House Republicans could be leaving hundreds of billions of dollars in potential savings on the table as the GOP conference works to finish a budget deal to extend expiring tax cuts and cut spending, according to one conservative House lawmaker.
Republican Oklahoma Rep. Josh Brecheen, a member of the House Freedom Caucus who sits on the House Budget Committee, said House Republicans should incorporate a full repeal of former President Joe Biden’s misnamed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) into a budget reconciliation package, in an interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation. A full repeal would fulfill President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to roll back the law and offset the cost of other spending priorities in the budget reconciliation package, according to Brecheen.
However, Brecheen said that current discussions in the House as of Thursday were set at repealing roughly $200 billion of the IRA’s tax credits, which would preserve around $600 billion of the IRA’s green energy subsidies.
A complete repeal of the IRA’s green energy tax credits could allow for up to $796 billion in 10-year savings, according to a House Ways and Means Committee document outlining more than $5 trillion in potential spending cuts first obtained by POLITICO.
Biden signed the IRA into law in August 2022 after the green energy law passed Congress through the budget reconciliation process with no Republican votes. The law has been a frequent target of Republican lawmakers’ ire for distorting energy markets, doling out taxpayer dollars to left-wing activist groups and its skyrocketing costs.
“It was brought in by reconciliation by the Democrats,” Brecheen told the DCNF. “If we don’t do it now [with] a 50-vote threshold for the Senate, it will not get done.”
“Those [leftover subsidies] matter if we’re going to get to energy dominance,” Brecheen added.
But a full repeal of the IRA has many opponents, including solar, wind and large oil companies who are tapping the IRA’s billions of dollars in tax credits for green energy and low-carbon technology projects across the country.
Green energy companies notably lobbied members of Congress Wednesday to preserve tax credits from being completely rescinded or capped in a budget deal.
Completely razing the IRA’s tax credits would also likely face resistance from some Republican lawmakers, which is a clear frustration to GOP members like Brecheen who view a full repeal as essential to ending taxpayers subsidizing uneconomical green energy sources and unwinding wasteful spending.
“Even within the Republican conference, we’re talking about not fully getting rid of taxpayer subsidized wind and solar energy,” Brecheen told the DCNF Thursday. “You’re telling me that just because 18 members of our conference signed a letter saying we’ve got some concerns about doing a full repeal that we shouldn’t go back to them in gentleness and remind them ‘hey, wait a minute: the mandate.’”
Brecheen was referencing a letter from 18 House Republicans sent to Speaker Mike Johnson in August 2024 advocating against a full repeal of Biden’s $1 trillion-plus green energy law. Fourteen members who wrote the letter returned to the House for the 119th Congress and one was elected to the Senate.
The Oklahoma Republican noted that repealing the IRA through budget reconciliation would be fulfilling one of Trump’s campaign promises.
Trump repeatedly vowed to repeal Biden’s $1.2 trillion climate law and rescind all unspent funds on the campaign trail, dubbing the IRA the “Green New Scam” in a speech at the New York Economic Club in September 2024.
“Do we really need it [green energy tax credits] when we talk about energy dominance,” Brecheen questioned. “We need to return to commonsense, reliable, affordable energy.”
“Stop giving wind and solar preferential treatment,” Brecheen continued. “We’re taking away from the many to give to the few.”
House and Senate Republicans are at odds with how to pass Trump’s sweeping legislative agenda through the budget reconciliation process. The Senate prefers a two-bill approach that would allow Republicans to score early wins on border, energy and defense priorities and save extending expiring tax cuts for later in the year. House Republicans, with much tighter margins, favor a one-bill approach that combines all of Trump’s tax and spending priorities into “one, big beautiful bill.”
While the House works through last minute disagreements to finalize a budget resolution — the first major step of the reconciliation process — the Senate pushed ahead to unveil a resolution of their own Friday afternoon, according to a press release put out by Senate Budget Committee chairman Lindsey Graham.
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