Trump and Johnson talk to reporters Tuesday. Photo: Andrew Harnik / Getty Images
President Trump's Hill visit Tuesday appears to have changed little about the IRA tax credit picture as Republicans pledge to plow ahead on their reconciliation package.
Why it matters: The president's arm-twisting ahead of a House Rules Committee meeting currently set for 1am Wednesday puts heavy pressure on GOP holdouts on a range of sticking points.
State of play: Trump is trying to win over a handful of hardline deficit hawks who want a full IRA repeal without losing Republicans who prefer to keep the credits accessible for a period of time.
- Trump's message of getting a deal done on the other thorny issues could mean the IRA credits remain as remain as approved by Ways and Means last week.
- While IRA-friendly House Republicans number more than a dozen, they have been far more equivocal about drawing red lines around credits than the deficit hawks.
Driving the news: House Republicans huddled with Trump in the basement of the Capitol for about an hour.
- Republicans trickling out of the meeting told reporters that Trump urged them to move the bill as is and to a deal on SALT and Medicaid.
- Trump requested that the House add back in E&C pipeline permitting language that was struck from the draft text this week, according to one House Republican who spoke on condition of anonymity.
White House messaging nodded to keeping the current House language that phases out some of the tax credits.
- The bill "repeals or phases out" the IRA energy credits, the White House said in a news release as the meeting wrapped up.
- The bill also "immediately stops credits from flowing to China and saves taxpayers $500+ billion every year, and reverses electric vehicle mandates that let radical climate activists set the standards for American energy," it said.
Between the lines: Even if the House reaches a deal, Senate Republicans plan to write their own version with a "surgical approach" on the IRA credits, Sen. Thom Tillis told Axios.
- The House proposal "actually cuts projects off midstream — or after hundreds of millions of dollars, tens or hundreds of millions of dollars may be spent," he said. "That's just not the way to build good sustaining business policy."
- "We're going to draft something else and settle it in conference," he said.
The bottom line: "I know there's a lot of us that are being vocal" to protect the credits, Rep. David Valadao told Axios leaving the Capitol on Monday. "There's so much up in the air right now, it's really hard to try to guess."
