What Biden’s Enormous Climate Bill Means
Joe Biden, the president of the United States of America, signed a bill into law on Tuesday, August 16, 2022 — one that he stated as one of history’s most important legislations to deal with the current climate crisis. After months of negotiations with Joe Manchin, the Democrat Senator of West Virginia, the bill was finally agreed upon.
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) comprises a total spending amount worth $437 billion. Out of this amount, approximately $370 billion will be contributed towards drastic carbon-emitting measures like adequate tax breaks for electric vehicles (EVs) and low-carbon energy.
Regarding the money committed, the climate change bill is still far off the scale of the many former proposals the administration put through when Joe Biden regained authority in 2021, including some provisions to increase gas and oil drilling on public lands. Still, this bill can effectively bring America closer to achieving all its global climate targets.
Despite its limitations, it can be agreed that this bill marks the most ambitious and high-spirited climate action Congress has ever taken. The following section observes some of the bill’s most important contents and how effectively it is projected to cut down US emissions.
Measures Under the Climate Change Bill
The passing of this climate change bill is just the starting point. After signing the vast climate legislation, Biden, along with his management, is planning an array of executive movements to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions further and protect Planet Earth from warming to harsh temperatures.
President Biden is on the go to implement a series of drastic measures, including new guidelines on emissions that arise from power plants, vehicle tailpipes, gas and oil wells, etc. Under the bill, the government will spend roughly around $370 billion on green energy initiatives. It will also permit the state-operated Medicare system to discuss prices for prescription medicines.
Gina McCarthy, who is the White House climate adviser, stated that governing moves and novel action and legislation from states could aid President Biden in fulfilling his promise of mitigating greenhouse gas emissions by 50%.
The move toward more significant executive action comes less than 2 months, soon after the Supreme Court confined the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to control carbon releases from power plants.
The voting scenario was 6:3, with the majority of liberal justices of the court in dissent and expressed that the majority had been divested from the Environmental Protection Agency’s freedom and power to respond to this era’s most demanding environmental challenge.”
Even though the ruling was cut short, it didn’t eliminate the agency’s ability to control the energy sector. As a result, the agency might still call for measures such as controlling emissions at individual power plants. However, the court did rule out a few more striving approaches, such as requiring the utilities to transition to solar power or wind from coal.
The officials of the Environmental Protection Agency state they’re currently working to establish a new regulation for coal-fired power plants and gas plants that will adhere to what is deemed mandatory by the Supreme Court. However, there is still no evidence regarding how these new policies will work.
Ms. McCarthy also noted that the Environmental Protection Agency still has extensive power to control emissions from electricity creation. The government is also trying to duplicate this with new regulations on traditional air pollutants and soot, both having the advantage of reducing carbon emissions.
Apart from the power plant regulations, she also jots down a list of various areas where other executive agencies are preparing to take action on climate. The Environmental Protection Agency has been working on controlling the release of methane, which is a potent greenhouse gas that emits from natural gas and oil.
It is known for warming the atmosphere 80 times faster than carbon dioxide in a relatively short time. This particular rule is predicted to be confirmed by the end of this year. Moreover, there might even be a regulation passed next year for the purpose of curbing vehicle tailpipe emissions.
Besides that, the new law also aims to utilize the incentives to encourage customers to purchase EVs and for corporations to invest in energy efficiency. They were included as part of a last-minute deal between Senator Chuck Schumer and Mr. Manchin, the majority leader and the Democrat of New York.
How Much Will The Climate Change Bill Cut Emissions In The US?
According to the REPEAT Project’s analysis, by 2030, the IRA would lead to emissions being close to 42% lower than 2005 levels. This is lined up with the 40% decrease mentioned by Democrat senators. Some other assessments gave various estimates, and the Rhodium Group concluded it would probably lead to 32 to 42% below the 2005 levels in 2030.
On the other hand, according to Energy Innovation, there was a drop of 37-41%. According to Rhodium Group’s observation, this range depicts doubt around economic expansion, fossil fuel prices, and clean technology costs.
There’s still a need for more action across all government levels to minimize emissions by half, i.e., 50-52% below 2005 levels. This is the universal target under the Paris Agreement, which the United States of America hopes to achieve.
Even while taking the climatic provisions into account in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which Joe Biden was able to pass towards the end of last year, the United States of America had only been successful in curbing carbon emissions by 27% from 2005 levels, a figure that was hardly halfway towards the projected target.
Altogether, this project assessment comes to the conclusion that the new climate change bill closes around 2/3 of the gap amid the existing policy and the projected climate objective for 2030.
Even though a significant extent has been made of the provisions created for the production of oil and gas, the analysts mainly modulated the effect it would have on the emissions trajectory of the United States. To further highlight this, Energy Innovation stated that for each tonne of emissions that are likely to result from these provisions, 24 tonnes will be prevented by the bill’s other measures.
Still, the Climate Action Tracker (CAT) exposed an even more negative viewpoint the day Biden signed the climate change bill. It places more significant emphasis on supporting fossil fuels enlisted in the document, estimating a more vast range of cuts in emission by 2030 – between 26-42% below 2005 levels.
According to CAT, the IRA’s outcome and implementation pose great uncertainty. It also notes that all the former short-term actions President Biden took in attempts to tackle the rising gas and oil prices, such as encouraging fossil fuel creators to boost drilling, might ultimately affect and/or compromise his long-term climate objectives.
As a result, the director of CAT developer Climate Analytics, Bill Hare, informed the publication that even though there are some shortcomings, the climate change bill should minimize forthcoming global warming not too much, but not trivially either.
Key Takeaway
Joe Biden promised to offer $11.4 billion yearly in climate funding by 2024. However, Congress only agreed on $1 billion in 2021. Without more funding, it is hard to expect other nations to be more willing to reduce their emissions.
After considering all these facts, CAT describes the United States’ climate regulations and promises as being insufficient for reaching the 1.5 ºC temperature limit under the Paris Agreement.
