With the signing of the Inflation Reduction Act and the Supreme Court's decision to curb but not block EPA action on climate, the architecture of Joe Biden's first-term climate policy is set. The administration can use executive power to limit greenhouse pollution from individual power plants, cars and trucks, oil and gas fields, coal mines and pipelines. These standards will be supplemented with generous tax credits for wind and solar generation, carbon capture, nuclear power and electricity storage.
That's nothing fancy in legal terms — but it's potentially very ambitious. A wide variety of clean energy innovations and development will receive Department of Energy loans and guarantees. Federal grants will support charging networks for electric cars and retrofitting buildings with efficiency and clean energy. Federal lands will be leased both to clean-energy developers and oil and gas producers — but the standards and royalties paid for fossil fuels will rise, and there will be tougher environmental constraints. The U.S. will continue to be a major exporter of oil and gas, for now, to help Europe back away from Russian fuel.
