For example, one stipulation requires that federal lands and offshore waters used for renewable-energy development also be opened up for oil and gas development. Political concessions to shore up support from Joe Manchin (D-WV) may pave the way for future fossil fuel development. The bill has its drawbacks when it comes to climate, however. For companies, the bill includes loan guarantees for clean energy projects and payments for slashing emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas with 80 times the climate-warming power of carbon dioxide. carbon emissions by 40% by the end of the decade.”Īmong these incentives are tax credits for consumers who purchase heat pumps, solar panels, and new and used electric vehicles. “The provisions have the potential to greatly accelerate the clean energy transition and are a primary reason that this bill has the potential to cut U.S.
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“The most critical provisions incentivize renewable energy: grants, loans, and text incentives for solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicles,” he says. Though not referenced in the bill’s name, the provisions to address climate change are some of the legislation’s most noteworthy, totaling nearly $370 billion and representing “the most aggressive climate investment ever taken by Congress,” says climate scientist Michael Mann, who is currently at Penn State University and will join Penn’s faculty next month. To that end, three other Penn experts explain the climate, health care, and tax aspects of the legislation. “A lot of these nitty gritty features about Congress that we teach in our classes here at Penn are important for understanding what ended up in the bill and what didn’t,” he says. But it still required getting all 50 Democratic senators on the same page. This bill went through the reconciliation process, which limits Congressional debate time on an issue, essentially cutting off the option to filibuster. “A lot of Biden’s original plans were stripped out, probably because there wasn’t the same level of support across the ideological spectrum,” he says. That’s instructive, Meredith says, showing that climate change as an issue unifies Democrats across different districts. The measure whittled down Biden’s Build Back Better bill, but climate remained a significant focus. It signifies how important getting this done was to the Democratic Party.”
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“Their ability to get this through means they were able to unify Democrats in Congress across the ideological spectrum,” he says.
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Its success hinged on last-minute cooperation and compromise from Democrats, who, given the lack of Republican support on many of these matters, had little room to lose votes, according to Marc Meredith, a professor of political science in the School of Arts & Sciences. The sprawling bill tackles global warming, lowers health care costs, and tweaks some federal tax policies, President Biden has signed into law the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).