House Republican Still Backs Taking ‘scalpel’ To Biden's Climate Law — Despite Machetes Flying Around Dc

Ohio Republican Rep. Bob Latta doubled down on taking a piecemeal approach to rolling back Democrats’ signature climate law — even as GOP lawmakers weigh trillions of dollars in tax cuts and the Trump administration takes a chainsaw to the federal bureaucracy.

“I think you’re going to see a scalpel approach, not a sledgehammer approach,” Latta said in an interview at POLITICO Playbook’s First 100 Days breakfast series on Tuesday.

Republicans are eyeing cuts to the Inflation Reduction Act’s hundreds of billions of dollars in tax incentives, grants and loans that were designed to spur investments in manufacturing and clean energy production. While the clean energy credits have brought an economic boon to Republican districts, GOP lawmakers are weighing them against other politically painful pay-fors for their tax reconciliation bill, such as limits on Medicaid.

Latta praised efforts to expand and modernize the grid and bring on more nuclear power, especially small modular reactors. And he urged a renewed effort to streamline permitting rules, citing the forecasts that build out of new energy-intensive data centers will strain the power network.

“Even if you have the power, you’ve got to be able to move it,” he said.