Bob and Suzannah Ciernia
After years of writing letters to the editor, calling and emailing our elected representatives, and lobbying in person, Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) is proud to take some of the credit as one of many environmental organizations that helped move legislators to include significant spending to address climate change in the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
Sources: EPA GHG emissions inventory, Rhodium, Energy Innovation, Princeton REPEAT, and US DOE analyses. Chart by Dana Nuccitelli, Citizens’ Climate Lobby.
The bill itself is a massive collection of programs and policies that range from allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, to paying farmers for sequestering carbon in their fields. As climate activists, we will focus on those parts of the landmark legislation that tackle climate change.
For starters, the IRA will help reduce the country’s carbon emissions 40% by 2030. That is close to the U.S. commitment of 50% made at the Paris Accord – but not all we were working for.
As shown in the graph, the U.S. was on track to cut emissions just 27% below 2005 levels by 2030, or halfway short of the 50%-by-2030 pledge.
The Environmental and Economic Benefits
The IRA is going to initiate change that environmentalists have been talking about for years, and a bonus is that most American pocketbooks will be improved at the same time.
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A fee on methane pollution in combination with EPA methane regulations will curb emissions from the oil and gas industry by about 70% by 2030.
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By accelerating the transition away from dirty fossil fuels toward clean energy, the bill will significantly reduce air pollution. Based on analysis by Drew Shindell of Duke University, the pollution reductions from the bill will avoid 180,000 premature American deaths over the next eight years.
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The transition will help prevent future inflationary pressures caused by spikes in fossil fuel prices, or what economists call “fossilflation.”
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By helping more Americans afford electric vehicles (EVs), the bill will reduce fuel costs for those EV owners by over $500 annually.
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By accelerating the deployment of clean, cheap electricity, energy modelers project that the IRA will save the average household about $200 per year in electricity costs, without households taking any action to go green.1
Individual households also benefit in that the IRA covers 100% of the costs of certain upgrades (up to $14,000) for low-income homeowners and 50% of the costs for middle-income households. The home electrification and efficiency rebates in the bill include:
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heat pumps for heating and air conditioning, water heaters, and clothes dryers;
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electric stoves;
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home weatherization such as improved insulation and windows;
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rooftop solar and battery storage; and
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wiring and breaker-box upgrades.
Rewiring America provides a useful calculator on what individual households can expect: https://www.rewiringamerica.org/app/ira-calculator.
Powering the Economy of the Future
Today we get about 40% of our electricity from “clean” (non-fossil-fueled) sources such as wind, solar, nuclear, and hydroelectricity. With the IRA, that is expected to roughly double, to as high as 85% of overall sources of electricity in 2030. Most of that increase will come from wind and solar farms, which are expected to approximately triple from today’s levels.
New car and truck sales are also expected to be electric in 2030. Some estimates say it could be more than half, up from about 5% in the U.S. today. And by promoting domestic manufacturing and supply chains and innovation, the investments from the bill are projected to create about a million new jobs in clean energy, manufacturing, and building electrification and efficiency upgrades. This will also protect us from supply chain disruptions and reduce dependence on countries with environmental issues, human rights abuses, and dictators.2
Investing in Disadvantaged Communities
Disadvantaged communities which face major health and environmental challenges due to pollution and climate change will get money for community-led environmental justice projects, to improve transportation access equity, to reduce pollution at transportation hubs including ports, railways, airports, and also near schools, and for grants to improve the energy efficiency of affordable housing.
This includes funding from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, also known as the Green Bank, to finance emissions reductions in disadvantaged communities. Over 20,000 jobs will be created in disadvantaged communities to support these programs.3
Good for Urban and Rural Communities
Cities that need to retrofit buildings or modernize their public transit will be eligible for EV and public-transit charging infrastructure from the bipartisan infrastructure bill and tax credits from the IRA. The IRA also includes grants for cities to get electric garbage trucks and buses to reduce local air pollution, and to grow urban forests which will lower temperatures and protect residents from dangerous extreme heat.4
Rural communities are eligible for money to lessen the impacts of extreme wildfires and droughts. This includes a combined $7 billion between the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the Inflation Reduction Act for wildfire prevention, and $4 billion in drought funding to compensate farmers who reduce their water use and for rural communities to mitigate the environmental effects of shrinking inland water bodies. Rural electric cooperatives, which serve 42 million Americans will now be eligible for direct-pay clean energy tax credits and a $9.7 billion grant and loan program for new clean energy systems.
Most new electricity projects are built in rural areas where land prices are affordable; those projects will generate hundreds of billions of dollars in value and tens of thousands of jobs in rural communities over the next decade.5
Farmers, ranchers, and foresters will benefit from the IRA. The bill directs over $20 billion to popular conservation programs like the Environmental Quality Incentives Program that can be used for climate-smart agriculture and forestry projects. It also provides $2 billion for rural clean energy via the Rural Energy for America Program. On top of that, $450 million goes to the Landscape Scale Restoration Program, which helps private landowners adopt climate-smart forestry practices. And, the bill includes $700 million for preserving forests on private lands via the Forest Legacy Program. The reduced air pollution resulting from the transition to clean energy will also increase American farmers’ crop yields to the tune of $400 million per year, because fossil fuel ozone pollution reduces crop yields.6
What’s Left to Do?
The Inflation Reduction Act and other climate legislation passed in 2021 and 2022 are steps in the right direction and get us moving, but they still leave us shy of our Paris commitment to cut U.S. carbon pollution 50% below 2005 levels by 2030. We need to close the rest of that gap, and then keep working towards reaching net zero emissions by 2050. We can do that by lobbying at the Federal level for a carbon fee and dividend, more electrification and efficiency programs, and agricultural policies that encourage carbon sequestration.
Individual consumers making forward-thinking choices are laudable but by themselves do not change public policy or reshape the future; citizen advocacy is what got us this far and joining Citizens’ Climate Lobby or other like-minded groups is needed to get us the rest of the way.
Footnote links provided in the online posting of this article at greenenergytimes.org.
Bob and Suzannah Ciernia are co-leaders of the Vermont Citizens’ Climate Lobby At-Large Chapter.
1 Sources: https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2022/08/experts-senate-passed-bill-will-yield-myriad-climate-benefits/
https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(20)30231-2
https://www.rff.org/publications/issue-briefs/retail-electricity-rates-under-the-inflation-reduction-act-of-2022/
https://www.rewiringamerica.org/policy/zero-emission-homes-act
2 Sources: Rhodium, Energy Innovation, Princeton REPEAT
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