Valley Views
Prescription for Montana’s health: preserve the IRA clean energy tax credits
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As a pulmonary physician I am passionate about the need to preserve the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) clean energy tax credits, and you should be too. Quite simply, they benefit the physical and economic health of my patients, their children, our cities, rural areas, the state, and the country. And they do this without forcing anyone to do anything. It’s hard not to be excited about them. But these tax credits are at a crossroads and despite their benefits, they could be scrapped. While some view these tax credits as obscure, the reality is they are essential to Montana’s health and economic wellbeing.
Economic Benefits
For each dollar spent there is a 4-dollar return. Certain provisions should be highlighted. Tax code 48E allows for investments in the deployment of clean electrical facilities. 45Y facilitates investment in the production of clean energy. 45X helps investment in domestic manufacturing of components for solar, wind, inverters, battery components, and critical materials. 48C enables investment in projects that re-equip, expand, or establish and industrial or manufacturing facility for a) production or recycling of clean energy equipment and vehicles, b) the processing, refining, or recycling of critical materials, or c) the installation of equipment designed to reduce a facility’s greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20%.
IRA-funded programs, like USDA’s REAP, enabled many ranchers and farmers and small businesses to install solar panels and batteries, saving them hundreds of dollars on their electric bills. In Montana alone the tax credits have driven $2.4 billion in investments in our economy. Our businesses have developed infrastructure in wind, hydroelectric energy, storage capacity, as well as sustainable aviation fuel. The economic benefits are huge and have ripple effects creating more jobs and a better tax base. They support our schools, roads, and other businesses.
Energy Innovation and Security
For better or worse, we are living in rapidly changing, turbulent times, with aggressive competition from abroad. Significant base load generation has been retired in the past 10 years and more will be retired in the future. This demands that we have a diversified energy portfolio and develop state-the-art energy technologies. We have the best engineers and scientists in the world and the IRA clean energy tax credits supply financial incentives to unlock their innovations in energy efficiency, storage solutions, and grid modernization. The tax credits also incentivize new electrical generation. This buffers us from the volatile external markets and assures our proper place as energy and business leaders.
Health
Our health care systems have greatly benefited from our abundance of energy for the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals and other health products as well as simply keeping the lights on in the operating rooms. Historically, energy use was a double-edged sword producing air pollution that caused asthma, emphysema, heart attacks, strokes, and cancers. Thanks to technological advances, as well as regulations like the incredibly successful Clean Air Act, we now take clean air almost for granted. The realities of the climate change we are experiencing remind us we can’t mortgage our future and our children’s future. We need to rely on clean, renewable energy, wherever possible. The IRA clean energy tax credits are critical to our children’s health and they are vital instruments of economic growth, energy innovation and stability, and health.
Preserving the Last Best Place
To preserve Montana as “The Last Best Place”, please contact Senators Daines and Sheehy, and Representatives Downing and Zinke, and ask them to preserve the IRA clean energy tax credits. They will be working on budget reconciliation; ask them to “use a scalpel” not a chainsaw.
Robert Merchant volunteers with Citizens’ Climate Lobby, a nonpartisan, nonprofit, volunteer-powered advocacy organization. See: cclusa.org
