AnonymousBy the Office of Rep. Salud Carbajal
[On Friday], Congressman Salud Carbajal voted to send the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, a landmark package to lower health care and energy costs for Central Coast families while tackling climate change and reducing the budget deficit, to President Joe Biden’s desk to become law.
“The Inflation Reduction Act is a landmark bill that meets the greatest challenges that we are facing today—from rising energy prices and health care costs to the worsening damage of the climate crisis,” said Congressman Carbajal. “This new law will deliver key wins for the Central Coast in the form of lower prices, less pollution, and more jobs. I’m proud of my work through this entire Congress to bring these key wins to the finish line, and I look forward to working with Central Coast communities to implement the wide range of benefits that will come from this capstone achievement of our Democratic majority in Congress.”
The budget package includes multiple provisions that will provide relief on rising costs that Carbajal pushed for through his Inflation Action Plan that he crafted with the New Democrat Coalition. Their Inflation Action Plan called for actions on prescription drug pricing reforms and investments in clean energy.
Among the most important provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act are those that:
· Enable Medicare to negotiate lower prescription drug prices on behalf of millions of older Americans and cap out-of-pocket health costs for seniors at $2,000 per year
· Reduce U.S. carbon emissions by an estimated 40% by 2030 through investments in American clean energy production and incentives to help American families adopt clean energy technologies
· Promote American energy security and reliability by investing in U.S. manufacturing of clean energy technologies, including solar, wind, and battery
· Lower health care premiums for millions of Americans that use Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace plans
· Invest more than $25 billion to help protect California communities and agricultural industry against the impact of drought, wildfire, and other effects of the climate crisis
· Reduce the U.S. budget deficit by $300 billion while covering the costs of these investments and not raising taxes on any family making less than $400,000 a year by closing tax loopholes that allow large corporations to avoid paying federal income tax
The Inflation Reduction Act provides a range of incentives to consumers to relieve the high costs of energy and decrease utility bills, including direct consumer incentives to buy energy efficient and electric appliances, vehicles, and HVAC systems.
The bill includes a consumer home energy rebate program to electrify home appliances and promote energy efficient retrofits; consumer tax credits to install rooftop solar, electric HVAC, heat pumps, and other clean energy technologies; and consumer tax credits for middle class Americans to buy new or used clean energy vehicles.
Congressman Carbajal touted the major impacts that these programs will have on the lives of Central Coast families at an event in San Luis Obispo yesterday before returning to Washington to cast his vote.
The full recording at that event can be found here.
More information on the Inflation Reduction Act can be found here.
Rep. Salud Carbajal represents California’s 24th congressional district, encompassing Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and part of Ventura County. He sits on the House Armed Services Committee, Agriculture Committee, and Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, where he serves as the Chair of the Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation.
Are they going to strip mine the entire USA by 2028 in order to build electric vehicles?
Specifically, the bill requires (Part 4, Sec. 13401. subsection (e)(1)(A)) that the “percentage of the value” of the applicable battery critical minerals (as defined later in the bill) extracted or processed in the US or a US free-trade partner or recycled in North America, be:
40% for a vehicle placed in service before 1 January 2024;
50% for a vehicle placed in the service during calendar year 2024;
60% for a vehicle placed in service during calendar year 2025;
70% for a vehicle placed in service during calendar year 2026; and
80% for a vehicle placed in service after 31 December 2026.
The bill places similar restrictions on the percentage of value of the components, but leading up to a 100% requirement for vehicles placed in service after 31 December 2028.
The bill then goes on to exclude specifically any vehicle placed in service after 31 December 2024, with respect to which any of the applicable critical minerals contained in the battery of the vehicle (as described in sub-section (e)(1)(A)) were extracted, processed, or recycled by a “foreign entity of concern”.
The bill then defines a long list of applicable critical minerals:
Aluminum converted from bauxite to a minimum purity of 99% alumina by mass, or purified to a minimum purity of 99.9 percent aluminum by mass.
Antimony converted to antimony trisulfide concentrate with a minimum purity of 90% antimony trisulfide by mass, or purified to a minimum purity of 99.65% antimony by mass.
Barite which is barium sulfate purified to a minimum purity of 80% barite by mass.
Beryllium which is converted to copper-beryllium master alloy, or purified to a minimum purity of 99% beryllium by mass.
Cerium which is converted to cerium oxide which is purified to a minimum purity of 99.9% cerium oxide by mass, or purified to a minimum purity of 99% cerium by mass.
Cesium which is converted to cesium formate or cesium carbonate, or purified to a minimum purity of 99% cesium by mass.
Chromium which is converted to ferrochromium consisting of not less than 60% chromium by mass, or purified to a minimum purity of 99% chromium by mass.
Cobalt which is converted to cobalt sulfate, or purified to a minimum purity of 99.6% cobalt by mass.
Dysprosium which is converted to not less than 99%t pure dysprosium iron alloy by mass, or purified to a minimum purity of 99% dysprosium by mass.
Europium which is converted to europium oxide which is purified to a minimum purity of 99.9% europium oxide by mass, or purified to a minimum purity of 99% by mass.
Fluorspar which is converted to fluorspar which is purified to a minimum purity of 97% calcium fluoride by mass, or purified to a minimum purity of 99% fluorspar by mass.
Gadolinium which is converted to gadolinium oxide which is purified to a minimum purity of 99.9% gadolinium oxide by mass, or purified to a minimum purity of 99% gadolinium by mass.
Germanium which converted to germanium tetra-chloride, or purified to a minimum purity of 99.99% germanium by mass.
Graphite which is purified to a minimum purity of 99.9% graphitic carbon by mass.
Indium which is converted to indium tin oxide, or indium oxide which is purified to a minimum purity of 99.9% indium oxide by mass, or purified to a minimum purity of 99% indium by mass.
Lithium which is converted to lithium carbonate or lithium hydroxide, or purified to a minimum purity of 99.9% lithium by mass.
Manganese which is converted to manganese sulphate, or purified to a minimum purity of 99.7% manganese by mass.
Neodymium which is converted to neodymium-praseodymium oxide which is purified to a minimum purity of 99% neodymium-praseodymium oxide by mass, converted to neodymium oxide which is purified to a minimum purity of 99.5% neodymium oxide by mass, or purified to a minimum purity of 99.9% neodymium by mass.
Nickel which is converted to nickel sulphate, or purified to a minimum purity of 99% nickel by mass.
Niobium which is converted to ferronibium, or purified to a minimum purity of 99% niobium by mass.
Tellurium which is converted to cadmium telluride, or purified to a minimum purity of 99% tellurium by mass.
Tin which is purified to low alpha emitting tin which has a purity of greater than 99.99% by mass, and possesses an alpha emission rate of not greater than 0.01 counts per hour per centimeter square.
Tungsten which is converted to ammonium paratungstate or ferrotungsten.
Vanadium which is converted to ferrovanadium or vanadium pentoxide.
Yttrium which is converted to yttrium oxide which is purified to a minimum purity of 99.999% yttrium oxide by mass, or purified to a minimum purity of 99.9% yttrium by mass.
Any of the following other minerals, provided that such mineral is purified to a minimum purity of 99% by mass: Arsenic; Bismuth; Erbium; Gallium; Hafnium; Holmium; Iridium; Lanthanum; Lutetium; Magnesium; Palladium; Platinum; Praseodymium; Rhodium; Rubidium; Ruthenium; Samarium; Scandium; Tantalum; Terbium; Thulium; Titanium; Ytterbium; Zinc; and Zirconium.
Commenting on the passage of the bill through the Senate, John Bozzella, president and CEO of the trade association Alliance for Automotive Innovation, said:
Unfortunately, the EV tax credit requirements will make most vehicles immediately ineligible for the incentive. That’s a missed opportunity at a crucial time and a change that will surprise and disappoint customers in the market for a new vehicle. It will also jeopardize our collective target of 40-50 percent electric vehicle sales by 2030.
In an earlier comment, Bozzella noted that:
There are 72 EV models currently available for purchase in the United States including battery, plug-in hybrid and fuel cell electric vehicles. Seventy percent of those EVs would immediately become ineligible when the bill passes and none would qualify for the full credit when additional sourcing requirements go into effect. Zero.
Rep. Carbajal is only doing what he was elected to do, and that’s to ensure that he follows, promotes, and votes the party line each and every time. For anyone to expect him to do anything else does not know how politics work. Most of the comments so far have nothing to o with what Carbajal is “fighting” for. It seems that people are still angry and in a tizzy over the 2016 election. Most of us remember where we were when the absolute most incredible thing happened….NO ONE could believe that Secretary Clinton had lost. People were not prepared for that, and are still completely traumatized to this day – do say that it not the case would be a lie. The networks and cable shows have not stopped for one moment covering the twice-impeached and disgraced ex-POTUS. I don’t understand for the life of me whyyyyyyyy people continue to give him all the attention in the world and cannot get over it. The orange man has been out of power for quite some time, yet some folks are still afraid of a neutered ex-Prez. No matter if the problem is domestic or international, the source/cause of those problems is always and forever….you know who. Fear is not our friend, my friends.
That is a very unrealistic, out of touch view of things.
Hands down no argument -Just look what they did to California
Whose paying … ? Meanwhile, China continues to build COAL energy plants and pollutes rampantly so we can have batteries, cell phones, solar panels and wind machine components manufactured… Tijuana is dumping haz mat and bio waste directly into the Pacific Ocean, just south of Imperial Beach and WE, the U.S.A. with the strictest EPA and environmental standards with continue to be penalized economically – YES, YOU!
Thanks Salud, Solid work there… Tax increases and inflation DON’T LIE.
I guess rather than trying to create and fix – he could have just acted like a Republican and demanded to defund libraries and ban books about LGBTQ and minorities.
Coastwatch: Ah yes, the pollution standards of Tijuana and China, that’s what we should aspire to. The childish argument of “b-but they’re breaking the rules, why can’t I?”
@CHILLIN-FYI China and Mexico DON’T have any laws or environmental protections similar our EPA and environmental standards and regulations PRIOR to the “Kyoto Treaty” BS. Clue in. We are taking the economic hit. Very little is manufactured here due to our environmental regulations-DUH.