Harris touts Inflation Reduction Act in Seattle speech

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

"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 that the climate change clock was not ticking, but "banging."

Harris arrived in Washington state 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.

After the speech and tour of the McKinstry factory, Harris rode in a motorcade to a fundraising event co-hosted by Microsoft president Brad Smith in Medina, a small city north of Bellevue.

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

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. Some other provisions are aimed at lowering prescription drug prices. Biden, Harris and other administration officials have been travelling the country recently to tout the impacts of the law.

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.