This after­noon, after pulling a “vote-a-rama” all nighter, the Unit­ed States Sen­ate resolved — with Vice Pres­i­dent Kamala Har­ris’ tiebreak­ing vote! — to pass the cli­mate and health focused Infla­tion Reduc­tion Act of 2022 nego­ti­at­ed by Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen­a­tor Joe Manchin.

This is eas­i­ly the most ambi­tious cli­mate bill the Sen­ate has ever passed, so it’s a pret­ty big moment. But it does­n’t just take cli­mate action. It would also low­er drug costs for mil­lions of Amer­i­can fam­i­lies by allow­ing Medicare to final­ly — final­ly! — nego­ti­ate the cost of pre­scrip­tion drugs.

The leg­is­la­tion is a frac­tion of the size of Build Back Bet­ter, and includes give­aways to Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sine­ma to win their votes. Nev­er­the­less, it puts us in a bet­ter posi­tion to tack­le the cli­mate cri­sis and cost of liv­ing increases.

President Biden’s comments

“Today, Sen­ate Democ­rats sided with Amer­i­can fam­i­lies over spe­cial inter­ests, vot­ing to low­er the cost of pre­scrip­tion drugs, health insur­ance, and every­day ener­gy costs and reduce the deficit, while mak­ing the wealth­i­est cor­po­ra­tions final­ly pay their fair share,” said Pres­i­dent Joe Biden in a spe­cial statement.

“I ran for Pres­i­dent promis­ing to make gov­ern­ment work for work­ing fam­i­lies again, and that is what this bill does — peri­od. This bill caps seniors’ out of pock­et spend­ing for pre­scrip­tion drugs at $2000 per year – no mat­ter what their drug bills would oth­er­wise be, seniors will not have to spend more than $2000.”

“In addi­tion, thir­teen mil­lion Amer­i­cans, cov­ered under the Afford­able Care Act, will see their health insur­ance pre­mi­ums reduced by $800. This bill tack­les infla­tion by low­er­ing the deficit and low­er­ing costs for reg­u­lar families.”

“It address­es the cli­mate cri­sis and strength­ens our ener­gy secu­ri­ty, cre­at­ing jobs man­u­fac­tur­ing solar pan­els, wind tur­bines, and elec­tric vehi­cles in Amer­i­ca with Amer­i­can work­ers. It low­ers fam­i­lies’ ener­gy costs by hun­dreds of dol­lars each year. Final­ly, it pays for all this by estab­lish­ing a min­i­mum cor­po­rate tax so that our rich­est cor­po­ra­tions start to pay their fair share. It does not raise tax­es on those mak­ing under $400,000 a year – not one cent.”

“I want to thank Leader Schumer and every mem­ber of the Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus for sup­port­ing this bill. It required many compromises.”

“Doing impor­tant things almost always does. The House should pass this as soon as pos­si­ble and I look for­ward to sign­ing it into law.”

Governor Inslee’s comments

“Wash­ing­to­ni­ans will take deep sat­is­fac­tion know­ing our decades-long vision of a clean ener­gy econ­o­my cre­at­ing good, fam­i­ly wage jobs all across Amer­i­ca is com­ing clos­er to real­i­ty,” said Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee, who mon­i­tored the vote.

“These long-sought mea­sures, part of the sin­gle largest invest­ment to address cli­mate change in Amer­i­can his­to­ry, should right­ful­ly encour­age both our state and the fed­er­al gov­ern­ments to take fur­ther nec­es­sary steps.”

“We need more if we are to ful­ly meet Amer­i­ca’s com­mit­ments under the Paris Cli­mate Accords. I urge the admin­is­tra­tion to build on this break­through by tak­ing all exec­u­tive action avail­able to them. We must not miss this moment.”

“The Sen­ate has tak­en the essen­tial step, and Amer­i­cans are right­ful­ly opti­mistic. I thank Sen­a­tors Pat­ty Mur­ray and Maria Cantwell for their unflag­ging, hero­ic efforts to pass rec­on­cil­i­a­tion leg­is­la­tion through the Sen­ate that meets the scale of our cli­mate cri­sis, low­ers health care costs for Wash­ing­to­ni­ans, and fights infla­tion. They delivered.”

“The House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives should pass the Infla­tion Reduc­tion Act this week so that Pres­i­dent Biden may sign it into law – a day all Amer­i­cans will remember.”

Senator Murray’s comments

“No one should have to wor­ry about whether they can afford the health care or med­i­cine they need. This bill will final­ly give Medicare pow­er to force drug com­pa­nies to the bar­gain­ing table and nego­ti­ate low­er drug prices for patients across the coun­try,” said Wash­ing­ton’s senior U.S. Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Murray.

“And for seniors who are often on fixed incomes: we are going to cap the price of insulin at just $35 per month, cap out-of-pock­et costs, and we are stop­ping big phar­ma from jack­ing up the cost of their drugs.”

“Life­sav­ing med­i­cine doesn’t do any good if peo­ple can’t afford it—and this leg­is­la­tion makes mean­ing­ful progress toward mak­ing sure peo­ple don’t have to emp­ty their sav­ings account just so they can fill their prescription.”

“This bill helps peo­ple get qual­i­ty, afford­able insur­ance too, by extend­ing the health care tax cred­its we passed in the Amer­i­can Res­cue Plan—that makes a dif­fer­ence right now for mil­lions of peo­ple,” Mur­ray added.

“More than 100,000 peo­ple found cov­er­age on Wash­ing­ton state’s exchange for no more than $100 a month because of these tax cred­its. These aren’t just words on paper and it’s not just about sav­ing patients’ mon­ey — this will save lives.”

“We are help­ing patients who are rationing their pre­scrip­tions to make ends meet, or who are afraid to see their doctors—not because they are scared of get­ting a diag­no­sis, but because they are scared of the price tag. And I am going to keep build­ing on this momen­tum with even more bold poli­cies to ensure health care is tru­ly a right, not a priv­i­lege, for every­one in our country.”

“I talk to young peo­ple in Seat­tle who are urgent­ly call­ing on Con­gress to take bold cli­mate action and fam­i­lies in Yaki­ma Coun­ty who are deeply con­cerned by a wild­fire sea­son that seems to get worse and worse every year — the cli­mate cri­sis is here and it’s time we take action,” con­tin­ued Sen­a­tor Mur­ray on the Infla­tion Reduc­tion Act’s cli­mate and ener­gy provisions.

“This his­toric leg­is­la­tion will be the largest-ever invest­ment in cli­mate action in our country’s his­to­ry. Wash­ing­ton state is unique­ly poised to take full advan­tage of fed­er­al clean ener­gy tax cred­its and grants that will deliv­er low­er ener­gy costs for con­sumers, mil­lions of good-pay­ing jobs, and pro­mote real ener­gy independence.”

“And final­ly — this leg­is­la­tion won’t just bring down fam­i­lies’ every day costs, it will bring down the deficit—by more than $300 bil­lion,” Mur­ray observed.

“Because every cent of this bill is paid for — and then some — by sim­ply ensur­ing giant cor­po­ra­tions pay their fair share in taxes.”

“There’s no rea­son a bil­lion dol­lar cor­po­ra­tion should pay less in tax­es than a fire­fight­er or a teacher in Wal­la Wal­la, Wash­ing­ton — just because the cur­rent sys­tem lets them skirt or even plain cheat on their tax­es. That’s not right. And Democ­rats won’t let it fly any longer and no work­ing or mid­dle-class fam­i­ly in Wash­ing­ton state will see their tax­es go up one penny.”

Senator Wyden’s comments

“This his­toric clean ener­gy pack­age has been a decade in the mak­ing,” said Ore­gon’s senior U.S. Sen­a­tor Ron Wyden in a statement.

“When clean ener­gy leg­is­la­tion failed in 2010, we regrouped to ensure suc­cess the next time Democ­rats had an oppor­tu­ni­ty. We turned to emis­sions-based, tech­nol­o­gy-neu­tral tax incen­tives, and spent near­ly a decade prepar­ing this bill.”

“My lodestar has been achiev­ing the great­est emis­sions and cost-sav­ings pos­si­ble with fifty votes. That’s why the Infla­tion Reduc­tion Act’s clean ener­gy tax pack­age is about nine­ty per­cent of the Clean Ener­gy for Amer­i­ca Act that the Sen­ate Finance Com­mit­tee approved in May 2021.”

“We built the sup­port need­ed over time.”

Wyden con­tin­ued: “This bill will reduce ener­gy costs, secure our ener­gy inde­pen­dence, and dras­ti­cal­ly cut car­bon emis­sions. For the first time, the tax code is going to reward emis­sions reduc­tions, and encour­age the devel­op­ment of new clean ener­gy tech­nolo­gies as soon as they come online.”

“No longer will Con­gress need to leg­is­late tech­nol­o­gy by tech­nol­o­gy, mak­ing it eas­i­er to inno­vate and bring new tech­nolo­gies to market.”

“Impor­tant­ly, this is per­ma­nent ener­gy pol­i­cy. Con­gress will no longer need to extend these incen­tives every few years, giv­ing com­pa­nies and states cer­tain­ty to plan clean ener­gy projects and cre­ate jobs.”

“This is among the most con­se­quen­tial bills of my ser­vice in the Senate.”

“For too long, Medicare has been forced to con­tend with Big Phar­ma with one hand tied behind its back – that ends when this bill is signed into law,” Wyden added. “Ever since I became the top Demo­c­rat on the Finance Com­mit­tee, I have been spot­light­ing how the drug pric­ing sys­tem is bro­ken top to bottom.”

“At last, the Sen­ate has begun to rede­fine the rela­tion­ship between Medicare and Big Phar­ma. That work began last Con­gress on a bipar­ti­san basis, and vir­tu­al­ly the entire­ty of the Finance Committee’s work two years ago is includ­ed in the Infla­tion Reduc­tion Act. Democ­rats have tak­en the crit­i­cal next step by lift­ing the curse that has pre­vent­ed Medicare from nego­ti­at­ing low­er prices.”

“Medicare nego­ti­a­tion is the cen­ter­piece of the Infla­tion Reduc­tion Act’s drug pric­ing reforms. No longer will drug com­pa­nies be able to string Medicare along for years or even decades while tax­pay­ers foot the bill.”

“This pol­i­cy tar­gets the most expen­sive, most used drugs that have had zero com­pe­ti­tion for years on end. It low­ers prices in a way that is fair and designed to pro­mote inno­va­tion, not sti­fle it. Those nego­ti­a­tions will begin next year.”

“It cre­ates a lim­it on Big Pharma’s abil­i­ty to price gouge with the Medicare infla­tion rebate, requir­ing drug com­pa­nies to pay a fee to Medicare if they raise their prices faster than inflation.”

“Crit­i­cal­ly, the bill will pro­tect seniors from high out-of-pock­et costs in less than a year and a half with a $2,000 out-of-pock­et cap on drug costs, which will spare more than a mil­lion seniors from finan­cial per­il. Tak­en togeth­er, these poli­cies rep­re­sent a seis­mic shift in how Medicare pays for med­i­cine, and it does so in a way that will great­ly low­er costs for seniors and taxpayers.”

Senator Merkley’s comments

“Today is a big day for Amer­i­ca,” said Sen­a­tor Jeff Merkley of Ore­gon, Wyden’s seat­mate. “For the first time, the U.S. Sen­ate has passed major leg­is­la­tion to remake our ener­gy sys­tem — and to do so while also low­er­ing health care costs and cre­at­ing good-pay­ing, fam­i­ly wage jobs, all paid for by ensur­ing bil­lion­aires and big cor­po­ra­tions pay their fair share in taxes.”

“We’re tak­ing on Big Phar­ma to low­er drug prices. This bill starts the process of nego­ti­at­ing pre­scrip­tion drug prices and caps out-of-pock­et costs for pre­scrip­tions at $2,000 a year for seniors on Medicare.”

“Addi­tion­al­ly, it helps mid­dle class fam­i­lies get afford­able insur­ance cov­er­age by extend­ing key tax cred­its and pre­vent­ing big cost increas­es that would have hit fam­i­lies this fall. This bill is a big win for afford­able health care, and we need to keep build­ing on it. Amer­i­can tax­pay­ers con­tribute more than the cit­i­zens of any oth­er nation in the world to research and devel­op­ment of drugs.”

“They deserve the best prices in the world, not the worst.”

“We’re going to tran­si­tion to clean ener­gy and cre­ate high-qual­i­ty union jobs while we do it. Year after year, I’ve seen my home state of Ore­gon and oth­er states across the West dec­i­mat­ed by mega wild­fires and record droughts.”

“In oth­er parts of the coun­try, we’ve seen super­storms, sea rise, and unprece­dent­ed flood­ing. Cli­mate chaos is here, and we have to act now to save lives and liveli­hoods from cat­a­stro­phe. This bill is the most sig­nif­i­cant piece of cli­mate leg­is­la­tion ever passed through the U.S. Sen­ate and final­ly puts us on a path to tran­si­tion to clean and renew­able energy.”

Evergreen Action’s reaction

“This is a his­toric moment for cli­mate action, and a turn­ing point in Amer­i­can cli­mate pol­i­cy,” said Ever­green Action’s Jamal Raad.

“Today, the Sen­ate passed the largest cli­mate invest­ment in his­to­ry — by far. This is the end of a decades-long road to pass a cli­mate bill, but it’s only the begin­ning of the road towards achiev­ing the green­house gas pol­lu­tion reduc­tions that sci­ence demands and build­ing a bet­ter future for us all.”

NPI’s position

The North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute sup­ports the Infla­tion Reduc­tion Act of 2022. This land­mark bill will advance Amer­i­ca’s efforts to meet its moral oblig­a­tion to tack­le the cli­mate cri­sis and will final­ly allow Medicare to nego­ti­ate pre­scrip­tion drug costs, which will help mil­lions of Amer­i­cans in the years to come. Final­ly, this bill actu­al­ly makes our tax code fair­er for a change, increas­ing fund­ing for the Inter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice and putting us on a path to greater fis­cal responsibility.

We look for­ward to House pas­sage and the White House sign­ing ceremony.