The Schumer-Manchin bill that dropped last week ironically dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 will do nothing to reduce inflation but will unleash the largest industrialization of U.S. open lands not seen since the damming of our western rivers, according to Lisa Linowes, energy policy expert and Executive Director of the Wind Action Group.
In her detailed analysis of the Schumer-Manchin Bill, Ms. Linowes cites reports that the legislation’s impact on inflation “will be statistically indistinguishable from zero through 2031” yet can disproportionally increase taxes on low- and moderate-income taxpayers. And its provisions will raise energy costs that will have a ripple effect through the entire economy.
On the spending side, the bill offers a huge windfall for wind and solar industrialization projects, erasing the 2016 phase-out of the wind production tax credit (PTC), increasing solar’s investment tax credit (ITC), and making the tax credits permanent. It introduces a new “Clean Electricity” program that purports to be “tech neutral” but in fact is covertly designed to benefit wind and solar industries alone. Whether or not these energy sources can stand up on their own market merits without subsidies, the real benefactors are fat-cat Wall Street investors and mega corporations looking for tax deductions to offset, in part, the Schumer-Manchin tax increases.
Ms. Linowes goes on to say, “For those less concerned with cost and more concerned with saving the planet, think again,” the legislation will lead to the industrialization of our lands that will spread across 30 million acres (50,000 sq. mi.), a land mass equal to the States of Maryland, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Delaware combined! This is not being unduly alarmist, she gives the numbers that reflect the facts of the bill. “Schumer-Manchin will make it impossible to stop,” she explains.
The Senate must reject Schumer-Manchin lest we “irreparably damage our open spaces, precious wildlife, and teetering economy with repercussions on the U.S. that will last for generations.”