Biden calls IRA ‘one of the most significant laws’ ever as he promotes climate investments

Signed a year ago by the president, the IRA is aimed at boosting clean energy
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and U.S. manufacturing and lowering healthcare
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costs. Biden has been talking up the law as he seeks re-election, most recently reminding an audience in Milwaukee on Tuesday that no Republicans voted for it.

Polling shows that most people know little about the IRA. Last week, Biden said he wished the law had another name, “because it has less to do with reducing inflation than it does to do with dealing with providing for alternatives that generate economic growth.”

Living With Climate Change: Biden’s IRA is loaded with tax-saving energy and climate moves. Who would guess it from the name?

Biden said in his speech that the law is expected to create 1.5 million more jobs over the next decade, while helping to cut U.S. carbon emissions.

As MarketWatch’s Rachel Koning Beals reports, the IRA’s passage, along with an infrastructure bill that funded the expansion of the electric-vehicle-charging network, has earned Biden a reputation as a “climate president” on the global stage.

Republicans, meanwhile, are planning to slash the IRA’s spending on environmental initiatives if they win a majority in next year’s elections. The GOP is focusing instead on greater U.S. energy independence in the oil
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and natural-gas
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sectors, and on private-sector growth for renewables like wind and solar.

Now read: Climate winners and losers as the Inflation Reduction Act hits 1-year anniversary

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