Generally viewed as ambitious in size and scope, it sought to make the largest nationwide public investments in social, infrastructural, and environmental programs since the 1930s Great Depression-fighting policies of the New Deal.

[34] Schumer's lead staffer, Gerry Petrella, recalled the surprise phone call came from Senator Joe Manchin's office just prior to the August recess and the breakthrough negotiations occurred on the final summer weekend.

[35] Some of the many experts, lobbyists and organizers who worked to refine the bill's provisions included Leah C. Stokes, Adrian Deveny, Katherine Hamilton, Ari Appel, Mike Carr, Danielle Deiseroth, Ari Mathusiak, Camila Thorndike, Jamal Raad, Topher Spiro, and Yogin Kothari;[36][21][37] the overall approach was shaped by Manchin and Senators Ron Wyden, Mark Warner and Chris Coons, while Representative Scott Peters worked to add pro-pharmaceutical industry limits to the Medicare drug pricing provisions, and Senators Elizabeth Warren and Kyrsten Sinema negotiated on shaping an alternative minimum tax for corporate book income.

[80][non-primary source needed] Writing in Vox, Rebecca Leber cites economists who predict that the Act will make the US less exposed to fossilflation, which is inflation caused by reliance on volatile commodity markets like the ones for fossil fuels.

[117] The Act should cut the global greenhouse gas emissions by a level similar to "eliminating the annual planet-warming pollution of France and Germany combined" and may help to limit the warming of the planet to 1.5 degrees Celsius – the target of the Paris Agreement.

[143] Modeling from the nonpartisan research institution Resources for the Future indicates the Act would decrease retail power costs by 5.2–6.7% over a ten-year period, resulting in savings of $170–220 per year for the average U.S. household.

[162] In a November 2023 report the interest group Environmental Entrepreneurs and the research firm BW found 210 announced projects directly linked to the Inflation Reduction Act, in the first year since its signing.

[171] Wellesley College professor of environmental studies Jay Turner said that as of July 21, 2024[update] the Act fostered $94.2 billion in 121 new investments in the electric vehicle supply chain, creating a projected 60,597 new jobs across the United States, Canada and Mexico.

[178] The trade group American Clean Power's January 2023 assessment of business announcements of IRA-linked investments in renewables and battery plants, during the period between the Act's signing and November 30, 2022, yielded a figure of over $40 billion creating 6,850 jobs.

[186][needs update] In October 2023, Lee Harris of The American Prospect covered one example of synergies between the Act and the growth of an organizing model known as sectoral bargaining: three unions in solar power construction agreed to a nationwide deal to divide work on future projects (California being exempt because of a similar five-union agreement).

[187] On August 16, 2024, the United Steelworkers announced it had successfully reached an electoral neutrality agreement with solar panel manufacturer Convalt, making it easier to form a union at IRA-linked project sites in Pennsylvania and New York.

[194] The next month, the Times reported that the IRS had received from about 500 companies registrations of more than 45,500 projects attached to direct pay or possible small business sales of the IRA's energy tax credits, up from only about 1,000 in January.

[215] On March 6, 2024, the Department of Agriculture announced it would advance requests for $139 million to be approved, to five solar and battery storage projects in Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii and Nebraska, under the Powering Affordable Clean Energy (PACE) program that the Act created.

[216] On the 11th, the IRS finalized the rules of its direct pay program allowing tax-exempt nonprofits, the TVA, state and local governments and electric cooperatives to access the Act's panoply of tax credits.

[217] On the 13th, the DOE announced the first conditional commitment of a $72.8 million loan guarantee to a Tribal energy project under the Act, the Viejas Microgrid benefiting Kumeyaay residents near Alpine, California.

[225][226][227] On April 11, the Interior Department finalized a rule cutting rents on federal lands for renewable energy development by 80 percent, in part by clarifying definitions in Section 50265(b)(1) of the Act.

Pontecorvo found that while the program's data gathering process is difficult to assess, 98 percent of the money was allocated based mostly on installers' locations, without requirements to ensure that the savings reach low-income residents.

[246] On December 18, the DOE used the Section 1706 Program to fund Pacific Gas and Electric Company's hydropower and energy storage expansions and enable experiments in virtual power plants.

These included delaying the hourly matching requirement to 2030, advantaging nuclear power plants "at the risk of retirement", and allowing hydrogen producers more leeway to claim natural gas with carbon capture counted towards the credit, though the new rules also emphasized some exemptions only apply in states with a clean energy standard and binding emissions cap.

[258][259] The Treasury released its next draft guidance for EV buyers on March 31, 2023, effective immediately, with finalization expected in June, and the first update taking place in May 2024; the allowed materials source list includes the 20 United States free-trade agreements partners and Japan.

[241] On the 29th, the EPA and President Biden announced the 55 recipients of the $2.9 billion Clean Ports Program funded by the Act; most of the money will go towards zero-emissions cargo handling equipment or shore power.

The projects include creating parks for addressing floods, protecting Duck Valley Indian Reservation natural and cultural resources, teaching children about repairing[clarification needed] and more.

[150][154] The manufacturers, Bristol Myers Squibb, Boehringer Ingelheim, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Merck, AstraZeneca, Novartis, Immunex, Pharmacyclics, and Novo Nordisk, had until October 1, 2023 to declare their intent to participate, upon penalty of a large excise tax, or they would withdraw their drugs from Medicaid and Medicare.

[293] Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen directed IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig to not use the new funding allocated in the Act to increase the rate of audits of those making less than $400,000 a year above historical levels, but to instead focus on "high-end noncompliance".

[313][314] Tom Philpott, an agriculture journalist writing in Wired, praised the bill's investments in climate-smart agriculture and remedies for USDA loan discrimination, but heavily criticized Sinema's deletion of the carried interest loophole modification and the lack of provisions to expand funding for the National School Lunch Act and improvements to child nutrition (as expressed in the original Build Back Better Act) and for soil erosion prevention programs (which enhance small-scale carbon farming and encourage a shift away from monoculture-dependent farming for ethanol fuel in the United States).

Jean Su, the energy justice program director at the Center for Biological Diversity, called the legislation "a backdoor take-it-or-leave-it deal between a coal baron and Democratic leaders in which any opposition from lawmakers or frontline communities was quashed.

Cornelius Blanding, head of the U.S. Federation of Southern Cooperatives, also praised the IRA, but expressed concern that its revisions of the American Rescue Plan's debt relief programs for minority farmers would worsen racial discrimination in agriculture.

[325] Commentators at the Center for Strategic International Studies and in The Diplomat, along with United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai and John Podesta himself have acknowledged increased economic competition with China as one of many motivators behind the Act.

[256] On December 18, he wrote a letter to Gene Dodaro, head of the Government Accountability Office, asking for a legal opinion on if Congress can overturn the Treasury guidance on Section 30D, on the basis that it is technically a proposal and not finalized, but is being enforced as the latter.

[349] Staffers for Governor Gavin Newsom (D-CA) also asked the Treasury Department in May 2024 for an "alternative compliance pathway" that lifted emissions restrictions on the state's hydrogen hub, ostensibly to better align with their 100% renewable energy adoption goal.