President Joe Biden said during a Tuesday speech in New Mexico that the Inflation Reduction Act actually has nothing to do with inflation.
Biden signed the roughly $750 billion legislation in Aug. 2022, allocating approximately $370 billion to combat climate change. While the bill was initially touted as a means of reducing record-high inflation, Biden admitted Thursday that the goal was to promote his climate change policies.
“We also decided that my – one of my passions since I’ve been in – since the 80s was the environment,” he said. “Well, we’ve put ourselves in a position where we passed the most comprehensive environmental piece of – it’s called the ‘Inflation Reduction Act.’ It’s within that. It has nothing to do with inflation: it has to do with the [inaudible] $4 – $600 – excuse me, $368 billion, the single largest investment in climate change anywhere in the world – anywh – no one has ever, ever spent that. And it’s beginning to take hold.”
WASHINGTON, DC – AUGUST 07: U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during an East Room event at the White House on August 7, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
The legislation includes tax rebates and credits to lower energy costs for families while also directing funds to domestic manufacturers of wind turbines, solar panels, batteries and other clean energy technologies. (RELATED: Al Gore Tells World That Inflation Reduction Act Is Really A Climate Change Act)
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan described it in Aug. 2022 as the “most aggressive action in tackling the climate crisis” the U.S. has ever seen. The following month, the Environmental Defense Fund called the legislation the “biggest package of climate investments” in the nation’s history and noted its own efforts to lobby for the passage.
A Penn Wharton Budget Model analysis found the legislation would only cut deficits by $248 billion and fail to have any measurable effect on inflation.