U.S. special presidential climate envoy John Kerry praised the Inflation Reduction Act, calling it an “amazing” bill due to its climate-related impact while acknowledging that it does not seem to do much for inflation.
Speaking at the International Energy Agency’s Global Clean Energy Action Forum, Kerry called the bill “a completely misnamed piece of legislation,” but first he gave a different reason.
“We’re running around saying, ‘I support the IRA. That’s tricky in politics, but here we are,” he joked, an apparent reference to the Irish Republican Army. Then he made the same observation as the bill’s critics.
“And I’m not sure how much it has to do with inflation, but that’s OK,” he acknowledged.
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Later in his address, Kerry called the bill an “amazing piece of legislation” for what it does for green energy and combating climate change.
“The most important parts of the IRA are very simple. Production and investment tax credits. That, I think, is going to do more than almost anything else in the bill. We don’t have to have government making choices about winners and losers. The marketplace is going to choose. You, inventors and investors, are going to help move that along and we’re going to get there.”
Kerry said that for years he has believed that the private sector is key because “no government is going to solve this problem,” because governments do not have the money to do it.
“The private sector is the entity that has the trillions of dollars,” he said.