GM chief Mary Barra heads to White House to promote Manchin-Schumer bill

General Motors boss Mary Barra is slated to appear at the White House Thursday to promote the budget reconciliation package that’s being pushed by Sens. Joe Manchin and Chuck Schumer.

The White House confirmed the GM CEO’s visit but declined to say specifically with whom she would meet. President Biden is still quarantining due to his “rebound” COVID-19 infection, so any Biden-Barra meeting would be virtual.

A GM spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The pending Inflation Reduction Act from Manchin (D-WV) and Schumer (D-NY), which is set to advance Biden’s climate agenda, makes electric vehicles a central part of the legislation with a $7,500 tax credit for new electric vehicles.

General Motors — which sold 25,000 electric vehicles last year — is also pushing EVs and has set an ambitious goal that by 2025, it will sell more electric vehicles than Tesla. Elon Musk’s EV maker sold 352,000 electric vehicles last year.

Biden’s embrace of electric vehicles is a key part of his green agenda — by 2030, he aims for half of all vehicles sold to be electric. It’s unclear how much this provision will cost taxpayers in all, but the Congressional Budget Office estimates it will provide roughly $85 million to carmakers in 2023.

The electric vehicle tax credit is one of the few measures salvaged from Biden’s stalled Build Back Better Act, on which Manchin pulled the plug in December, citing soaring inflation.

This isn’t the first time the White House has cozied up to GM. Since last year, GM has paid $340,000 to Biden counselor Steve Ricchetti’s lobbyist brother Jeff Ricchetti to lobby on behalf of such policies as green credits.