal requires the Interior Department to offer at least 2 million acres of public lands and 60 million acres of offshore waters for oil and gas leasing each year for a decade as a prerequisite to installing any new solar or wind energy. That sweetener links clean green energy to dirty oil and gas. The IRA would also require offering minimum lease terms for 10 years, eyeing the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska. That translates to more than 600 million acres of offshore leasing — four times the size of the entire Gulf of Mexico outer continental shelf.
DeJesús added: "We need more and bigger to confront the global and systemic nature of the climate crisis than what has been offered in the IRA. UUSJ has been supportive of the green elements in Build Back Better, pushing on those throughout its course, so we were gratified to see some emerge here. But we need the Federal government to lead the way for the private sector and states. The U.S. has a moral obligation to do so, being responsible for a huge share of emissions causing the crisis."
"More specifically, I am deeply disturbed by Senator Manchin's maneuver to link oil and gas development on federal lands to investments in solar and wind. With these 10-year leasing provisions, we have some profound challenges to address with our advocacy for a just transition to a future free of fossil fuels."
"It is clear, that the framework emerging with this legislation continues a disturbing tradition of harming disenfranchised communities and placing the burden of resistance on them as frontline communities. These are the very impacted folks UUSJ's commitment to inclusionary justice seeks to support with our principled concern and solidarity. Senator Manchin has just placed lots of regular folks at further risk."
"It is no wonder that youth and coastal communities feel ignored in their alarm at a nightmarish climate in the future. It is no surprise that indigenous and BIPOC communities feel abandoned to illness, death, and ecological devastation. We can hear poor and-low income Americans express feeling sacrificed to the fossil fuel industry--if we listen."
"For these reasons, we are not enthusiastic about the bill or the role Senator Manchin has played, yet we know that it is needed. And it means our solidarity and allyship with impacted communities is now even more urgent."
