How It's Supposed To Work

Biden's climate change law

President Biden speaks at the White House during a celebration of the Inflation Reduction Act (Photo credit: Anadolu Agency)

Washington today has become a den of dysfunctionality. Oh, there is a pantomime of governance on Capitol Hill — hearings, roll call votes, committees. But to a shocking degree it is for the purpose of political gamesmanship and not in service of the American people.

It’s about cheap hits, grandstanding, and even fanning conspiracy theories. All of that might fulfill the needs of the Fox News media bookers, but it does darn little to address the myriad challenges this nation faces. 

Congressional Republicans have become mostly a caucus of contempt when it comes to the actual workings of government. This has been a movement decades in the making, stretching back to the reign of Speaker Newt Gingrich. They so devoutly preach the gospel of broken government that even when they do have the power of both the White House and Congress — as they did in the first years of the Trump administration — they don’t try to pass many bills of consequence (other than, of course, tax cuts for the rich).

It is no wonder that beating the timpani of toxicity strikes chords of cynicism and apathy with the public at large. That is part of the point. The strategy of the far right is to make government so irreparably broken and ineffectual that voters won’t reward anyone who says otherwise. Derision makes for potent political attack ads against those who earnestly say they can get something done when the very notion of competency has become absurd. 

President Biden, on the other hand, is a big believer in what government can do. In his view, presidential leadership entails offering a legislative agenda. Doing so often requires making compromises, even ones you might find odious. But what’s the alternative? You either pass what you can in the moment, or the moment passes you by. 

Biden embraced this mindset to make the most of Democrats’ razor-thin majorities in the last Congress. And he was rewarded with significant legislative victories. Perhaps none may prove bigger than the Inflation Reduction Act, which will celebrate its one-year anniversary next month. At the time of its passing, it was heralded as the most significant climate bill in our nation’s history. 

Democrats in general, and the Obama administration (of which Biden was an integral part) in particular, were far too slow in reacting to climate change over the years (although Republican obstructionism also played a role). Even now, there are environmentalists who believe Biden isn't doing nearly enough. Still, Biden and his party have finally taken what by any reasonable analysis is a major step forward.

As the country gears up for another presidential election, much media coverage is of poll numbers and the circus of the Republican primary, not to mention all the other doom and gloom headlines that permeate the front pages. In contrast, this legislative act stands out like a burst of sunshine (all the better to fuel a growing number of new solar panels across the country). 

Thanks to this legislation, a lot of support for alternative energy projects and other green technology is flowing into red and purple states and districts. This might strike some as unfair. Why should billions of dollars go to places that elect politicians who voted against the bill (in fact, no Republicans in the House or Senate voted for it)? Many of these politicians and their constituents even deny climate change exists. 

But once again, this is Biden’s worldview at work. If climate change is the existential threat that we know it to be, and if the United States is going to embrace a paradigm shift on green energy and transportation, then we will have to do it together. A firehose of federal dollars for environmental investment could be the most effective way to change people’s minds, by appealing to their pocketbooks.

And it might be working. We are starting to see reporting on climate change progress with datelines that weren’t typical of positive environmental stories from the past. Take a recent Associated Press article: “One year old, US climate law is already turbocharging clean energy technology.” It begins by describing a family installing a solar panel in Frankfort, Kentucky, “a few miles upstream from the state capitol where lawmakers have promoted coal for more than a century.” 

The article goes on to discuss the sheer scale of the law:

In less than a year it has prompted investment in a massive buildout of battery and EV manufacturing across the states. Nearly 80 major clean energy manufacturing facilities have been announced, an investment equal to the previous seven years combined, according to the American Clean Power Association...

The Congressional Budget Office initially estimated the IRA’s tax credits would cost about $270 billion over a decade, but Brookings says businesses might take advantage of the credits far more aggressively and the federal government could pay out three or four times more.

Another recent article, this one from The Washington Post, focuses more on the political implications of all of this money flowing to “Red America.” Its headline says, “Small-town GOP officials are torn over Biden’s clean energy cash,” and its dateline is Fairfield County, Ohio: 

Like similar fights throughout conservative parts of the United States, the debate in Fairfield County reflects one of the central ironies of President Biden’s signature legislation, last year’s Inflation Reduction Act: Although it was drafted and passed exclusively by Democrats in Washington, the fate of the law will hinge in large part on the decisions of state and local Republican officials.

The idea behind the law, and its hundreds of billions of dollars in expanded clean-energy tax credits, was to change both the economics and the politics that have held green industry back. Rather than pursue a carbon tax administered by the federal government or other policies some on the left have pushed, the Biden administration is seeding the money for a new renewable energy sector that would make cleaner options a better bet financially than burning fossil fuels, regardless of one’s position on climate change. The hope was that government subsidies would unleash a tidal wave of investment to shatter local opposition and break the nation’s dependence on fossil fuel energy, particularly as the cost of renewable energy plummets.

The article notes success as well as challenges. On the one hand, “Of the approximately $70 billion in new clean energy investment dollars announced since the climate law passed, roughly $51 billion — or 70 percent — is in counties won by Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election.” On the other hand, “As the number of proposed renewable energy projects soars, so has the backlash. State and local lawmakers blocked 138 solar and wind projects last year, more than doubling the total of 54 from the year before.” This year, more than 70 projects have been “rejected.”

Of course with an issue as complicated as this, there are many competing narratives and ones that don’t fall into neat ideological boxes. But the big picture is clear. The Democrats passed a massive bill to remake America in the face of climate change, and they are eager to see it succeed. If that means doling out money to their political opponents, so be it. We are, after all, one nation. And we need as many people to be on board as possible. 

This expansive approach is not exactly something you could imagine from the previous president or the party he leads. 

It’s all part of Biden’s big bet, which in turn is a big bet of we, the people: Can we, as a nation, return to a more functional politics? Can we act as a unified people and not camps of narrow competing self-interests? Can opportunities not be framed as a zero-sum game? And can we, by acting together, save our country and our planet? 

Much is made of Biden’s age. But there’s no denying he’s playing the long game for politics and for our environment. And that means we won’t know whether or how this approach will work out for a long time. So far, there are some promising signs.

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