A confirmation hearing exchange between Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Treasury Secretary Nominee Scott Bessent is highlighting a sharp contrast between Democratic and Republican energy policy.

Wyden pressed Bessent on Republican efforts to roll back portions of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022, particularly those pieces dealing with clean energy.

With a Republican majority in both houses of Congress, House Speaker Mike Johnson has pledged to target the Green New Deal, to expedite drilling permits, to do away with electric vehicle (EV) mandates and to eliminate tax credits for solar panels, EVs, wind turbines and clean-energy manufacturing.

Wyden claimed that the U.S. is in an “arms race with clean energy with China” and asked Bessent, “Do you want to be on the side of the people who want to unravel this?”

Bessent’s responded that China is building 100 new coal plants this year and that, “This is not a clean energy race. There’s an energy race.”

Bessent also noted that China will build 10 nuclear power plants this year and affirmed his support of greater use of nuclear power here in the U.S.

The nominee for Secretary of the Treasury also pointed out that the IRA, as scored by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is “wildly out of control on spending, in terms of the upside.”

Not all Republicans are firmly on board for eliminating tax credits for clean-energy manufacturing, due to concerns about the economic impact on industries in their districts that have been the recipients of billions of dollars of taxpayer-funded “investments” under the IRA.