: Biden has a climate-change mandate — what can he actually achieve?

President-elect Joe Biden spoke about climate change and the wildfires on the West Coast during a September campaign stop.

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Joe Biden wavered on the controversial practice of oil and gas fracking early in the campaign but by the time the presumptive president-elect addressed the American people on Saturday night, his desire for a strong U.S. role in the climate-change fight was clearer.

Biden had already said he’ll reverse President Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord on day one and he repeated that pledge in his evening speech.

What else might the new administration — including Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, one of the earlier endorsers of the party’s Green New Deal — pursue?

Biden ran on his own proposed $2 trillion initiative promoting a clean-energy transition and creating green jobs. He seeks to decarbonize the power sector by 2035 and reach net-zero emissions across the entire economy by 2050.

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Biden wants to expand electric vehicleTSLA charging infrastructure and make efficiency upgrades to buildings. The Democrat ran against Trump’s record of supporting the shrinking and debt-heavy coal sector and backing the fossil-fuel industryCL00, including through subsidies. Biden may have to compromise on fossil fuels as many Republicans want to keep historically cheap natural gas in a diverse energy mix seen boosting the U.S. standing with OPEC and Russia. Partisanship may require greater Capitol Hill compromise, executive actions by Biden and linking climate change to trade and security pacts, say analysts.

What if no Senate majority secured?

Democrats likely hold a narrow advantage in the House, while what will be ultra-thin control for either party in the Senate remains up for grabs due to the Georgia runoff.

Both parties advanced renewable energy and broader climate-change bills in recent months but neither saw much traction given the election year and COVID-19 priorities.

Still, a lack of dominance by either party could slow progress on legislation, particularly on an effort as sweeping as the first draft of a Green New Deal advanced by progressive Democrats last year.

But there may be pressure to produce something. Public interest in climate action can no longer be denied, however. A Yale and George Mason University survey found 71% of voters support legislation “eliminating fossil fuel emissions from the transportation, electricity, buildings, industry and agricultural sectors in the United States by the year 2050. A Fox News poll showed 70% of Americans “support increasing government spending on green and renewable energy.”

Leslie Hayward of Rapidan Energy Group tweeted a diagram just before the election result laying out what Biden might be able to lock down with and without Senate backing.

Progressive climate-change groups are encouraged by the White House win but want Biden, seen as a centrist for much of his long political career, to commit to a proposal as ambitious as the sweeping Green New Deal roadmap advanced by Democrats last year.

“It’s time for the U.S. to phase out existing fossil-fuel extraction and implement a Green New Deal that protects communities, workers and the economy by developing a roadmap to transition us away from coal, oil and gas and towards equitable energy democracy,” said May Boeve, executive director of advocacy group 350.org. “It’s time for the U.S. to prioritize climate justice for Black, indigenous and communities of color most impacted by climate breakdown.”

And: VP nominee Kamala Harris has a particular climate-change agenda: environmental justice

Republican lawmakers and right-of-center trade groups, including R Street Institute, National Taxpayers Union and others seek more balance in keeping heating and cooling costs low for Americans and they promote carbon sequestration as a way to harness emissions. Republicans have also been emphasizing the need to keep up trade pressure on the world’s other big emitters, including India and China. Those issues are among the key facets of the proposed GOP-led Growing Climate Solutions Act.

Read: Joe Biden is the next president. Here’s what that could mean for taxes, student debt, health care, housing and a stimulus package.

Carbon price longshot?

Passing a carbon price is seen as a hurdle. Biden so far doesn’t have a strong position on carbon pricing, essentially a carbon tax, and he had mostly amplified his renewable-energy push during the campaign.

Public backing of the sometimes complex policy may take some cajoling. Data for Progress, a progressive think tank tested aspects of Biden’s plan in four battleground states over the summer and found that just 25% of voters wanted to put a price on carbon-dioxide emissions. The perception of taxes and fees on consumers over businesses tended to receive little support in polls.

However, a bipartisan financial-market committee, warning of a huge risk to the financial system from climate change, has said a carbon price is likely to factor in a portfolio of solutions.

Regulation: A reversal of the reversals

Some of Biden’s climate-change commitment will be tested at the agency level, including a likely review of the dozens of Environmental Protection Agency regulatory rollbacks, some of which were decades old. Rollbacks included looser standards for auto emissions. Republicans have generally embraced lighter EPA regulations in favor of state decision-making and lower business costs. How Biden might restore some or all of those protections will shake out in coming months.

Beyond the EPA, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which was very recently shook up by a Trump-led change at the top, will be one to watch. FERC regulates the interstate transmission of electricity, natural gas and oil. It reviews proposals to build liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals and interstate natural gas pipelines as well as licensing hydropower projects.

Although FERC is an independent agency, Biden could nominate new commissioners and select a Democratic chairman more likely to pursue policies that could facilitate his goal of decarbonizing the U.S. power sector by 2035. 

Devin Hartman, director of energy and environmental policy at the free-market public policy research organization R Street, wrote as the FERC shakeup was announced that a Biden win could push Democratic commissioner Richard Glick into the chairman role and based on his past positions, some pro-market initiatives might be as likely or more likely than under Trump.

“Glick would likely prioritize reversing the minimum offer price rule [a power policy for states that critics said included both subsidies and price controls], taking on transmission policy, incorporating greenhouse gases into project certifications and pursuing market reforms that diminish the role of capacity markets and lower barriers to unconventional technologies,” Hartman wrote.

FERC could take further steps to accommodate carbon pricing in wholesale power markets and consider the environmental impacts of pipelines under a Biden presidency, panelists said during the S&P Global Platts Financing U.S. Power conference held in October.

States moving on their own

The U.S. might rely more on state moves for its climate-change “wins.”

More than half of U.S. states have adopted renewable targets for their utilities, and solar and wind energy are now cheaper than coal and natural gas in many parts of the country. States have been moving faster than the federal government, which could have mixed implications for Biden and sweeping climate-change policy.

Voters in the the battleground state of Nevada passed a ballot question requiring utilities get half of their electricity from renewable sources by 2030. The measure won 57% support, making it more popular than either presidential candidate.  North Carolina issued a clean energy plan aimed at achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, while Colorado became the first state in the interior to adopt clean car standards for low- and zero-emission vehicles and New Jersey adopted a environmental justice law requiring the state consider the cumulative impacts on overburdened communities when issuing permits for greenhouse gas emitting projects.

Voters in Denver, meanwhile,  approved hiking the city sales tax rate by 0.5% to raise tens of millions of dollars annually to fight climate change and homelessness.

“We know our federal policymakers can drive forward ambitious, bipartisan, equitable economy-wide climate solutions. We’ve seen state policymakers lead the way on so many fronts and, in turn, they have reaped the economic, health and social benefits and have created new clean energy jobs along the way,” said Mindy Lubber, CEO of sustainable-investing advocate Ceres.

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November 09, 2020 at 09:15AM

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