Harris in Seattle: Vice president touts 'Bidenomics' in speech to mark anniversary of Inflation Reduction Act

Aug. 15—Vice President Kamala Harris stopped in Seattle on Tuesday to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the Inflation Reduction Act being signed into law and to raise money for President Joe Biden's re-election bid.

Harris and her staff flew in on Air Force 2 and stepped into a 90-degree-plus heatwave that marked Seattle's hottest week so far this year. The local temperature and a global climate crisis would become recurring topics of discussion in the five hours the vice president spent visiting the Emerald City.

"We have made millions of dollars in tax credits available so clean energy upgrades can happen to businesses," she said during a speech at construction and energy company McKinstry. She added that those investments create "good-paying union jobs."

Harris told the crowd the climate change clock was not ticking, but "banging."

Harris arrived in Washington late Tuesday morning at King County International Airport, known as Boeing Field. A crowd of roughly 15 people welcomed her on the tarmac, including Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell.

The vice president hopped into a motorcade as its extensive line of cars and motorcycles shut down all northbound lanes of I-5 through Seattle, much to the chagrin of locals trying to accomplish their lunchtime tasks. The motorcade dropped Harris off just before noon at McKinstry.

Harrell and Inslee addressed the packed auditorium at the construction company before Harris spoke, along with U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell.

"Seattle and Washington have long been the epicenter of affordable energy pricing," Cantwell said. "We know that today we might have record heat in Seattle, but we also have a record investment in diversifying our energy future and driving down costs for consumers."

Granholm told the crowd the U.S. energy sector has never been "more electrified." She cited an Energy Department projection that estimates that by 2030, 80% of all electricity generated in the country will be "clean," thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act.

Harris took the stage and thanked Washington lawmakers in the room, including Cantwell, whom she called one of the nation's "greatest climate leaders."

The vice president gave a shoutout to the activists, organizers and young leaders in the crowd.

She discussed the "stark" global climate crisis, including the state's "deadly heatwaves and devastating wildfires."

"Across our nation, we see communities choked by drought, washed out by floods and decimated by hurricanes," she said. "Of course, we are all praying for the people of Maui. Far too many lives lost."

Harris told the crowd the Inflation Reduction Act created 175,000 clean energy jobs in the past year. Those jobs included 2,500 solar panel manufacturing jobs across the country, she said. She pointed toward the Biden administration's prioritization of lower energy costs — working toward family tax credits and rebates for things like new insulation and windows.

"President Biden and I are building an economy that works for working people," she said to a cheering crowd. "That, my friends, is called Bidenomics."

The vice president said she and Biden had created 400,000 jobs alone in the Evergreen State since the pair took office.

After the speeches and tour of the McKinstry factory, Harris rode in the motorcade to a fundraising event co-hosted by Microsoft president Brad Smith at a house with a lakeside pool in Medina, a small community near Bellevue.

The vice president's fundraiser was held in a home owned by Beth McCaw and Yahn Bernier. Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff spoke to a foyer of roughly 50 people before Harris addressed the crowd.

She talked more about the Inflation Reduction Act and climate crisis, as well as her and Biden's commitments to racial equity and women's rights in the wake of the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act a year ago Wednesday. The law provides incentives to buy and expand clean energy technology, including solar panels, electric vehicles and heat pumps. Other provisions are aimed at lowering prescription drug prices. Biden, Harris and other administration officials have been traveling the country recently to tout the law's impacts .

The Biden administration advertises the act as the country's largest "climate investment" in history, which has amounted to nearly $1 trillion, Harris said Tuesday.

The vice president and her staff boarded Air Force 2 just before 4:30 p.m. and took off for their next stop in Los Angeles.

Ellen Dennis' work is funded in part by members of the Spokane community via the Community Journalism and Civic Engagement Fund. This story can be republished by other organizations for free under a Creative Commons license. For more information on this, please contact our newspaper's managing editor.