NIRS Statement in Response to the Inflation Reduction Act: Climate Compromises and Sacrifices Are Not Justifiable

 On Friday, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) passed the House and is headed to President Biden’s desk to be signed into law. This bill could have been our best – and maybe our only – chance to make real progress on fighting climate change and creating a just environmental and economic future. It should've been a major success for climate policy. 

It is a deep disappointment that the IRA is not truly a climate bill and is certain to harm the very communities that most need action on climate. With the IRA, our elected leaders have chosen to side with dirty energy industries, their financiers and investors, corporate media, and political opportunists to prop up the dirty energy status quo with hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies, financing, and devil’s bargains. 

NIRS joins the many frontline and BIPOC-led organizations that have pointed out they cannot support the bill. The compromise between climate action and climate destruction in the IRA is not one we can accept. NIRS urges Congress and the White House to go back and develop a policy that truly addresses climate change and environmental injustice – including restoration and repair of the harms caused by fossil fuels and nuclear energy. 

We refuse to accept that frontline communities must be sacrificed yet again for nuclear, fossil, and other dirty energy interests. We stand in solidarity with the frontline communities and we will not stop fighting for a just, equitable, and sustainable future. 

Read our full statement on the IRA here.

ACT NOW: Tell the House to Oppose the Nuclear Bailout and Save the Climate!

ACT NOW: Tell the House to Oppose the Nuclear Bailout and Save the Climate!

BIG NEWS: West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin reached a deal with Congressional Democrats on a sweeping climate and energy package that supposedly would address the climate crisis, now called the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA). The Senate passed the bill on Sunday, August 7, and the House of Representatives plans to vote on it this Friday, August 12. 

This bill could have been our best – and maybe our only – chance to make real progress on fighting climate change and creating the just environmental and economic future the Biden administration promised voters. It should've been a major success for climate policy, thanks to tireless activists who worked to hold Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer accountable to get Sen. Manchin to the table on climate.

But, among the desperately needed good progressive measures in the IRA are bad policies and hundreds of billions of dollars in poison pills – handouts to fossil fuels, false climate solutions, and Big Nuclear. These provisions would profit dirty and polluting energy industries that are causing climate and ecological crises at the expense of taxpayers, environmental justice, and TRUE investment in the 100% renewable, just, and sustainable energy future we deserve. 

Frankly, the harm they would cause can’t be justified, and may actually block renewable energy and other real climate solutions in the bill.

Of the $369 billion dollars, up to $72 billion is slated for subsidies to aging nuclear reactors — a wasteful expenditure that will not create a single new job, reduce greenhouse gas emissions by any amount, nor make any progress towards climate action. The measure is nothing more than a corrupt bailout scam by the nuclear industry and their cronies in Congress. There is also: 

    $250 billion in taxpayer-guaranteed loans to prop up old nuclear and fossil fuel power plants 

    $40 billion in taxpayer loans that could go to building new reactors and fossil fuel power plants

    $700 million to promote domestic uranium mining and enrichment

We cannot settle for the inadequate, unjust, and wasteful policies in the Inflation Reduction Act. We cannot settle for a bill that backs false climate solutions and sacrifices frontline communities. We MUST demand better from Congress: a strong national policy for climate, the economy, and for environmental justice. The time to act is now. Demand that Congress and the Biden administration eliminate the massive subsidies to nuclear power and other dirty energy. 

Speak up today! Tell Your Representatives: Don’t Waste our Climate Future on False Solutions