President Joe Biden is aiming to deliver on many of his climate change campaign promises with a roughly $2 trillion infrastructure plan to help the country recover from the pandemic.
The comprehensive plan, which Biden will unveil in Pittsburgh later Wednesday, includes significant funding to electrify transportation, eliminate carbon emissions from the power sector, and build up U.S. capacity to manufacture clean energy technology such as electric car batteries, according to a White House fact sheet.
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The climate provisions are woven throughout the proposal, making Biden’s plan as much about curbing climate change as it is about rebuilding roads and bridges. The proposal seeks to deliver directly on several of Biden’s pledges on the campaign trail and in early executive orders, including establishing a clean electricity standard to move toward carbon-free power by 2035 and electrifying the entire federal vehicle fleet.
Even so, the clean energy funding already falls short of what some left-wing Democrats have called for, including a $10 trillion infrastructure plan over a decade floated by Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Rep. Debbie Dingell of Michigan. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Green New Deal author Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York outlined plans earlier this month to invest $500 billion in electrifying green transit alone.
Across the aisle, the broad scope of the climate provisions might sour many Republicans on the plan, despite some bipartisan support for investing in clean energy technologies and manufacturing.
The Washington Examiner has put together a rundown of the plan’s major climate provisions, based on a White House fact sheet and comments from an administration official.
Electrifying transportation
- Biden’s plan pledges to invest $174 billion to “win the [electric vehicle] market,” including point-of-sale incentives to encourage consumer purchase of electric cars.
- The proposal sets up grant and incentive programs to fund the build-out of a national electric vehicle charging network. Biden has promised to stand up 500,000 public chargers by 2030.
- The infrastructure plan will aim to replace 50,000 diesel transit vehicles and electrify 20% of the U.S. school bus fleet, creating a new program at the Environmental Protection Agency to do so. Biden’s climate plan on the campaign trail set a goal for all U.S.-built buses to be zero-emissions by 2030.
Generating clean power
- Biden’s plan will establish an “energy efficiency and clean electricity standard” to move toward 100% carbon-free power by 2035, a centerpiece of his climate commitment on the campaign trail. An administration official told reporters Biden “intends to work with Congress” on establishing the standard. Democratic leaders on the House Energy and Commerce Committee proposed a 100% clean electricity standard by 2035 in their sweeping climate bill earlier this month.
- The plan includes a 10-year extension of renewable energy tax credits, and it would allow wind, solar, and energy storage developers to claim those credits as direct cash payments, a longtime ask of the industry.
- Biden is proposing to create a “targeted investment tax credit” to spur the construction of at least 20 gigawatts of high-voltage electric transmission lines. He would also create a Grid Deployment Authority at the Energy Department to oversee the build-out and greater financing.
- Biden would require the government to buy clean power for all federal buildings.
- Biden’s plan seeks to bolster nascent low-carbon technologies, such as carbon capture and hydrogen. For example, the plan proposes pairing investments in 15 hydrogen demonstration projects in underserved regions with new federal incentives for the technology. It would also fund 10 pilot projects retrofitting large industrial manufacturing facilities with carbon capture equipment. In addition, Biden’s plan includes a significant boost for carbon capture and removal that tracks with bipartisan proposals in Congress to expand federal tax credits for the technology and finance storage infrastructure.
- Biden is calling on Congress to invest $35 billion in clean energy technologies needed to curb climate change, and his plan would launch a new climate innovation hub at the Energy Department dubbed ARPA-C. The funding would include $15 billion for demonstration projects in nascent clean energy technology, including advanced nuclear, floating offshore wind, biofuels, and rare earth element production.
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Bolstering clean energy manufacturing and jobs
- Biden is proposing $16 billion to fund work to cap orphaned oil and gas wells and reclaiming abandoned coal and hardrock mines, which the administration says could provide jobs to “hundreds of thousands.”
- The plan would invest $10 billion to create the Civilian Climate Corps that Biden proposed in his climate change executive order to create jobs through conservation projects.
- Biden proposes a $52 billion investment in domestic manufacturing, heavily focused on the clean energy industry. That includes extending federal tax credits for domestic manufacturing facilities known as 48C. Energy Committee Chairman Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat and key centrist, has proposed plans to enhance those tax credits, along with Michigan Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow.
- To help “dislocated” workers, including fossil fuel workers, Biden is proposing a $40 billion investment in worker training to help them transition into new clean energy jobs.
