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Bipartisan majorities support most of the Inflation Reduction Act

Inflation Reduction Act signing ceremony

President Biden, joined by Democratic members of Congress, signs the Inflation Reduction Act into law during a ceremony in the White House on Tuesday.

Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

On Tuesday, President Biden signed into law the Inflation Reduction Act, a massive alteration to climate change, health care and tax policy. Although the bill passed both chambers without any Republican votes, most of its major provisions have bipartisan backing, according to new data from the University of Maryland.

While Biden and congressional Democrats will claim passage of the IRA as the latest in a string of policy victories for their side, others view this as a win for the American people despite a polarized government.

Over the 20 components studied by PPC and Stanford University's Deliberative Democracy Lab, the vast majority have support among the general public and 13 items garnered backing of both Democrats, Republicans and independents.


“Majorities support 19 of 20 major proposals in the legislation,“ said Steven Kull, director of the school’s Program for Public Consultation, which produced the report. “While there has been grave concern about the state of our democracy, the movement of this bill should give Americans hope that our system can and does work, and that Congress is acting to reflect the will of the people.”

PPC broke the proposals down into four categories: energy and environment, workforce development, taxes and health care. While the concepts tested in public surveys are not a 100 percent match to the final legislation, they are similar enough to provide an indication of people’s stance.

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The bulk of the proposals fall into the energy and environment category. Of the 14 items, nine of them had bipartisan support:

  • Tax credits for equipment used to produce clean energy.
  • Tax credits for producing clean energy.
  • Tax credits for small-scale clean energy projects.
  • Tax credits for building energy-efficient residences.
  • Tax credits for energy-saving improvements to homes and commercial buildings.
  • Tax credits for energy-efficient improvements to heating and air conditioning systems.
  • Additional tax credits for improving the energy efficiency of commercial buildings.
  • Tax credits for the production of heavy-duty electric vehicles such as buses.
  • Tax credits for farmers to construct biogas (a type of biofuel) facilities.

Both items under the “workforce development” heading received bipartisan backing:

  • Increased funding for cities and states to train people for clean energy jobs.
  • Tax credits for businesses that offer apprenticeships.

Two of the three health care items were supported by Republicans and Democrats.

  • Allowing Medicare to negotiate some drug prices with pharmaceutical companies.
  • Extending increased Affordable Care Act subsidies for low-income earners.

Only one proposal fell under the taxes category – increasing IRS funding for tax enforcement – and that failed to get a majority of Republicans’ support. (Although it did get the backing of 68 percent of independents, in addition to 88 percent of Democrats.)

And just one area failed to get at least 50 percent from any of the three partisan groups: increasing tax incentives for carbon-producing power plants to store their carbon emissions.

Some want to see the IRA as a launching pad for other legislation.

“While the Inflation Reduction Act passed along party lines, members of both parties should use this as a moment to finally make achieving deficit reduction a prioritized and regular part of the policy making process,” said Mike Murphy, director of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget's FixUS program. “From here, Congress should take this moment as an example, prioritizing deficit reduction as the normal, everyday aspect of governing it ought to be.”

Meanwhile, Erik Olsen, co-founder of the Common Ground Committee, is skeptical that the survey indicates Republican respondents want the entire bill to pass, given Congress’ recent track record in passing legislation with bipartisan support.

“I wouldn’t look at this and say Congress can’t find a way to work together,” he said.

The data from the three health care items came from polls conducted by the Deliberative Democracy Lab. The other 17 items were tested by the PPC.

See the complete breakdown of the survey data.

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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and other state officials aim to make the Great Lakes State a leader in clean energy manufacturing by bringing jobs and investments to local communities while also tackling pollution, which continues to wreak havoc on the environment.

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“We’ve seen nothing less than an unprecedented, all-out assault on our environment and our democracy,” said Bentley Johnson, the Michigan League of Conservation Voters’ federal government affairs director.

The clean energy sector has grown rapidly in the United States since President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. Congress appropriated $370 billion under the IRA, and White House officials at the time touted it as the country’s largest investment in clean energy.

According to Climate Power, a national public relations and advocacy organization dedicated to climate justice, Michigan was the No. 1 state in the nation in 2024 in its number of clean energy projects; from 2022-2024, the state announced 74 projects totalling over 26,000 jobs and roughly $27 billion in federal funding.

Trump has long been critical of the country’s climate initiatives and development of clean energy technology. He’s previously made false claims that climate change is a hoax and wind turbines cause cancer. Since taking office again in January, Trump has tried to pause IRA funding and signed an executive order to boost coal production.

Additionally, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced in March that the agency had canceled more than 400 environmental justice grants to be used to improve air and water quality in disadvantaged communities. Senate Democrats, who released a full list of the canceled grants, accused the EPA of illegally terminating the contracts, through which funds were appropriated by Congress under the IRA. Of those 400 grants, 15 were allocated for projects in Michigan, including one to restore housing units in Kalamazoo and another to transform Detroit area food pantries and soup kitchens into emergency shelters for those in need.

Johnson said the federal government reversing course on the allotted funding has left community groups who were set to receive it in the lurch.

“That just seems wrong, to take away these public benefits that there was already an agreement — Congress has already appropriated or committed to spending this, to handing this money out, and the rug is being pulled out from under them,” Johnson said.

Climate Power has tracked clean energy projects across the country totaling $56.3 billion in projected funding and over 50,000 potential jobs that have been stalled or canceled since Trump was elected in November. Michigan accounts for seven of those projects, including Nel Hydrogen’s plans to build an electrolyzer manufacturing facility in Plymouth.

Nel Hydrogen announced an indefinite delay in the construction of its Plymouth factory in February 2025. Wilhelm Flinder, the company’s head of investor relations, communications, and marketing, cited uncertainty regarding the IRA’s tax credits for clean hydrogen production as a factor in the company’s decision, according to reporting by Hometownlife.com. The facility was expected to invest $400 million in the local community and to create over 500 people when it started production.

“America is losing nearly a thousand jobs a day because of Trump’s war against cheaper, faster, and cleaner energy. Congressional Republicans have a choice: get in line with Trump’s job-killing energy agenda or take a stand to protect jobs and lower costs for American families,” Climate Power executive director Lori Lodes said in a March statement.

Opposition groups make misleading claims about the benefits of renewable energy, such as the reliability of wind or solar energy and the land used for clean energy projects, in order to stir up public distrust, Johnson said.

In support of its clean energy goals, the state fronted some of its own taxpayer dollars for several projects to complement the federal IRA money. Johnson said the strategy was initially successful, but with sudden shifts in federal policies, it’s potentially become a risk, because the state would be unable to foot the bill entirely on its own.

The state still has its self-imposed clean energy goals to reach in 25 years, but whether it will meet that deadline is hard to predict, Johnson said. Michigan’s clean energy laws are still in place and, despite Trump’s efforts, the IRA remains intact for now.

“Thanks to the combination — I like to call it a one-two punch of the state-passed Clean Energy and Jobs Act … and the Inflation Reduction Act, with the two of those intact — as long as we don’t weaken it — and then the combination of the private sector and technological advancement, we can absolutely still make it,” Johnson said. “It is still going to be tough, even if there wasn’t a single rollback.”

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