Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), an outspoken critic of President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, used the law to receive a grant to install solar panels at one of his car dealership locations.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture gave a Uniontown dealership owned by Mike Kelly Automotive Group a nearly $315,000 grant to install a 261.9-kilowatt solar panel array, according to the Erie Times-News, the local news outlet that first reported the grant on Monday. The grant is set to save the firm $23,700 per year in energy costs, according to the USDA.
The USDA distributed the grant through its Rural Energy for America Program (REAP). The program has existed since 2018, but the Inflation Reduction Act injected an additional $1 billion into the program dramatically expanding its scope. The federal government then announced that it would distribute that money in grants to rural businesses over the course of 2023 and 2024.
In his official statement following the bill’s passage, Kelly derided the legislation that made those grants possible as the “so-called Inflation Reduction Act,” charging that it was “loaded with bad policy and wasteful spending that will ultimately worsen inflation, expand government, and hurt the middle-class.”
His office singled out the bill’s climate provisions as damaging in bullet points accompanying the statement. “The bill provides $375 billion in so-called ‘climate change’ legislation, which include $7,500 tax credits for wealthy Americans to purchase electric vehicles (EV),” his office said.
Asked how the grant squares with Kelly’s opposition to the IRA, Kelly spokesperson Matt Knoedler referred HuffPost to the statement he provided the Erie Times-News.
“Representative Kelly’s energy policy has always supported an all-of-the-above approach,” Knoedler said. “Additionally, Rep. Kelly does not have an active role in the day-to-day operations of his family’s business.”
In his 2022 financial disclosure, Kelly reported…
Read the full article here
