Factbox – What are the climate change provisions in the U.S. budget bill framework?

Last updated on July 18th, 2023 at 01:41 pm

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House on Thursday unveiled the outlines of a $1.75 trillion spending package that it hopes will pass Congress, and it includes around $555 billion for climate change.

That spending plus the measures included in a separate $1 trillion infrastructure bill, would represent the biggest investment in climate action in U.S. history if it passes, even after several of the administration’s original proposals to fight global warming were killed in negotiations.

An analysis by the Rhodium Group found that provisions in these bills, along with executive actions, could slash greenhouse gas emissions by 45%-51% below 2005 levels by 2030, in striking distance of the U.S. pledge to slash emissions 50%-52% in this decade under the Paris climate agreement.

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Agreement around the spending totals comes after weeks of squabbling between progressives and moderates within the Democratic Party that threaten to leave President Joe Biden empty-handed when he arrives in Glasgow next week for the U.N. climate summit.

The following is a breakdown of the bill’s main climate change provisions:

* Clean Energy Tax Credits $320 billion The bill would expand tax credits for utility-scale and residential clean energy, transmission, and storage, building electrification and clean energy manufacturing over 10 years. This would include a hotly-contested $12,500 Electric Vehicle Tax Credit, credits for technologies ranging from wind to green hydrogen, and expands a current $50/ton tax credit for power plants or industrial facilities that capture carbon before the greenhouse gas reaches the atmosphere for burial underground. * Resilience investments $105 billion The bill contains investments and incentives aimed at helping the United States adapt to the worst impacts of climate change from wildfires to hurricanes. The money will also be used to invest in communitiesnear polluting facilities, and to create a Civilian ClimateCorps, a modern-day version of the 1930s era CivilianConservation Corps that would put young people to work on public lands. * Clean energy technology, manufacturing and supply chain investments $110 billion This would include targeted incentives to “spur new domestic supply chains and technology”, potentially including those for solar, wind, and another clean energy source. The money would also be used for efforts to clean up sectors like steel, cement, and aluminum, which are among the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases. * Clean energy procurement $20 billion This money would be used by the government to purchase clean technology for its own operations, “including long-duration storage, small modular reactors and clean construction materials.”

(Reporting by Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Alistair Bell)