The Senate climate bill may get you cheap energy, clean air, and a job

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Joe ManchinDrew Angerer/Getty Images

Senate Democrats could pass the most significant climate bill in US history this week, paving the way for cheaper energy and a more livable planet.

The surprise deal between Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia would dole out about $369 billion for climate programs as part of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. It aims to expand renewable energy such as solar, wind, and cleaner fuels, while making it less expensive to buy electric vehicles and home appliances.

If Congress approves the bill, it would put the US on track to cut its greenhouse-gas emissions by up to 44% from 2005 levels by the end of the decade, according to multiple assessments. Experts say the bill also promises savings, health boons, and higher quality of living for everyday people across the US.

The sun sets behind power transmission lines in Texas, on July 11, 2022.Nick Wagner/Xinhua via Getty Images

“This isn’t about the sky, or the polar bears,” Jonathan Foley, executive director of Project Drawdown, a climate nonprofit, told Insider, adding, “This is about you and your pocketbook, your jobs, the air your kids breathe, the town you live in, our national security.”

Here are five ways the new climate-change package could make your life better:

Lower energy bills

A woman prepares dinner for her family at her home in Schnecksville, Pennsylvania, on September 22, 2021.Hannah Beier/Reuters

The new climate proposal includes about $30 billion in loans and grants for states and electric utilities to adopt more renewable energy, plus more than $60 billion in tax credits for manufacturers of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries for electric vehicles, energy storage, and other technology, according to a summary from Senate Democrats.

Solar and wind already generated cheaper electricity than fossil fuels, even before oil and gas prices soared this year. Yet they still only account for about 20% of US energy use. The Schumer-Manchin deal could speed up a shift away from fossil fuels and also make it less expensive to hook up your home with electric.

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Vesta wind turbines in Palm Springs, California, on July 21, 2022.David Swanson/Reuters

A total of $9 billion in home energy rebates would help Americans insulate their homes and replace stoves, furnaces, water heaters, and other appliances with electric alternatives. Homeowners could deduct up to 30% of installation costs from their taxes. A similar deduction for solar would be guaranteed for homeowners and expanded to residential battery storage.

“This is really about delivering lower energy bills for everyday Americans,” Leah Stokes, an environment and energy politics professor at University of California, Santa Barbara, said in a press briefing on Thursday. She noted that high oil and gas prices are a major driver of inflation that ripples across every industry, from transportation to manufacturing to agriculture.

A family eats dinner at their home in Calumet Park, Illinois, on December 8, 2020.Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

“When fossil fuels go up, other goods and services go up,” Stokes said.

The average household could save $1,800 on their energy bill each year by installing a modern electric heat pump and rooftop solar and buying an electric vehicle, according to an analysis by Rewiring America, a think tank that promotes electrification.

Cheaper electric vehicles

A Scion IQ electric car is plugged in in a garage in Irvine, California, on January 26, 2015.Lucy Nicholson/Reuters

The bill would extend an existing $7,500 tax credit for new EVs — offered as a discount at the point of sale — and offer up to $4,000 for used EVs and plug-in hybrids.

It would also lift the cap on the number of tax breaks automakers can offer, benefiting companies like Tesla, General Motors, and Toyota that already hit the limit, as long as the vehicle is assembled in the US.

“Once people own an electric car, they’re going to laugh every time they drive by a gas station, when they see $5 a gallon,” Foley said, adding, “I think this will help us reach a tipping point, where five to 10 years from now you won’t see gas cars sold anymore, or very few.”

Gas prices over the $6.00 mark are advertised at a Mobil Station in Santa Monica, California, on May 23, 2022.David Swanson/Reuters

There are some caveats, like your income, the vehicle’s price tag, and where its parts are made.

If you earn $150,000 or more a year, or $300,000 in joint family income, you won’t qualify for the new car tax credit. There’s a limit on the price of the car, too. Bigger vehicles, such as SUVs and pickup trucks, must cost less than $80,000, and smaller cars less than $55,000, to qualify for the credit.

For used cars, the income limit is $75,000 for single tax filers and $150,000 for joint filers. The sticker price must be $25,000 or below.

The bill also requires vehicle batteries to be made with 40% of minerals extracted or processed in countries the US has a free trade agreement with, or recycled in North America. But supply chains for those minerals don’t exist yet, E&E News reported. The majority of lithium, cobalt, nickel, and other minerals used in EV batteries come from China, Russia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, although analysts told E&E News they hope the mandate spurs a made-in-America market.

Cleaner air to breathe

A man rides his skateboard at sunset while doing a trick in the Venice Beach area of Los Angeles, California, on November 12, 2019.Carlo Allegri/Reuters

With fewer gas-guzzling cars on the road, and fewer industrial sites powered by fossil fuels, air would be cleaner and safer to breathe.

“These sorts of climate measures could also reduce particulate matter or ozone smog, as kind of a side benefit that would directly, immediately improve health,” Scot Miller, an assistant professor of environmental health and engineering at Johns Hopkins, told Insider.

That drop in air pollution could prevent up to 3,900 premature deaths and 100,000 asthma attacks by 2030, according to an analysis by the policy-research firm Energy Innovation LLC.

A layer of air pollution hangs over Denver, Colorado, on January 21, 2020.Jim Urquhart/Reuters

The American Lung Association pointed to those clean air and health gains in a statement Thursday, urging Congress to “move swiftly” and “without delay” to pass the new bill into law.

The bill also includes provisions to fund cleanup of dangerous pollution sites, which are disproportionately concentrated in low-income communities of color.

The investment is “probably not enough, but it’s more than we’ve ever spent before,” Foley said.

Jobs, jobs, jobs

Ford Assembly workers install a battery onto the chassis of a Ford Focus Electric vehicle at the Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, Michigan, on November 7, 2012.Rebecca Cook/Reuters

By investing about $60 billion in manufacturing — everything from heat pumps to wind turbines — this climate plan would help keep clean-energy companies in the US, securing “good paying, and hopefully union, jobs,” Stokes said.

It’s not just manufacturing. Renewable-energy infrastructure needs to be installed and maintained. The bill would fund new electricity-transmission lines, offshore wind projects, housing retrofits, renewable-energy projects in rural areas, and repurposing or replacing defunct energy infrastructure.

A worker sits at the base of a wind turbine blade at TPI Composites in Newton, Iowa, on December 22, 2011.Joshua Lott/Reuters

All that work requires workers. The bill would create up to 1.5 million jobs by 2030, according to the Energy Innovation analysis.

The bill also focuses on communities historically associated with oil, gas, and coal extraction, by providing a tax incentive for companies that create renewable-energy jobs in those places.

Protection from extreme weather

Daniel Bosquez shades the face of Timothy Jalomo, 10 months, from the afternoon sun as he fills a plastic pool with water, as San Antonio, Texas is placed under an excessive heat warning, on July 11, 2022.Lisa Krantz/Reuters

Climate change is making droughts, floods, wildfires, and heat waves more severe and more frequent. These weather events cause serious damage to human property and infrastructure and cost lives.

The bill would provide funding for communities to mitigate the health effects of extreme heat, to prevent and respond to wildfires, and to prepare for coastal climate impacts like severe hurricanes and flooding from sea-level rise. It also gives the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) a funding boost for forecasting and research.

A house is fully engulfed by flames during the Dixie Fire, a wildfire near the town of Greenville, California, August 5, 2021.Fred Greaves/Reuters

While the new funds would help communities adapt to extreme events, the bill could also help prevent weather from getting even more extreme. If the world cuts emissions enough to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius, that could prevent a significant acceleration in the severity and coverage area of extreme weather.

“I think everyone I work with in the emissions community is sort of holding their breath and hoping that this [bill] goes through,” Miller said.

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