Press Releases

Today, Congressman Salud Carbajal voted to send the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, a landmark package to lower health care and energy costs for Central Coast families while tackling climate change and reducing the budget deficit, to President Joe Biden’s desk to become law.

“The Inflation Reduction Act is a landmark bill that meets the greatest challenges that we are facing today—from rising energy prices and health care costs to the worsening damage of the climate crisis,” said Congressman Carbajal. “This new law will deliver key wins for the Central Coast in the form of lower prices, less pollution, and more jobs. I’m proud of my work through this entire Congress to bring these key wins to the finish line, and I look forward to working with Central Coast communities to implement the wide range of benefits that will come from this capstone achievement of our Democratic majority in Congress.”

The budget package includes multiple provisions that will provide relief on rising costs that Carbajal pushed for through his Inflation Action Plan that he crafted with the New Democrat Coalition. Their Inflation Action Plan called for actions on prescription drug pricing reforms and investments in clean energy.

Among the most important provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act are those that:

• Enable Medicare to negotiate lower prescription drug prices on behalf of millions of older Americans and cap out-of-pocket health costs for seniors at $2,000 per year
• Reduce U.S. carbon emissions by an estimated 40% by 2030 through investments in American clean energy production and incentives to help American families adopt clean energy technologies
• Promote American energy security and reliability by investing in U.S. manufacturing of clean energy technologies, including solar, wind, and battery
• Lower health care premiums for millions of Americans that use Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace plans
• Invest more than $25 billion to help protect California communities and agricultural industry against the impact of drought, wildfire, and other effects of the climate crisis
• Reduce the U.S. budget deficit by $300 billion while covering the costs of these investments and not raising taxes on any family making less than $400,000 a year by closing tax loopholes that allow large corporations to avoid paying federal income tax

The Inflation Reduction Act provides a range of incentives to consumers to relieve the high costs of energy and decrease utility bills, including direct consumer incentives to buy energy efficient and electric appliances, vehicles, and HVAC systems.

The bill includes a consumer home energy rebate program to electrify home appliances and promote energy efficient retrofits; consumer tax credits to install rooftop solar, electric HVAC, heat pumps, and other clean energy technologies; and consumer tax credits for middle class Americans to buy new or used clean energy vehicles.

Congressman Carbajal touted the major impacts that these programs will have on the lives of Central Coast families at an event in San Luis Obispo yesterday before returning to Washington to cast his vote.

The full recording at that event can be found here.

More information on the Inflation Reduction Act can be found here.