President Biden’s $2 trillion jobs and infrastructure plan will accelerate the fight against climate change by modernizing the electrical grid and speeding the shift to cleaner energy sources, the president said in a speech earlier this week. The plan combines transportation, jobs and infrastructure improvements with key Democratic climate policy imperatives.
The largest portions of the plan include about $621 billion for roads and bridges and $174 billion for advancing the electric vehicle industry. Another $100 billion would go to upgrading the US power infrastructure, including tax credits for certain transmission line upgrades, and $213 billion to “produce, preserve, and retrofit” commercial buildings and homes.
An additional $111 billion will be earmarked for upgrading the water system and replacing all lead pipes and service lines in the country. $50 billion will be intended to create infrastructure resilience to withstand climate change-related disasters, including by protecting electric grids, food systems, urban infrastructure and communities most vulnerable to flooding and other severe weather events, writes the Washington Post.
Experts Weigh In
The funding intended for ramping up the electric vehicle industry — including building a network of 500,000 chargers across the US by 2030 and boosting American production of EVs — is “nothing short of a game changer,” Paul De Cotis, senior director in West Monroe’s energy and utilities practice, told Environment + Energy Leader. “When coupled with existing financial and tax incentives available for states, and funding and programs supporting EV infrastructure development by utilities, we see a private-public partnership emerging that has been the key for decades in unleashing the power of markets to innovate and drive change.”
But while the proposed plan provides the broad picture of what an infrastructure bill would look like, Congress “still has a lot of work to do in a short amount of time to shape the bill and fill out the details, which will be the real challenge,” says Ryan Bernstein, senior advisor on Federal Affairs with McGuireWoods Consulting. States will be carefully watching their federal partner to see how it addresses the key issues regarding infrastructure — repair of roads and bridges, transition to vehicles powered by cleaner fuels, and more, adds McGuireWoods senior VP Tracy Baynard.
Biden says the plan to upgrade the nation’s infrastructure could lead to “the most resilient, innovative economy in the world.”