Press Release: 2025-01-17

AG Campbell Calls On Congress To Preserve Inflation Reduction Act

 

17 Attorneys General Join Comment Letter Highlighting Economic, Energy, and Environmental Benefits of IRA and Advocating to Protect It in Upcoming Budget Negotiations 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

1/16/2025

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Sydney Heiberger, Press Secretary

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Call Sydney Heiberger, Press Secretary at (617) 727-2543

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Email Sydney Heiberger, Press Secretary at Sydney.Heiberger@mass.gov

BOSTON — Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell is leading a coalition of 17 attorneys general in urging Congress to safeguard the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), landmark legislation that provides historic investments in towns and cities across the nation. Today, the coalition sent a letter to congressional leaders emphasizing the important benefits the IRA brings to the nation’s economy, energy resources, and infrastructure.

Congress came together to pass the IRA in 2022, and since then, the law has delivered significant benefits nationwide through tax credits, incentives, and grant programs. The law strengthens domestic energy security, reduces energy costs, diversifies our domestic energy resources, rebuilds our domestic manufacturing economy, bolsters and modernizes critical infrastructure, and creates well-paying jobs while simultaneously reducing harmful pollution.

“The promise of the Inflation Reduction Act is extraordinary. It supports an equitable transition to a clean-energy economy while driving historic reinvestments in the jobs and infrastructure on which our communities depend,” said AG Campbell. “I am proud to lead this coalition to urge Congress to recognize the significance of this law to all of our communities.”

As noted in the coalition’s letter, the IRA has brought billions of dollars of private funding to communities that have long prided themselves on energy production and manufacturing. Estimates suggest that in the first two years of the IRA’s tax credits, private investments in clean energy, transportation, and infrastructure have exceeded public investment five- to six-fold. For example, IRA tax incentives have spurred a rebirth in Michigan’s automaking industry, with more than 18,000 new jobs announced in the electric vehicle industry in the state. Additionally, a $4 billion factory near Atlanta, Georgia, will create around 3,500 jobs and a $3.5 billion battery manufacturing plant outside Charleston, South Carolina, will create 1,500 jobs. Here in the Commonwealth, among other things, the IRA has spurred the development of a new clean hydrogen gigafactory in Devens and a new battery technology research and development center in Marlborough. Both of these projects are already providing new, well-paying jobs in the clean energy economy to Massachusetts residents. The IRA spurred these projects, and its continued existence will sustain them.

Beyond tax provisions, towns and cities across the country are using IRA grants to repair crumbling infrastructure. For instance, the EPA Clean Communities Investment Accelerator Grant of $500 million has already allowed Appalachian Community Capital to create a Green Bank for Rural America, leveraging private capital to ultimately finance an estimated $1.6 billion into 2,000 new energy projects and creating 13,000 jobs in Appalachia and rural communities nationwide.

But, as the coalition explains in their letter, the IRA’s work is not done. Many of the law’s important benefits will accrue in future years, and the programs all work together. Repealing any one of the law’s incentives would undermine domestic energy security, infrastructure development, and economic progress. The coalition thus urges Congress to preserve the legislation in its entirety in its upcoming budget negotiations. 

Joining AG Campbell in signing the letter are the attorneys general from California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin.