Brandon Gill Presses Experts About The ‘Importance Of Repealing IRA Green Energy Subsidies’

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During a House Oversight Committee hearing before the congressional recess, Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX) questioned experts about the consequences of green energy subsidies and the Inflation Reduction Act.

Transcript

00:00Thank you. And I now recognize myself for five minutes. And thank you to the witnesses

00:07for taking the time. We really, really sincerely appreciate it. Mr. Lieberman, the one big

00:13beautiful bill phases out the IRA and its harmful green energy subsidies. While phasing

00:21these subsidies out, I think is a great start. I think ideally we'd repeal these immediately.

00:27We ran on repealing the Green New Deal. Every single Republican ran on repealing the Green

00:33New Deal. I think it's about time that we actually execute on that promise. Can you

00:37elaborate on the importance of repealing IRA green energy subsidies?

00:43Yes. The same army of lobbyists that gave us the Inflation Reduction Act will be back whenever

00:49those phase-out deadlines come, asking for extensions. I was on the Hill for several

00:56years. I had dozens and dozens of meetings with lobbyists for subsidized alternative energy

01:01companies, always asking for more, raising the caps, extending the deadlines. It never

01:07happened that one of them came to me and said, we're not an infant industry anymore. You can

01:11end the subsidies. There's always a demand for more. And it's very tough to stop these

01:17things. As you know full well, there's so many must-pass bills that these things can be slipped

01:22into every year. So phasing them out is really not phasing them out. So repeal would be far

01:28and away the best option.

01:29Yep. Government handouts are like a drug. Once you give them out, it's very, very hard

01:34to pull them back. And we've seen the army of K Street descending upon Washington to keep

01:41these handouts in place. Could you just help us understand a little bit more about how much

01:45we might be able to save by repealing the Green New Deal?

01:49Well, I think Dr. McBride has the numbers a little bit better than me, but it's certainly

01:53well into the hundreds of billions of dollars in terms of reduced tax credits and other subsidies.

02:06And then there's the additional effects. So many of the favored energy sources and technologies

02:13have problems of their own that will impose costs. So best to stop these bad ideas in the bud.

02:22Right. Could you walk us through how some of these subsidies have distorted the energy market?

02:27Well, for example, when wind and solar are very heavily subsidized, that's what's going to be built.

02:35And that's fine on a sunny day, on a day where the wind is blowing at an ideal speed. But there will

02:44be those times where you need backup power. But there's no incentive really for that backup power.

02:49Who wants to spend on a natural gas plant that has to sit idle and yield to wind and solar and only

02:56turn on and be able to sell energy for those moments where a blackout needs to be avoided.

03:03It's not a winning economic business model. And that's, I think, something that's true throughout the

03:09Inflation Reduction Act. It doesn't ban gasoline-powered vehicles. It doesn't ban natural gas facilities.

03:15But it so heavily subsidizes the alternatives that it greatly discourages these things. And as you say,

03:22it distorts the markets. Have you seen similar dynamics where Washington began spending money

03:28or doling taxpayer dollars out to different private entities or special interests? And then

03:33once we tried to pull them back, you saw that same dynamic of special interest lobbying Washington

03:39to keep their handouts in place? Well, you see it in the Inflation Reduction Act itself. Many of

03:44the tax credits were ones that in some cases began in the 1990s and have been extended many,

03:51many times. So there's a long history of these tax credits. Once they're established and once

03:57there's a concentrated group of companies that benefit from them, they're going to lobby hard

04:03to keep them. So, yeah, there's a long history of it being difficult to ever phase something out

04:11unless you repeal it when the opportunity arises. Yep. And Democrats love to claim that these

04:16subsidies benefit working class Americans. We have IRS data that found that $5.5 billion of the

04:24approximately $8.4 billion in tax credit claims doled out for residential energy tax credits came

04:31from filers earning more than $100,000 a year annually. I'd love to hear your opinion. Again,

04:37do you believe that these tax credits benefit wealthy Americans at the expense of our working class?

04:43The priorities in the Inflation Reduction Act are simply not the priorities of most working Americans.

04:51The bottom 60 percent of households take advantage of 10 percent of the tax credits. And with regard to

04:57something like electric vehicles, keep in mind upwards of 40 percent of American households are single

05:03vehicle households. They either don't want or most likely can't afford multiple vehicles. Ask yourself,

05:08does an EV can really be that one go-to vehicle? And the answer is no. Upwards of 90 percent of EVs

05:17are part of multi-vehicle and wealthier families. And a lot is true of many of these other subsidized

05:28appliances and other things that just don't make sense for most working folks, which is why they

05:33needed to be subsidized. Yep. Thank you, Mr. Lieberman. And I now recognize the gentle lady from Arizona,

05:39Ms. Ansari.

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