Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On The Inflation Reduction Act Driving New Investments In American Manufacturing And Creating Jobs

Washington, D.C. –  Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Inflation Reduction Act creating jobs, lowering costs, and ushering in a new era of affordable clean energy. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks:

While MAGA Republicans spent yesterday touting their extreme agenda, Democrats focused on the things that matter most right now to the American people: lowering costs, creating good paying jobs, and protecting our planet for future generations.

The Inflation Reduction Act has not been law for even a month, not even a month, and already it’s spurring new investments that will generate years – if not decades – of robust economic activity, in industries that will stay here in America—here in America, not in China, not anywhere else—for a very long time.

A remarkable number of companies in the energy, automotive, and clean tech sectors have announced that they’re either approving or accelerating new plans to grow their businesses.

One of the most significant areas of activity is happening in EVs and battery manufacturing, so crucial to meeting our country’s growing demand for Electric Vehicles. China has dominated battery manufacturing for too long, and we’re bringing these jobs back to America. Not just talking about it, doing it.

Honda and LG, for instance, have teamed up to invest $4 billion for a new battery plant, with an annual production of 40 GWh.

Hyundai, meanwhile, has announced that they might actually accelerate their timeline for building a new state-of-the-art EV and battery plant in Savanna, Georgia. Plans called for getting started early next year and now they are saying it could happen sooner.

It's the votes of [Senators] like Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff that made that happen. 

Of course, the benefits of our bill will extend way beyond EVs and batteries. Solar Energy Industries Association projects that by 2027, the US Solar market will grow 40% more than expected, thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act. And numerous companies focused on renewables, carbon capture, heat pumps are announcing a flurry of investments, very often citing our bill, now law, the IRA.

All of these examples share something important: these are the jobs of tomorrow. These industries are going to stick around for decades as our country makes the transition away from fossil fuels and towards cleaner forms of energy. The impact will be felt everywhere: it’s going to take millions of workers to build these vehicles, reshape our infrastructure, install these technologies in our homes and offices.

Because so much of this will be done by union labor, these will be good-paying jobs. At good wages with good benefits – lifting up the middle class. Keeping those in the middle class there, and allowing many others climbing that ladder to get into the middle class and stay there. It's a wonderful and beautiful thing. In a certain sense, we did the right thing, making sure our planet doesn't burn up, but it had so many other effects, like good-paying jobs and strengthening the middle class.

And had we not taken action to encourage these investments, it’s likely many of these jobs would end up going overseas – to Asia, to Europe. America would have lost out. Instead, we have a real chance to lead the way again.

This is the result of Democrats leading the way here in Congress.

We are proud – every one of us is proud – of the steps we’ve taken to lower energy costs, to create jobs that have a real future in this country, and to give working families a chance to climb up the ladders and get into that middle class.

It’s all about restoring that sunny American optimism that’s been at the core of our economic prosperity for so long, that some felt had passed us by.

But no, we Democrats said it hasn't passed us by.

The best of our future is yet to come.

###