News from a Changing Planet -- This Week on Earth #23
The politics of the Inflation Reduction Act in the real world, making the clean energy transition affordable, why public health should be the focus of climate talks and Pepsi's not okay.
A publishing note: I’ll be taking next week off for the holiday, but I’ll be back the following week. Happy Thanksgiving to those who observe.
REPUBLICANS CUT OFF NOSE, SPITE FACE: How their efforts or promises to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act could hurt their own districts. (dFT)
This story captures much of what is so frustrating about politics in the United States, especially when it comes to climate policy and investment.
It’s about the economic boom many are anticipating in a rural part of South Carolina over the next few years, as Volkswagen begins constructing a new electric vehicle plant, which will start operating in 2026. The factory is largely there because of the Inflation Reduction Act, since having a US factory will make their cars eligible for tax incentives or rebates. And South Carolina has sweetened the deal with more money for the company ($1.3 billion tax breaks).
The state’s commerce secretary has said: “dA lot of what we’re seeing in terms of the development of the battery supply chain in the United States is occurring because of the incentives in the IRA.”
But the state’s governor, Henry McMaster, who signed that tax package into law, has called the IRA a “reckless tax and spending spree.” Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley (also from South Carolina) “called the IRA a “communist manifesto” on X in August and said she would repeal the law as president.”
The majority of “Cleantech” manufacturing projects around the country, especially those begun in the last year since the IRA was passed, are in Republican controlled-districts, with $84 billion invested. Republicans are trying to repeal the IRA, putting in jeopardy not only the clean energy transition, but also the economic futures of many of their own constituents, and for what?
ELECTRIC VEHICLES COULD BE FOR EVERYONE: Los Angeles is trying to help make the clean energy transition more affordable in the short term. (Heatmap News)
In a recent edition about electric vehicles, I mentioned some of the troubling dynamics of the clean energy transition as they relate to electric vehicles: that without careful planning, the clean energy future could replicate the environmental injustices of the fossil fuel past/present.
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