Biden signs Inflation Reduction Act.

August 17, 2022

          President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act on Tuesday, August 16, 2022. The signing was a momentous act that will improve the lives of hundreds of millions of Americans. On a day when there are a half dozen stories tempting us to ignore the most important development of the day, we must have the self-discipline to acknowledge and applaud the culmination of decades of effort embodied in the IRA.

When Americans are aware of the IRA, they strongly support it. Sadly, polling shows that only 41% of Americans are even “moderately aware” of the provisions of the bill. But when asked about specific provisions of the IRA, Americans overwhelming support the specific programs included in the bill. For example, per Ipsos, Americans support authorizing Medicare to negotiate drug prices by 71%, support renewable energy initiatives by 65%, and support extending subsidies for ACA by 64%.

          Given the popularity of the specific provisions of the IRA, our challenge is to spread the good news of the IRA to Americans who are not yet aware of the many ways in which it will improve their lives. In two previous newsletters (here and here), I covered major provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act relating to climate and health care. If you are unfamiliar with the provisions of Act, I commend those newsletters for your review. A more detailed summary prepared by the Congressional Research Service is here: Summary of HR 5376: Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

          The Inflation Reduction Act is a sprawling piece of legislation that includes hundreds of provisions that will become apparent over time. An article in Vox lists several provisions that have received little attention. See Vox, The Inflation Reduction Act does more than clean energy and EV tax credits. Per Vox, the IRA includes,

1. $3 billion for community cleanup to ameliorate the effects of pollution and contamination in low-income neighborhoods. The money can be used for capping abandoned oil wells, installing noise barriers near freeways, reducing urban heat islands, reconnecting communities separated by highways, creating regional greenways, and building multi-use trails.

2. $10 billion to cover costs of rural electrical co-ops moving away from coal-based electrical generation (including shutting down 172 coal-fired generating facilities).

3. $5 billion in block grants to states trying to reduce their carbon footprints. Applicants are not limited to the governors or legislatures but can include independent public utilities seeking to decrease carbon emissions.

4. $20 billion for “climate-smart” agriculture and forestry practices, which will encourage farmers to capture carbon by planting “cover crops” and invest in protecting “old growth” forests that serve as carbon sinks.

          There is much more in the IRA, but you get the picture: It is a big deal that represents a generational investment in climate and healthcare. Many Americans are not familiar with its provisions. Help spread the word by talking, sharing, writing, and posting to inform friends, neighbors, and complete strangers about the many ways that the IRA will make their lives better.

Liz Cheney defeats Republican Party by seizing moral high ground.

          A little more than a year ago, Liz Cheney was the third-ranking Republican in the House. She was ousted from that position after she voted to impeach Trump in January 2021. Today, she lost her bid for reelection as Wyoming’s lone representative in the House. In losing her bid for reelection, Liz Cheney defeated the Republican Party by speaking the truth, illuminating the collective cowardice of the GOP, and vowing to prevent Trump from retaking the presidency. In her concession speech, she cited Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant as American heroes who turned defeat into victory by force of will and unstinting determination.

          Liz Cheney’s victory speech is here: Liz Cheney Concession Speech. Her speech is 13-minutes long and is worth watching in its entirety. Liz Cheney will serve as the conscience of the GOP, whether it wants her to do so or not.  

DOJ search of Mar-a-Lago.

          The GOP continues to lose its collective mind over the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago. Senator Ted Cruz predicted that President Biden and Attorney General Garland will be impeached over the search. Newsweek published an op-ed by Liz Wheeler titled, Abolish the FBI. In the meantime, Republican Senators are acting as if the DOJ reports to the Senate when conducting criminal investigations and are outraged that Merrick Garland has not released the underlying affidavit justifying the search.

          The indiscriminate and reckless criticism of the search of Mar-a-Lago is difficult to stomach given that the DOJ is attempting to protect national security secrets and at least two ongoing criminal investigations. The Republican critics of the DOJ and FBI know that there is essentially no chance that the underlying affidavit will be released and will therefore engage in performative outrage over the fact that affidavit will remain confidential—like every other affidavit in every other criminal investigation in its early stages.

          Still, there are signs that Trump’s legal troubles are real. The NYTimes reported that the FBI interviewed two former White House lawyers, Pat Cipollone and Pat Philbin, about the circumstances of removal of the documents from the White House. Per the Times, Trump resisted efforts to return the documents to the National Archives, saying,  “It’s not theirs, it’s mine.” As many legal commentators have noted, Trump’s statement proves that he intended to take and retain documents that included defense secrets and highly classified documents. That is bad for Trump. Very bad.

          Trump’s unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents has inflicted substantial damage on US relations with its allies regardless of what was contained in the documents. As Juliette Kayyem notes in her article in The Atlantic, Why the Mar-a-Lago Documents Matter So Much,

Intelligence is a worldwide enterprise, not ours alone. Although we Americans tend to focus on our own foes . . . reclaiming the documents, regardless of their contents, was essential to restoring confidence in the US’s ability to protect other nations’ secrets as well as its own. Our allies surely feared what has now been confirmed: that Trump had sensitive documents at a Florida home that was insecure and potentially vulnerable to foreign intelligence agencies.

          In authorizing the application for the search warrant, Merrick Garland was not only advancing an investigation of a serious criminal offense, he was also taking steps to protect America’s ability to engage in collaborative intelligence activities with our allies. If they can’t trust the US to protect its secrets, the US will lose vital sources of information necessary to maintain the peace and security of all Americans.

Holding Trump’s lawyers accountable.

          Trump’s attempted coup relied on dozens of lawyers willing to engage in illegal and unethical conduct they knew to be wrong. Some lawyers have been held to account, but state bar organizations have been plodding in their investigations. (In many states, bar organizations act as trade associations rather than disciplinary and enforcement bodies.) That dynamic is slowly changing for some of Trump’s lawyers—a positive development that should deter (or slow) similar misconduct in the future.

          Rudy Giuliani has been informed by the District Attorney of Fulton County, Georgia, that he s a “target” of the ongoing grand jury investigation into the effort to change the outcome of the Georgia presidential election. Predictably, Giuliani claimed that the US was turning into a “fascist state” because it was investigating lawyers involved in a coup attempt. As a recent meme on the internet states, “Every accusation is a confession.”

          An advocacy group called Lawyers Defending American Democracy recently filed an ethics complaint against John Eastman—who drafted a memo outlining a “coup roadmap” for Trump. See LDAD Files Ethics Complaint Against John Eastman in DC. LDAD has filed complaints against Rudy Giuliani and Jeffrey Clark.

          LDAD is seeking to organize the legal profession as a whole to engage in a “democracy commitment to use their voices and influence to protect our democratic institutions and, in doing so, uphold the oath they each took to defend the Constitution.” Too many lawyers and law firms looked the other way as their partners, colleagues, and friends engaged in illegal and unethical activity that violated their oaths. If you are interested in helping the work of LDAD, check out the link here: Take Action - LDAD/

Professor Tribe’s discussion of the Supreme Court.

          KK Ottesen of the Washington Post interviewed Professor Laurence Tribe about the Supreme Court. See WaPo, Current Supreme Court is damaging to the country, law scholar warns. The interview is fascinating start to finish, and I highly recommend it. But I found one section particularly enlightening—and reassuring. Ottesen asks if Professor Tribe “think[s] justices can be or ever were impartial?” Tribe responds, in part,

The court has always been quite political. And throughout much of our history, it’s been quite regressive. It is kind of a myth that the Supreme Court has been, you know, the shining city on the hill. It’s only during the very brief period from 1957 to 1969 or so, during the [Earl] Warren years, that the court really performed the function of ensuring one person, one vote, and moving toward racial and gender equality. That was a limited period. The court, for most of its history, has been very much in the thrall of economically and politically powerful groups. It retarded the progress after the Civil War by invalidating the civil rights acts and its invalidation of parts of the Voting Rights Act was fairly typical.

          Professor Tribe goes on to note that justices can nonetheless be fair even when they are being political—an attribute that Tribe believes is missing from the current Court.

          I found Professor Tribe’s historical context helpful in processing the actions of the current Court. Nothing in that history justifies the Court’s “because-I-have-the-votes” approach to jurisprudence, but it serves as a reminder that prior generations endured and prevailed despite the Court, not because of it. If they did it, so can we.

Concluding Thoughts.

          There is much to dislike in Liz Cheney’s politics, but we all can take a lesson from her determination. I have listened to commentators describe Cheney’s defeat as a “devastating” development and the “end” of her political career. They apparently didn’t listen to her concession speech. For the typical short-sighted partisan hack, losing a seat in Congress is the definition of defeat. Not so for someone whose goal is nothing less than the defense of the Constitution and the rule of law. For someone whose sight is set on goals beyond their personal political interest, losing a primary is of little consequence. It is the long-term fight that matters.

          In 2022, we may win, lose, or draw in the battle for Congress. Whatever the outcome, it will not be “a devastating defeat” or “the end of the world” for Democrats. It will another battle in the ongoing struggle to defend democracy. Cheney’s concession speech was remarkable for its absence of self-pity and references to personal interest. So it should be with us. Our struggle is not about us, our feelings, or our personal interest. We are fighting for future generations, the rule of law, and the Constitution. Measured against those markers, the upcoming elections are important but not the final word in the still unfolding history of a great nation.

          Talk to you tomorrow!