Electric vehicles are rare in Moses Lake, Wash., a small city in the fertile Columbia Basin about a three-hour drive east of Seattle. In that conservative farms-and-factories community, few people have the cash or the inclination. The only electric vehicle I saw during a two-day visit last month was a Tesla in the hotel parking […]
Read MoreTag: Inflation Reduction Act of 2022
Energy Tax Credits, Meant to Help U.S. Suppliers, May Be Hard to Get
In April, Vice President Kamala Harris visited Qcells, a solar panel manufacturing facility in Dalton, Ga., to announce an early triumph of the Inflation Reduction Act: Summit Ridge Energy, one of the nation’s largest developers of community solar projects, would purchase 2.5 million U.S.-made solar panels. Subsidies under the new law brought the price in […]
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Merck Sues Over Medicare Drug-Price Negotiation Law
The pharmaceutical company Merck on Tuesday sued the federal government over legislation that empowers Medicare for the first time to negotiate prices directly with drugmakers. Merck’s lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, is the drug industry’s most significant move so far to fight back against a substantial change to health policy, which will go […]
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Congress Is Turning Climate Gaslighting Into Law
Late on Saturday, as members of Congress scrambled to strike a deal for legislation that would raise the nation’s debt ceiling, they agreed to a total non sequitur in the text they would release the next day. Following a series of late-in-the-game interventions by lobbyists and energy executives, the draft bill declared the construction and […]
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Europe Frets U.S. Battery Factory Subsidies Will Hurt, Not Help
European leaders complained for years that the United States was not doing enough to fight climate change. Now that the Biden administration has devoted hundreds of billions of dollars to that cause, many Europeans are complaining that the United States is going about it the wrong way. That new critique is born of a deep fear in […]
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Debt Deal Includes a Green Light for a Contentious Pipeline
Environmental activists are enraged by the deal struck between President Biden and Republicans to raise the debt ceiling because it would also expedite construction of a bitterly contested gas pipeline and includes unusual measures to insulate that project from judicial review. The $6.6 billion Mountain Valley Pipeline, intended to carry natural gas about 300 miles […]
Read MoreThe New Climate Law Is Working. Clean Energy Investments Are Soaring.
Last summer, in a meeting with business and labor leaders as Congress prepared to vote on the landmark Inflation Reduction Act, President Biden argued that it would result in “the largest investment ever in clean energy and American energy security — the largest in our history.” He added, “It will be the largest investment in […]
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Pass the Debt Ceiling Deal
No one walked away satisfied by the agreement reached late Saturday to raise the debt ceiling: House Speaker Kevin McCarthy did not win the most destructive cuts sought by the right, and the Democratic proposals to raise revenue never seriously entered the conversation. Yet with the risk of ruinous economic default less than a week […]
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Hyundai and LG Plan $4.3 Billion Battery Plant in Georgia
Hyundai Motor Group and LG Energy Solutions announced plans on Thursday to build a $4.3 billion electric vehicle battery plant in Georgia, the latest clean energy facility to come to the state. The project is expected to bring 3,000 new jobs to southeast Georgia by the end of 2025. It is the second battery manufacturing […]
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G7 Countries Borrow China’s Economic Strategy
Midway through his face-to-face meeting with President Biden in Indonesia last fall, the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, offered an unsolicited warning. Mr. Biden had in the preceding months signed a series of laws aimed at supercharging America’s industrial capacity and imposed new limits on the export of technology to China, in hopes of dominating the […]
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An Automaker Has a Stark Warning for the U.K. Car Industry
A distress flare has gone up from the beleaguered British car manufacturing industry. Stellantis, the company behind brands like Peugeot, Fiat and Vauxhall vehicles, has warned a Parliamentary committee that automakers with plants in Britain will struggle to compete in coming years amid the switch to electric vehicles and new post-Brexit export requirements. The company […]
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Manchin Clashes With Biden Administration Over Climate Law
Ever since Senator Joe Manchin III, the conservative West Virginia Democrat, cast the crucial vote last year for the Inflation Reduction Act, delivering President Biden his biggest legislative victory to date, the bill has weighed him down politically. Mr. Manchin’s poll numbers in his solidly Republican and coal-rich state dropped last year after he played […]
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Why Laws Meant to Create Jobs Can Be So Destructive for Our Cities
President Biden and Vice President Harris recently announced their re-election campaign, with the president saying “Let’s finish this job.” Among the accomplishments they will be running on are the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, which are designed to help the nation restore its domestic supply chain for semiconductors, promote renewable energy […]
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U.S. Solar Makers Criticize Biden’s Tax Credits as Too Lax on China
Biden administration rules released on Friday that will determine which companies and manufacturers can benefit from new solar industry tax credits are being criticized by U.S.-based makers of solar products, who say the guidelines do not go far enough to try to lure manufacturing back from China. The rules stem from President Biden’s sweeping clean […]
Read More U.S. Solar Makers Criticize Biden’s Tax Credits as Too Lax on China
Biden administration rules released on Friday that will determine which companies and manufacturers can benefit from new solar industry tax credits are being criticized by U.S.-based makers of solar products, who say the guidelines do not go far enough to try to lure manufacturing back from China. The rules stem from President Biden’s sweeping clean […]
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Little-Noticed Part of G.O.P. Bill Could ‘Make It Impossible to Regulate’
Government agencies have proposed dozens of major regulations so far this year. One specifies the kinds of operating cords that can be used on custom window coverings, and another would effectively require carmakers to transition two-thirds of all new passenger cars to electric technology. Under a little-noticed provision in a House bill that passed this month, all […]
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Will Texas Blow Up Its Energy Miracle to Bolster Fossil Fuels?
Because the Texas energy system is so large and central to the American economy, we all have a shared stake in its energy success. When the Texas grid goes down, Atlanta might not get jet fuel. When Texas gas production freezes up in winter storms, a surprisingly frequent phenomenon, fuel prices spike in Minnesota. And […]
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D.O.E.’s Loan Program Has a Lot More Climate Capital to Give
The hotel ballroom was packed before breakfast as Jigar Shah took the stage at the oil and gas industry’s annual conference in Houston this spring. The host joked he was confident a huge crowd would come out for Mr. Shah, even at 7:30 a.m. It’s rare for a midlevel federal official to attract so much attention. But […]
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Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act Is a Huge, Expensive, Controversial Success
The Biden administration’s signature policy achievement, at least so far, has been the Inflation Reduction Act, enacted last August. Despite its deliberately misleading name, the act was mostly a climate bill. Specifically, it sought to fight climate change with industrial policy, offering businesses and consumers a variety of subsidies to adopt green technologies, with the […]
Read More Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act Is a Huge, Expensive, Controversial Success
The Biden administration’s signature policy achievement, at least so far, has been the Inflation Reduction Act, enacted last August. Despite its deliberately misleading name, the act was mostly a climate bill. Specifically, it sought to fight climate change with industrial policy, offering businesses and consumers a variety of subsidies to adopt green technologies, with the […]
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The Inflation Reduction Act Will Allow an Asset Manager Takeover of Our Infrastructure
The Inflation Reduction Act will reshape the physical and economic landscape of the United States over the next decade, including in ways that might surprise a lot of people. Anyone keen to understand how should look at Brookfield Renewable Partners’ recent investment of up to $2 billion in Scout Clean Energy and Standard Solar. B.R.P. […]
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The Renewable Energy Revolution Has a Power Line Problem
To tap the potential of renewable energy, the United States needs to dramatically expand the electric grid between places with abundant wind and sunshine and places where people live and work. And it needs to happen fast. The government and the private sector are investing heavily in a historic shift to electric-powered vehicles, heating systems […]
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Biden’s Climate Tax Breaks Are Popular, Driving Up Law’s Cost
President Biden’s signature climate law appears to be encouraging more investment in American manufacturing than initially expected, powering what’s expected to be a surge in new factory jobs and domestic clean energy technologies, according to independent forecasters. If the boom in new battery factories, wind and solar farms, electric vehicle plants and other investments is […]
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After Pandemic Rebound, U.S. Manufacturing Droops
The pandemic had a bright silver lining for Elkhart, Ind. The city, renowned as the capital of recreational vehicle production, had a surge in demand as cooped-up families took to the highways and avoided hotels. The cluster of manufacturers enjoyed record profits, and workers benefited as well: The metropolitan area’s unemployment rate sank to 1 […]
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Jay Inslee, Washington’s Departing Governor, Sees Greener Pastures Ahead
Jay Inslee has been in elected office so long that he served in Congress during the tail end of the George H.W. Bush administration. On Monday Mr. Inslee, 72, announced that he would not seek a fourth term as Washington State’s governor, ending a nearly 30-year career in elected office. He went to Congress as […]
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After Warmth From Biden, South Korea’s Yoon Faces a Different Tune at Home
President Yoon Suk Yeol went to Washington to reset South Korean diplomacy by drawing closer to the United States and taking a larger role on the international stage. If the warmth of his reception there was the gauge of success, he did well. President Biden welcomed him as “my friend.” Mr. Yoon belted out “American […]
Read More After Warmth From Biden, South Korea’s Yoon Faces a Different Tune at Home
President Yoon Suk Yeol went to Washington to reset South Korean diplomacy by drawing closer to the United States and taking a larger role on the international stage. If the warmth of his reception there was the gauge of success, he did well. President Biden welcomed him as “my friend.” Mr. Yoon belted out “American […]
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Why I Don’t Worry About Nuclear Waste
On a visit to the site of the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown in Japan in February, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York did something refreshing: She discussed radiation exposure and nuclear waste without fanning fear. The radiation she got from her visit — about two chest X-rays’ worth — was worth the education she received on […]
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Fact-Checking the Kickoff to Biden’s Re-election Campaign
WASHINGTON — Since announcing his re-election bid on Tuesday, President Biden has repeated familiar boasts about his economic record and recounted folksy, personal anecdotes — and sometimes veered from the facts. Here’s a fact-check of his remarks. What Mr. Biden Said “We’ve created more than 12 million new jobs, more jobs in two years than […]
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New Rules for Power Plants Could Give Carbon Capture a Boost. Here’s How.
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration’s plan to limit, for the first time, greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants could hinge on the ability of plant operators to capture carbon dioxide before it is pumped into the atmosphere. Yet none of the nation’s 3,400 coal- and gas-fired power plants are currently using carbon capture technology […]
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How Joe Biden Can Win in 2024
In 2024, the fate of the Democratic Party will rest in the hands of an 81-year-old incumbent president whom a majority of the country disapproves of and even many Democratic voters think should step aside rather than run for re-election. In the past, the conventional wisdom would be that President Biden faces an uphill battle […]
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