Iowa GOP Reps Lobbied for Green Tax Credits That Benefit a ‘Megadonor’ Supporting Their Campaigns

All four Iowa House Republicans lobbied to protect tax credits for carbon dioxide storage in House Republicans’ debt ceiling bill after raking in thousands in donations from a donor involved in CO2 pipeline development, according to campaign finance records.

The Iowa coalition — Reps. Randy Feenstra, Ashley Hinson, Marianette Miller-Meeks and Zach Nunn — refused to back Republicans’ Limit, Save, Grow Act until their colleagues removed language that would have rolled back tax credits supporting carbon pipelines, according to multiple reports. The act narrowly passed the House in a near party-line vote in late April with the Iowans’ support, and the tax credits are not touched in President Joe Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s final debt ceiling deal.

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Commentary: The ‘Limit, Save, Grow’ Plan’s Discretionary Spending Caps that Save More than $3 Trillion Might Not Be Enough

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and the House Republican majority have unveiled their spending plan for the next decade, the Limit, Save, Grow Act, that will be tied to a $1.5 trillion increase in the $31.4 trillion national debt ceiling, the centerpiece of which imposes discretionary budget caps beginning in 2024, but which will be set at 2022 levels, which could save more than $3.2 trillion over the next decade, according to an estimate by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

While an official score still has not come in from the Congressional Budget Office, the proposal stands out as a promise kept on McCarthy’s part to use the must-pass debt ceiling to restore some semblance of fiscal sanity to the out-of-control federal budget and national debt, the latter of which the White House Office of Management and Budget projects will rise to a gargantuan $50.7 trillion by 2033.

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