On August 16, 2023, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act (the “IRA”). The IRA passed in the U.S. House of Representatives by a vote of 220 to 207 and in the U.S Senate by a vote of 51-50. The fact that despite the fervent opposition of 50 Senators, President Biden was able to obtain Senate approval for the IRA is nothing short of miraculous.

The IRA is massive — it is 730 pages long and it addresses in detail hundreds of issues. But the main thing that owners of Concord and New Hampshire businesses should know about it is that, despite its title, it is not primarily an inflation reduction act. Rather, it is an act whose main purpose is to fight climate change. It seeks to do so by, among other things, providing hundreds of billions of dollars of federal support to companies in scores of industries that can help in the climate change battle. These include, potentially, hundreds of New Hampshire companies. As I noted in my August 27, 2023 column in this newspaper about the IRA, these include virtually all New Hampshire companies that produce or do research or provide services with regard to:

■Solar, wind, marine and geothermal energy;

■Other forms of clean energy, include nuclear energy;

■Carbon capture equipment;

■Hydro technology; and

■Photovoltaic wafers and cells, solar-grade polysilicon, polymeric backsheets, solar modes, wind energy components, and energy-efficient batteries and battery cells and modules.

In addition, special federal income tax benefits are available under the IRA to companies that fight global warming and to companies whose plants or projects are located in low-income and brownfield communities. 

If you want to find out whether the IRA can benefit your company, you can do so by calling the constituent service specialists in the offices of New Hampshire’s two senators and its two Representatives — namely, Senators Shaheen and Hassan and Representatives Kuster and Pappas. If you don’t already have their telephone numbers, you can find them readily in Google.

John Cunningham is a lawyer licensed to practice law in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. He is of counsel to the law firm of McLane Middleton, P.A. Contact him at 856-7172 or lawjmc@comcast.net. His website is llc199a.com. For access to all of his Law in the Marketpla ce columns, visit concordmonitor.com.

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