“IT’LL BE somewhere between a scalpel and a sledgehammer,” was how Mike Johnson, speaker of the House, described the emerging Republican approach to the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Joe Biden’s signature climate law. Pressure from companies and congressmen with clean-energy projects benefiting from its subsidies in their districts (most are found in Republican counties) suggested surgical precision would prevail. But relentless pressure to abolish the IRA from the president, who is a fan of drilling, baby, drilling and denounced the law as the “Green New Scam,” pointed instead to brute force. The president reinforced this by dropping in on a private party caucus on May 20th to strong-arm waverers and threaten dissenters with a MAGA primary challenge. “They won’t be Republicans much longer…they’d be knocked out so fast,” he declared.