Twenty-six House Republicans are urging House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., to preserve tax credits for nuclear energy development in the reconciliation bill.
In a letter sent to Smith on Thursday, the Republicans, led by Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., are asking that the credits — codified by Democrats in their 2022 Inflation Reduction Act — be spared as House leaders continue to look for $1.5 trillion in offsets in federal funding cuts to pay for President Donald Trump’s domestic policy agenda.
The letter pits the group against 38 of their Republican colleagues, many of them from the conservative House Freedom Caucus, who also sent a letter to Smith on Thursday, urging that every facet of the IRA, what they call the “green new scam” of Democrats, be scrapped, Politico reported.
The Newhouse-led Republicans, however, cited three sections that should be preserved, having proved to be “essential in maintaining and expanding our nuclear power capacity,” they wrote.
“The incentives include technology-neutral clean electricity tax credits that reward zero-emitting sources, along with the production tax credit for nuclear energy,” according to Politico.
“These incentives are already delivering results by preserving the existing nuclear fleet, unlocking billions in private investment, and signaling that the United States is serious about establishing itself as the global leader in nuclear energy at an affordable cost to customers,” read the letter, which included 17 GOP signatures that weren’t on the first letter in March appealing for some of the IRA credits, according to Politico.
“[W]e urge you to maintain federal investment in the existing nuclear energy fleet while accelerating deployment of the next generation of nuclear power technologies,” they added in Thursday’s letter.
The other letter, spearheaded by Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said that the Democrats’ climate law needs to be fully “or virtually fully” repealed, Politico reported.
“How do we retain some of these credits and not operate in hypocrisy? The long-standing Republican position has been to allow the market to determine energy production. If every faction continues to defend their favored subsidies, we risk preserving the entire IRA because no clearly defined principle will dictate what is kept and what is culled,” the Roy-led letter read.
The competing letters come as Smith and the committee’s tax writers finalize their portion of the reconciliation bill.
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