A Breakthrough Bill with Big Benefits

The Palisadian-Post has partnered with locally founded environmental nonprofit Resilient Palisades to deliver a weekly “green tip” to our readers. This week’s tip was written by Éva Milan Engel.

Signed into law last week by President Joe Biden, the Inflation Reduction Act includes more than $360 billion to address the climate crisis. It’s the first major climate legislation in U.S. history and it is a BIG deal.

It wouldn’t have happened without intensive grassroots pressure. A youth effort that has been pushing for political action on climate change for the past five years, The Sunrise Movement, released a statement when Congress passed the Climate Bill: “Just a few years ago, pundits and politicians treated the climate crisis as an afterthought. But young people sat-in, marched, went on hunger strike, turned out voters and organized by the thousands to make elected officials address the existential crisis facing our generation.”

We saw it here right in our town before the onset of COVID as local students and other Palisadians participated in a global Climate Strike.

The climate components of the Inflation Reduction Act have three main goals:

1. Decreasing CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions.

2. Mitigating impact of climate change and pollution for the most disadvantaged Americans.

3. Making the U.S. into the global clean technology leader.

4. 
   

Analysts predict that the money from this law will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 40% below 2005 levels.

Here’s how the money and priorities break down:

• $128 billion in incentives to drive down the cost of installing renewable energy projects (wind, solar, grid scale batteries), which will reduce the amount of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere as well as lower people’s electricity bills

• $37 billion in tax credits for manufacturers and consumers of solar panels, batteries, battery components, and wind turbines

• $30 billion to existing nuclear power plants

• $22 billion to help people upgrade appliances in their homes (water heaters, furnaces, stoves and electrical boxes)

• $14 billion to help people and property owners make their buildings more energy efficient

• $12 billion in electric vehicle tax credits/rebates (but linked to made in U.S.A. and other manufacturing requirements)

• $3 billion in tax incentives for existing power plants to capture emissions

• $3 billion toward electrifying the postal service fleet

• And so much more:

  • Decarbonizing airplane fuels

  • Converting garbage trucks and city buses to electric

  • Helping farmers sequester carbon in their fields

  • Electrifying port infrastructure

  • New transmission lines for the stronger grid that will be needed

  • Charging stations for electric vehicles

  • Grants for Native tribes to invest in clean energy

  • Buying debt from rural power co-ops if they promise to shut down their carbon emitting power plants and giving them money to build new infrastructure

  • Money for communities to come up with their own projects to decrease their climate impact (for community groups that partner with universities and incubation centers). This allows communities to come up with solutions for their specific climate needs.

The Inflation Reduction Act may be a forced compromise between scientists, climate activists and corporate oil lobbyists, and it’s far from perfect, but it’s a start.

Éva Milan Engel is a climate activist and junior at Palisades Charter High School.