President Joe Biden announced a framework to invest $555 billion in funding on clean energy programs he thinks can win approval from Congress, with investments in renewable power, electric vehicles, and resilience.
If Congressional Democrats go along, the plan, part of a $1.75-trillion tax and spending blueprint, would represent a historic investment in fighting climate change that President Joe Biden can tout to world leaders at the high-stakes United Nations climate summit opening Sunday.
The funding could be “the single biggest thing that our nation has ever done to combat the climate crisis and certainly the biggest investment that Congress has ever made in climate and environmental justice jobs by far,” said Tiernan Sittenfeld, senior vice-president with the League of Conservation Voters.
The framework is also set to provide Biden fresh evidence the US can deliver on its Paris Agreement pledge to at least halve greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels by the end of the decade. Tax credits and decarbonization programs in the climate measure would complement coming regulations clamping down on greenhouse gases from automobiles, oil wells, and power plants — a combination that promises to magnify emissions cuts.
The President had hoped to reach an agreement before attending a G20 meeting in Rome, where a global minimum tax will be high on the agenda, and a climate conference in Glasgow, where Biden hopes to present a message that the United States is back in the fight against global warming.
US Representative Hakeem Jeffries, who chairs the House of Representatives Democratic Conference, said he understood Biden would discuss a planned framework that appeared to have support from all Democratic US senators, clearing a major hurdle.
