Sen. Joe Manchin and President Joe Biden are in a battle of he-said, he-said. The West Virginia Democrat has spent months accusing the White House of breaking a key part of the deal that secured Biden’s climate law last summer — specifically, Manchin’s demand for tight restrictions on tax breaks for electric vehicles. Manchin’s vote was critical to passing the $369 billion package of clean energy incentives. But since then, he says, Biden’s regulators have made the EV tax credits way more widely available than the law envisioned. “They’re going to try to screw me,” Manchin said of White House officials earlier this year. But nearly two dozen congressional aides, lawmakers, administration officials and lobbyists are casting doubt on Manchin’s account of the negotiations over the Inflation Reduction Act, write Emma Dumain and Hannah Northey. Why they fight The conflicting accounts can in part be attributed to the swift, secretive nature of the negotiations, and the fact that Senate Democrats used the arcane process of budget reconciliation to pass the measure without Republican votes. That meant the bill received little vetting and left the administration with broad powers to interpret its provisions, according to people familiar with the talks. The crux of the dispute is the law’s generous tax credits for electric vehicles. Senior Manchin aides insist that Biden promised the incentives would aim to boost domestic manufacturing and mining, even if that slowed EV adoption by boxing out foreign carmakers and suppliers. Manchin says that by expanding the number of trade partners eligible for the tax credit, Biden has broken that promise. “The president gave Manchin his word,” one Manchin aide said, adding that congressional Democratic leaders gave the same verbal agreement. But no congressional aide or administration official Emma and Hannah interviewed would confirm Manchin’s account of negotiations. And White House spokesperson Michael Kikukawa disputed Manchin’s claim. “The president committed to implementing the law as written, and that is what the administration is doing,” Kikukawa said. It’s all in the details The dispute isn’t just a matter of legislative history. Manchin has expressed his displeasure with Biden by torpedoing some of the president’s nominees, and the IRA’s reception in his native state could have a bearing on whether he seeks reelection. It also highlights the hazard of piecing together a major bill behind closed doors, said Pat Parenteau, professor emeritus at the Vermont Law and Graduate School. There’s no such thing as an “agreement in principle,” Parenteau said. “It’s a question of how crisp and clear the writing is and do the literal words really capture what the law calls a ‘meeting of the minds.’”
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