Stimulus bill also looks to planet
Environmentalists hail climate change portion
WASHINGTON – The mammoth spending bill Congress approved Dec. 21 to curb the spiraling pandemic and prevent a government shutdown carries another description: a substantial step to confront climate change.
Environmental advocates are touting the $2.3 trillion bill as a potential gamechanger thanks to tax breaks for renewable energy sources, initiatives to promote carbon capture storage and a significant phasedown of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCS) that are a key culprit to the planet’s warming.
In addition, the measure not only nixes Trump administration’s proposed deep cuts of federal climate science programs but adds millions to those programs for 2021.
“Passage of this bill represents real forward progress on climate change and clean energy.” said Lindsey Griffith, federal policy director at the Clean Air Task Force, who calls the package “the most significant U.S. federal climate legislation ever.”
While the sweeping bill has grabbed headlines for the billions it provides in direct payments to millions of Americans and its extension of a forgivable loan program for small businesses crippled by the pandemic, policy provisions that attempt to halt carbon missions that contribute to climate change could prove far more lasting.
Among the most heralded is a bipartisan move to significantly curb the use of HFCS found in refrigeration, air-conditioning, building insulation and fire extinguishing systems. The provision requires the Environmental Protection Agency to implement an 85% phasedown of the production and consumption so they reach approximately 15% of their 2011-2013 average annual levels by 2036.
The phasedown, part of an international effort to reduce harmful emissions, is projected to prevent the planet from warming half a degree Celsius over the coming decades, though some scientific studies say the Earth may be on
an irreversible course to a warming planet and the environmental damage that will result.
“It is imperative that we take swift action on climate change if we’re going to have any chance of avoiding its worst impacts,” said Matt Casale, director of U.S. Public Interest Research Group’s Environment Campaigns. “Phasing out HFCS – known as ‘super greenhouse gases’ – will bring significant climate relief relatively quickly.”
Other provisions include: h Expansion of carbon capture technology and deployment. Under the process, carbon emissions produced by power plants and other heavy industry are contained and injected deep into the ground where saline rock formations can store the gas for centuries.
h Reauthorization of an expiring program that provides industry with financial incentives to replace aging diesel engines with less polluting ones.
h Extension and expansion of tax credits for clean energy, including wind, and a new incentive that encourages newly built power plants to be more efficient and cleaner.
h Requirements that natural gas facilities deploy the latest technology to prevent, detect and address dangerous methane leaks, a significant contributor to climate change.
Supporters of the legislation say the steps will not only help the planet but expand a clean energy economy that hasn’t always gotten as much support from Washington as they would like.
“We can ensure American workers lead the national transition to a clean economy,” said Delaware Sen. Tom Carper, the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee who wrote some of the provisions. “We can embrace the ingenuity and innovation of American industries while protecting vulnerable communities.”
The measures also had various degrees of support from Republicans representing fossil fuel states, such as Environment and Public Works Chairman John Barrasso, R-WY., who represents the nation’s largest coal producing state, and James Inhofe, R-okla., whose state is a leading oil producer.
For GOP lawmakers wary that a drastic transformation to clean energy would imperil their local economies, the legislation is a reasonable, incentivedriven approach.
“Free market innovation is the key to addressing a changing climate,” Barrasso said. “This bipartisan legislation proves we can protect our environment without punishing our economy.”
Efforts to address climate change at the federal level will get another boost in less than a month when Joe Biden is inaugurated as the nation’s 46th president. The former vice president, who has called climate change “an existential threat to the health of our planet and to our very survival,” has made it a focal point of his incoming administration.
President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly questioned his own administration’s climate science, has signaled he might veto the massive bill after criticizing it for not providing Americans with bigger payments for families hurt by the pandemic and because it includes billions in foreign aid. Even so, the measure has enough support to override a presidential veto.