WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is warning voters in the pivotal state of North Carolina that they could lose their jobs if Republicans weaken a key Biden administration law that boosts investment in manufacturing and clean energy.
Yellen says Republican-dominated states like North Carolina benefit enormously from tax breaks under the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 and that repealing them would be a “historic mistake,” according to a draft of a speech she will deliver Thursday at a community college in Raleigh. The Treasury Department released the remarks ahead of the speech.
North Carolina has emerged as a key battleground this election cycle between the former Republican president Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harriswhere Trump ultimately won the 2020 presidential election in North Carolina.
Yellen said Treasury Department data showed that 90,000 North Carolina households claimed more than $100 million in clean energy credits and $60 million in energy efficiency credits.
“Rolling back could raise costs for working families at a time when it’s imperative that we continue to take action to lower prices,” Yellen said in her speech. “It could jeopardize the significant investments in manufacturing that we’re seeing here and across the country, and the jobs that come with them, many of which don’t require a college degree. And it could give a leg up to China and other countries that are also investing to compete in these critical industries.”
“As we see clearly here in North Carolina, this would be a historic mistake,” she said.
Some Republicans have called on their leaders to reconsider eliminating IRA tax breaks on energy.
A group of 18 Republicans in the House of Representatives in August called on House Speaker Mike Johnson to reconsider the efforts to eliminate them.
“Prematurely repealing energy tax credits, particularly those used to justify investments that have already begun, would undermine private investment and halt development that is already underway,” the letter reads. “A complete repeal would create a worst-case scenario in which we would have spent billions of tax dollars and gotten virtually nothing back.”
But Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, tweeted on social media site X that the lawmakers who signed the letter want to keep the so-called “green” handouts to the Democrats’ corporate cronies.
“The GOP must ignore the K-Street lobbyists and refuse to fund the climate corporate cronyism that is destroying our country,” he said.
The Republican arguments against the Inflation Reduction Act are based on the argument that the spending is wasteful and benefits China.
Data released in August by the IRS showed that 3.4 million U.S. households applied for $8.4 billion in clean energy and home energy efficiency tax credits in 2023, primarily for solar panels and battery storage.