Climate Bill Is Less Than Meets the Eye

The “Inflation Reduction Act”

• The package includes $260 billion in tax credits for low-emissions electricity production, including nuclear power; $80 billion in new rebates for electric vehicles and home energy upgrades; and $60 billion for alternative energy manufacturing.
• While the bill will likely produce further marginal reductions, claims that it will alter the nation's fundamental emissions trajectory are misleading
• Indeed, the bill ignores two major policy levers: carbon pricing and permitting reform
• Carbon pricing, the most basic way governments can nudge economies away from carbon-intensive goods and services, has been floated before, but this bill does not pursue setting a general price on carbon
• Permitting reform is perhaps the most important policy in the U.S. for advancing low-carbon energy innovation
• President Biden's decision-making in this arena has been emblematic of the often-self-defeating environmental ethos of the Democratic Party
  1. Raul Grijalva, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, called permitting reform a “euphemism for gutting our most foundational environmental and public health protections.” So the refreshing turn away from anti-growth environmentalism and toward energy abundance that the bill promises may be less than meets the eye.
  2. If carbon pricing represents a simple tool for governments worldwide, permitting reform is perhaps the most important policy in the U.S. for advancing low-carbon energy innovation.

https://www.city-journal.org/climate-bill-is-less-than-meets-the-eye?wallit_nosession=1