Subcommittee Ranking Member Frost’s Opening Remarks on Republican Efforts to Raise Costs on Americans to Subsidize Tax Giveaways to Billionaires

Washington, D.C. (May 20, 2025)— Below is Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost’s opening statement, as prepared for delivery, at today’s joint Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Energy Policy, and Regulatory Affairs and Subcommittee on Health Care and Financial services hearing on how Republicans’ roll back of the Inflation Reduction Act to subsidize tax giveaways for billionaires will increase working Americans’ cost of living.  

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Opening Statement 
Ranking Member Maxwell Alejandro Frost
Joint Economic Growth, Energy Policy, and Regulatory Affairs and
Health Care and Financial Services Hearing on
“Mandates, Meddling, and Mismanagement: The IRA’s Threat to Energy and Medicine”
May 20, 2025

Thank you, Chairman Burlison and Chairman Grothman, and thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

The Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, was a historic investment in battling the climate crisis and creating good-paying American jobs, and it was designed to achieve these goals by investing in our communities and our families.

The IRA provided scores of tax credits that lowered energy costs for working families by allowing them to make their homes more energy efficient and invest in clean energy.  Shifting to clean energy and reducing emissions means reduced air pollution for all of us, which protects us from illness and early death.

IRA tax credits include $14,000 in direct consumer rebates for families to buy heat pumps and other energy efficient home appliances, providing families with savings of at least $350 per year.  These tax credits also include a 30% tax credit for solar panels that will allow 7.5 million more families to install solar panels on their roofs, saving at least $300 per year.

In my district in Florida, affordable access to solar panels thanks to the IRA has helped thousands of my constituents lower their energy bills and reduce our reliance on fossil fuels.

The IRA has not just been good for families’ and individuals’ pocketbooks—it has also created economic growth in communities across the nation.

Since the passage of the IRA, we’ve seen a domestic manufacturing renaissance with 340 major clean energy projects announced in 41 states and Puerto Rico, including many in my Republican colleagues’ districts.  More than $522 billion is planned for investment in these clean energy projects.

In fact, of the top 10 congressional districts with the highest investment in clean energy technologies during the first ten months of the IRA, 8 were Republican districts.  This includes $1.9 billion dollars in Representative Andy Biggs’ district in Arizona.

As of last summer, the IRA had created more than 300,000 good-paying clean energy jobs, many of which do not require a four-year degree.  And projections indicate that the IRA could create nearly 850,000 jobs annually, across industries.

But despite the enormous economic benefits of the IRA and its various energy tax credits, Republicans want to repeal those key provisions.  We should be doing more to make sure working families can take advantage of these opportunities to lower costs and reduce their exposure to harmful air pollution—not eliminating these opportunities completely.

As part of House Republicans’ budget betrayal of the middle class, which will put additional costs on Americans in order to provide tax cuts to billionaires, Republicans on the Ways and Means Committee added language that would increase energy costs for American households by as much as 7%—or $290 per year—by cutting tax incentives for advanced manufacturing, clean vehicles, and clean energy production.

Gasoline prices could increase by 25 to 27 cents per gallon due to these cuts and the termination of fuel economy and tailpipe emissions standards.

This is all against the backdrop of President Trump’s promise to cut energy prices in half within 18 months of him taking office.  As of today, he has 428 days left to make good on his promise.

But it’s not looking good—in fact, it seems that energy costs are increasing for Americans across the board.  I don’t know about you all, but I know that my utility bills, and my constituents’ utility bills have only gone up since January 20, 2025.  This will be made worse by the Republicans’ blanket rollbacks of key IRA provisions.

Even many Republicans are not on board with the IRA rollbacks their colleagues are attempting to pass.  I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record this statement by 14 House Republicans, who argue that we need to “ensure certainty for current and future energy investments to meet the nation’s growing power demand and protect our constituents from higher energy costs.”  They’re right.

The real threat to energy costs for working families are Republican policies that prioritize tax cuts for billionaires, huge corporations, and polluters over people—not the Inflation Reduction Act, which invests in our communities, our families, and our future to lower our costs and improve our health.

Thank you and I yield back.

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