GOP House Speaker Johnson backs keeping some of Biden's clean energy tax credits

U.S House Speaker Mike Johnson said he would preserve some of the clean energy tax credits enacted under President Joe Biden but would seek to eliminate others, as an upcoming battle over taxes next year comes into focus in Washington.

In an interview with CNBC, the Louisiana Republican said it would be impossible to "blow up" the entirety of Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, a sweeping climate and economic package signed into law in 2022.

"You've got to use a scalpel and not a sledgehammer, because there's a few provisions in there that have helped overall," Johnson said at the Riggs Washington D.C. hotel on Tuesday. He added that most of the law was "terribly harmful to the economy."

Johnson declined to specify which provisions he would support keeping in place, saying he's "not putting any of that on the table yet."

Johnson is not the only Republican who wants to keep parts of the IRA intact, nor is he the only one who won't specify what, specifically, he would leave in place.

More than a dozen members of Johnson's own party, many of whom face difficult re-election fights, asked the speaker in a letter last month to preserve some of the tax credits and deductions in the IRA.

They noted that some provisions had led to more development and growth in their districts. The letter didn't specify what specific measures the lawmakers wanted to keep.

"Prematurely repealing energy tax credits, particularly those which were used to justify investments that already broke ground, would undermine private investments and stop development that is already ongoing," the 18 lawmakers wrote in the letter.

"A full repeal would create a worst-case scenario where we would have spent billions of taxpayer dollars and received next to nothing in return," they wrote.

Johnson spoke to CNBC right after he delivered a major speech on the economy, at an event hosted by America First Policy Institute. The non-profit think tank is led by Trump White House alums and affiliated with former President Donald Trump's policies.

In his speech, Johnson took a tough stance against the tax credits and deductions in the IRA, which include benefits for electric vehicles, solar and wind facilities, biofuels, nuclear power and energy efficient buildings, among others.

"We will cut the wasteful Green New Deal spending in the Democrat's so-called Inflation Reduction Act," he said at AFPI.

Lawmakers are already preparing for a battle over whether to extend portions of the 2017 tax law, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, that will expire at the end of next year.

Johnson has said that he would extend and build upon the Trump-era tax cut package - assuming Republicans keep control of the House next year.

Eager to offset extending the tax cuts, several Republicans, including Trump, have already eyed rolling back the IRA's tax credits as a potential source of revenue.