WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) released the below statement today after voting against a reckless tax-and-spending spree package, which Democrats passed on a party-line vote by circumventing regular order.

“Senate Democrats just voted to raise taxes on working families, kill West Virginia's coal industry, and empower the IRS to spend more time snooping around Main Street. At a time of record inflation, it’s inexplicable for them to repeat the massive over-taxing, over-spending, and over-regulating mistakes already driving us into a recession. Throughout the Senate Democrats’ short-circuited process for ramming through this reckless legislation, I have spent a lot of time and energy exposing the harmful provisions in this partisan bill, while also offering bipartisan solutions. Unfortunately, however, families, employers, and workers in West Virginia already know they will soon bear the burden of this untimely, avoidable mistake.”

Prior to the party-line vote, Senator Capito offered two amendments. One would have enacted strong permitting reform to roll back red tape and unleash American infrastructure projects. The other would have prevented the funding of further regulatory overreach by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), including under Section 111 of the Clean Air Act – the very provision the Obama EPA used to enact the illegal Clean Power Plan to hurt West Virginia’s energy industry.  

Although Senator Capito’s amendment to strike the EPA regulatory slush fund was defeated by a 50-50 tie vote, due to her efforts to enforce congressional budgetary rules that the Democrats tried to work around, the provision was stricken from the final bill by the Senate parliamentarian. Because of this, the EPA will not receive the $45 million and will not receive congressional direction to impose anti-energy regulations that every Senate Democrat voted to give the agency.

Additionally, Senator Capito led efforts to prevent Democrats from imposing harmful taxes on companies holding spectrum that would have negatively impacted broadband deployment and expansion.

In a recent op-ed for the Charleston Gazette-Mail, Senator Capito wrote about the partisan legislation and how it would raise taxes, spend hundreds of billions of dollars, crush American manufacturing and coal, and empower the IRS to target more small businesses and individuals in the midst of record inflation and a recession. Click here to read the full op-ed.

Lowlights of the Democrats’ $700 billion spending bill: 

  • Implement of a 15% book minimum tax on American companies, which will raise taxes on the coal industry by nearly 17%.
  • Spend $370 billion on “climate change” tax credits and wasteful spending, including:
  • Over $40 billion in total new spending for the EPA: $27 billion for “Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund” (aka “Green Bank”), $5 billion for “Climate Pollution Reduction Grants”, and $3 billion for “Climate and Environmental Justice Block Grants."
  • Add $80 billion to the IRS’ budget, aimed at hiring 87,000 agents to increase audits of taxpayers.
  • Does nothing to address needed permitting reform.

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