One year after Democrats enacted the Inflation Reduction Act, U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) released an oversight report that outlines billions of dollars in wasteful spending in the law and the damage it does to U.S. coal and natural gas production.
Sen. Capito, ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, said the Inflation Reduction Act was rushed through Congress on a party-line vote and is extremely unpopular in the energy-producing state of West Virginia.
“As Democrats celebrate the one-year anniversary of their partisan climate and regulatory spending spree, the reality is the results have been devastating for the American people,” Sen. Capito said. “The Inflation Reduction Act poured trillions of taxpayer dollars into unaccountable programs that have done little to actually reduce emissions.”
According to the report, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s modeling projects that electricity generated from coal and gas will decrease because of the IRA, but the EPA fails to account for increases in electricity demand from electric vehicles, appliances, and more. Despite projected growing demand and lower supply of baseload power, the report said, the EPA continues to advance new regulations that could shut down even more baseload power plants.
The report also focuses on programs in the Inflation Reduction Act that fall under the EPW’s committee’s jurisdiction and the possibility for additional waste, fraud, and abuse.