Firstly, President Joe Biden approved the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, signing into law the most sweeping climate and energy bill ever enacted in the United States.
Climate and energy
This bill is the biggest step forward on climate ever, and it’s going to allow us to boldly take additional steps toward meeting all of my climate goals.
Biden.
Secondly, the bill contains $369 billion in clean-energy tax credits and funding for climate and energy programs. It also includes efforts to ramp up manufacturing of solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
Thirdly, $60 billion is earmarked for environmental justice initiatives like cleaning up air pollution and installing clean energy projects in low-income communities.
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Estimations of the Inflation Reduction Act
Analyses estimate that the bill’s climate provisions will reduce the country’s greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent below 2005 levels by the end of the decade; achieving roughly two-thirds of Biden’s overall goal of halving emissions by 2030.
Although, it was a long road to the bill’s passage. Over more than a year, Senate Democrats whittled away at Biden’s original, more ambitious proposal in an effort to satisfy Senator Joe Manchin, the conservative Democrat from West Virginia.
His support was needed to pass the bill in the evenly divided Senate. A breakthrough came late last month, when Manchin agreed on a package to fund climate action, as long as it offered some concessions to the fossil fuel industry.
Conclusion
In addition, the final version of the bill sped through Congress in just a couple of weeks, passing the Senate on August 7 and clearing the House five days later. Republicans uniformly opposed the bill.
At the White House on Tuesday, Biden highlighted not only the bill’s climate investments but also its tax reforms and health care provisions.
Finally, democratic leaders are applauding the legislation’s enactment. They plan to make a larger celebration after Labor Day; closer to the November 8 midterm elections.
