US Social Policy Bill covers tax break on electric bikes

Joe Biden’s Social Policy Bill includes a $4.1 billion tax break for people who buy electric bicycles

US President Joe Biden’s Social Policy Bill includes a $4.1 billion tax break for people who buy electric bicycles, $2.5 billion for “tree equity,” another $2.5 billion to help “contingency fee” lawyers recoup their expenses, and a long-sought tax break for producers of sound recordings.

The marquee programmes within the Democrats’ social safety net and climate change bill, such as universal pre-kindergarten, childcare subsidies and prescription drug price controls, have garnered most of the public attention. But when a nearly $2 trillion piece of legislation moves through Congress, it affords lawmakers ample opportunity to pursue any number of niche issues, and lobbyists and industries plenty of room to notch long-sought victories.

That is the case with the Build Back Better Act, which could aid a wide array of special interests and Democratic allies that have waited years for such a moment.

I welcome the attention. I don’t think these are fringe, niche issues, said Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., who had no reservations about extolling one of his cherished provisions: the tax incentive to help consumers purchase electric bicycles or e-bikes.

So far, President Joe Biden and leading Democrats have publicly championed the bill’s biggest-ticket and most ambitious items. The House will begin debating the measure Wednesday, and the majority leader, Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, said Tuesday that he expected a vote by Friday, though it could slip to Saturday.

Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, chairman of the House Democrats’ campaign arm, called it “the most important investment in our families, our people, since the New Deal.”

Republican opponents, too, have largely fixated on the broader issues: the role of government, the economic repercussions of tax increases, and the potential inflationary effect that more government spending could have.

That has left lawmakers that much freer to secure provisions that have largely avoided scrutiny. Rep. Jimmy Panetta, D-Calif., another proponent of electric bike subsidies, said the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee drafted its section of the bill, provision by provision, and no one objected to the e-bike measure, which would cover 30 percent of the cost, up to $900, to, as he put it, “put butts on bikes.”

Once you get out there, once you start talking about benefits and once you talk to people who have tried e-bikes, they accept it and they want it, he said. Getting the money into the bill “was easier than I expected,” he added.