Think the clean-energy tax credits are safe? Think again.

If push comes to shove, Republican lawmakers won’t cross Trump. They’ll rub SALT into a wounded IRA.

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(Bill Sternberg is a veteran Washington journalist and former editorial page editor of USA Today.)

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. (Callaway Climate Insights) — In recent weeks, backers of the massive clean-energy subsidies in Joe Biden’s signature climate law have grown more optimistic that the subsidies will survive in Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful” tax bill taking shape in Congress.

After all, in Washington it’s typically hard to roll back an existing program that has developed a political constituency. Four Republican Senators and 21 Republican House members have signed letters supportive of the tax credits, the bulk of which have benefitted GOP-controlled states and congressional districts. Given the narrow Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress, that would, in theory, give those 25 members the ability to torpedo any legislation that repeals the tax credits.

But does this suggest that the hundreds of billions of dollars in incentives — for electric vehicles, heat pumps, wind, solar, battery storage, nuclear and an array of other green technologies — are safe? Hardly.