Dear Neighbor:

I’m writing to share the excellent news that President Joe Biden has signed into law the Inflation Reduction Act, historic legislation that protects our planet from the civilizational threat of climate change, lowers the price of life-saving drugs, and ensures access to affordable health care. The Inflation Reduction Act is a massive investment in our environmental and health policy infrastructure that moves us to a sustainable future for our grandchildren. It empowers Medicare for the first time to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies, ending a decades-long corporate giveaway while ensuring a freer and fairer market in drug prices. Crucially, the Inflation Reduction Act pays for itself by making billion-dollar corporations pay their fair share of taxes.

Along with the American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS Act to manufacture U.S. semiconductors, and the PACT Act providing health care to veterans who were exposed to burn-pits and toxic substances, the Inflation Reduction Act propels us toward a more equal society that’s well-equipped to handle the sweeping challenges of the twenty-first century.

I’ve worked for years to see the provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act turned into law—from the clean energy investments that will save families an average of $1,025 a year to capping the price of insulin at $35 per month for people on Medicare and capping out-of-pocket annual spending on prescription drugs at $2,000 for people on Medicare. I was proud to vote for this landmark legislation, and I look forward to Marylanders benefiting from its significant generational investments for decades to come.

I hope you’ll look at the detailed summary of the Inflation Reduction Act below. As always, I encourage all 8th District residents to connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. If you need help with a federal agency and want to request my assistance, please complete the online request form here, and my District Office will be in touch.

All Best,

Jamie Raskin

The Inflation Reduction Act

Lowering the Cost of Prescription Drugs

• The Inflation Reduction Act will empower Medicare to negotiate lower prescription drug prices, saving $100 billion dollars over ten years and making prescription drugs more affordable.
• Caps out-of-pocket prescription drug costs for people with Medicare at $2,000 per year, saving money for approximately 1,400,000 people on Medicare, especially those with cancer and complex conditions.
• The legislation limits the price of insulin to $35 per month for people who have Medicare.

Extending Affordable Health Care Coverage

• The Inflation Reduction Act extends the enhanced Affordable Care Act
  (ACA) health insurance subsidies passed in the American Rescue Plan through 2025, locking in subsidies that currently save 13 million people an average of $800 per year. These enhanced subsidies helped about 9,000 people in Maryland's Eighth Congressional District newly enroll in an ACA health insurance plan last year.
• The Department of Health and Human Services estimates that without this extension, about 3 million people would have become uninsured in 2023.
• Meanwhile, the expansion of ACA subsidies has brought the national uninsured rate earlier this year to an all-time low of eight percent.

Largest Climate Investment in American History Will Cut Emissions and Help Families

• The Inflation Reduction Act invests $369 billion to strengthen America's energy security and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This is the biggest investment ever in clean energy, and it will cut families’ energy costs by an average of $1,025 a year, reduce peak U.S. carbon emissions by an estimated 40 percent by 2030, and create millions of good jobs.
• Families can receive up to $28,500 to purchase electric vehicles, solar panels and energy efficient appliances.
• New green tax credits can save families up to $1,800 per year for installing new, energy efficient upgrades in their homes.
• The climate provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act are essential to achieving our commitments to the Paris Agreement, including reducing peak climate pollution by half by 2030.
• The Inflation Reduction Act tackles the largest driver of inflation—oil and gas prices—by making clean energy more affordable. Overall, 41 percent of inflation since Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine has been driven by fossil fuel prices.

• $60 billion to on-shore clean energy manufacturing in the U.S. across the full supply chain of clean energy and transportation technologies.
• Up to $20 billion in loans to build new clean vehicle manufacturing facilities across the country.
• Production tax credits to accelerate U.S. manufacturing of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, and critical minerals processing, estimated to invest $30 billion.
• $10 billion investment tax credit to build clean technology manufacturing facilities, like facilities that make electric vehicles, wind turbines and solar panels.
• $2 billion in grants to retool existing auto manufacturing facilities to manufacture clean vehicles, ensuring that auto manufacturing jobs stay in the communities that depend on them.
• $2 billion for National Labs to accelerate breakthrough energy research.
• $500 million in the Defense Production Act for heat pumps and critical minerals processing.

• A $27 billion clean energy technology accelerator to support deployment of technologies to reduce emissions, especially in disadvantaged communities.
• Over $9 billion for federal procurement of American-made clean technologies to create a stable market for clean products, including $3 billion for the U.S. Postal Service to purchase zero-emission vehicles.
• Grants and tax credits to reduce emissions from industrial manufacturing processes, including almost $6 billion for a new Advanced Industrial Facilities Deployment Program to reduce emissions from the largest industrial emitters like chemical, steel and cement plants.
• Tax credits for clean sources of electricity and energy storage and roughly $30 billion in targeted grant and loan programs for states and electric utilities to accelerate the transition to clean electricity.

• Environmental and Climate Justice Block Grants, funded at $3 billion to invest in community-led projects to address disproportionate environmental and public health harms related to pollution and climate change.
• Neighborhood Access and Equity Grants, funded at $3 billion, to support neighborhood equity, safety, and affordable transportation access with four competitive grants to reconnect communities divided by existing infrastructure barriers.
• Grants to Reduce Air Pollution at Ports, funded at $3 billion, to support the purchase and installation of zero-emission equipment and technology.
• $1 billion for clean heavy-duty vehicles like school buses and garbage trucks.

• More than $20 billion to support climate-smart agriculture practices.
• $5 billion in grants for healthy, fire-resilient forests, forest conservation and urban tree planting.
• $2.6 billion in grants to conserve and restore coastal habitats.

Making Giant Corporations and Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share

• The Inflation Reduction Act raises $737 billion over the next ten years by making the tax code more fair and investing in taxpayer services.
• Raises $222 billion by creating a fifteen percent domestic corporate minimum tax on the two hundred largest corporations.
• Before the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, giant corporations like Amazon were able to pay lower tax rates than nurses firefighters and teachers.
• Imposes a 1% excise tax on any stock repurchase by a publicly traded US corporation.
• Invests $80 billion in the IRS to improve taxpayer services, including pre-filing assistance, and ensure the wealthiest Americans pay their taxes.
• A letter sent to Congressional Leadership signed by 126 leading economists—including seven Nobel Laureates, two former Treasury Secretaries, two former Federal Reserve Vice Chairs and two former Council of Economic Advisors Chairs—notes that the revenue created by the Inflation Reduction Act will come exclusively from wealthy individuals and corporations.

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