Biden’s $2 trillion climate plan aims to reframe debate

coal or prohibiting fracking, a method of extracting oil and gas that triggered a natural gas boom in the United States over the last decade. The issue is especially sensitive in some key battleground states such as Pennsylvania.

Some progressives have called for outright bans on the practice. Biden’s plan instead describes cutting back on burning oil, gas and coal, and doing better at capturing emissions, through more efficient vehicles, public transport, buildings and power plants.

And instead of a ban on climate-damaging fossil fuels, he embraced carbon capture technologies to catch coal and petroleum pollution from power plant smokestacks.

Biden also backed nuclear power, unlike some of his Democratic primary opponents. He called for pumping up research on still-developing power technologies like hydrogen power and grid-size storage to stash power from solar and wind, overcoming a key drawback of those carbon-free energy sources now.

Biden would spend $2 trillion over four years to promote his energy proposals, a significant acceleration of the $1.7 trillion over 10 years he proposed spending in his climate plan during the primary.

The proposal doesn’t include specifics on how it would be paid for. Senior campaign officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss strategy said it would require a mix of tax increases on corporations and the wealthy and deficit spending aimed at stimulating the economy.

The officials said that many of the energy measures would be included in the first stimulus package Biden plans to bring to Congress but that some could be achieved through executive action.