Yesterday, day President Joe Biden signed the most sweeping climate bill in U.S. history. It is, as Biden famously said of the Affordable Care Act, “a big f*cking deal.”
How big? We’ll get to that. But more important than simply how big, what sets this bill apart is how it’s constructed and balanced—and how it managed to unite a Democratic caucus that ranges from Bernie Sanders to Joe Manchin. I’ll point you to two sources who can explain both—the policies and the politics. But before I do, I have a few things to say about it.
To begin with, even though I’m calling it a climate bill, its official name (in a bit of too-clever marketing) is the Inflation Reduction Act. There’s more in there than just climate provisions, thanks to the arcane rules of the U.S. Senate. The bill is filled with a long list of non-climate policies that lower costs for healthcare and improve tax fairness. For today, however, I want to focus only on what the bill will accomplish for climate.
That information is not easy to stumble across if you are a casual news grazer. For one thing, whether online, on cable, or in print, the story of the climate bill has been crowded out by—take your pick—either a flood of livid sputtering rage that the sanctity of Trump’s tacky golf resort was defiled by the villainous FBI and the Deep State or by a giddy festival of schadenfreude, gossip, and speculation over whether, at long last, Trump has been caught in a transgression that he won’t be able to wriggle out of.
I’ll admit, the prospect of a Trump comeuppance makes a juicy story. I don’t blame anyone for getting caught up in it. I’m caught up in it myself. But for today, I’m going to ask you to step away from the junk food table and eat your spinach. We can leave Trump’s tsuris to the Twitter wags, and the cable hosts with their endless Zoom parade of national-security alumni, former prosecutors, and politicians.
Take a few minutes to look into what the Democrats have pulled off. And, yes, it was the Democrats—and only the Democrats—against solid Republican opposition. I don’t want to make this a partisan gloat, but the Democrats all voted AYE. The Republicans (almost all) voted NAY (four in the House didn’t vote).
When Biden took office, I saw a flurry of opinion pieces calling him a “transformational president” in the mold of FDR or Lyndon Johnson or—if backwards is your preferred direction—Ronald Reagan. Even one of the NYTimes token conservative columnists, David Brooks jumped on the “transformational” framing after Biden signed the Covid Relief Bill. Not everyone bought it. As early as April of 2021, Susan B. Glasser, in The New Yorker, prophetically cautioned that “proposing historic legislation is not transformative; passing it is.”
For most of the year, however, as winter turned to spring and then to early summer, passing historic legislation, just wasn’t happening. Biden’s momentum stalled after his BBB (Build Back Better) bill passed the House, only to die in the Senate. As far as anyone could see, Biden’s agenda was dead in the water. From MAGAWorld came a steady drumbeat of jibes slamming Biden as a doddering, hapless old man, not up to the job. In the news, the dominant Biden story was his stalled agenda and his sinking approval ratings. Pundits took to writing his administration off as a failed presidency.
And not just pundits. I was hearing the same thing from many of my younger friends—Gen X, Millennial, and Gen Z. When I catch them talking politics, it’s usually to grouse that that voting didn’t accomplish anything, that both parties are equal sellouts to corporate paymasters, and that nothing good ever happens in government. With no visible progress on Biden’s agenda, it was hard to talk them out of that.
And then…
Suddenly, last month, the dam broke. Biden and the Democrats put a string of wins on the scoreboard. I’ve mentioned many of these before. But I don’t tire of mentioning them again. If you tire of reading them, skip ahead.
Passing the CHIPS and Science Act, investing in technology
The Zawahiri mission
PACT Act (Burn Pits) delivering healthcare to veterans with chronic conditions from exposure to toxic substances in their service
Record job creation numbers (528,000 new jobs in July)
Unemployment dropped again (to 3.5%)
A (modest) gun safety bill
NATO expansion for Finland and Sweden
Gas prices have declined for nine consecutive weeks.
Kansas voted to keep constitutional protection of abortion rights, giving Democrats hope that the issue of abortion access will be a prime motivator for the midterm elections
And to cap it off:
Passing the Inflation Reduction Act, which contains breakthrough reforms in taxation, the cost of healthcare, and a series of programs designed to lower carbon emissions by in 2030 by an additional ~1 billion metric tons below current policy.
What makes this climate bill work is that it’s all carrots and no sticks. It’s a collection of incentives—tax credits or rebates for consumers, subsidies to industry to boost the U.S. clean-energy economy. And because the bill was crafted with input from climate activists who insisted that climate justice be an essential component, it contains community investments as well.
To go deeper into the mechanisms contained in the bill, I recommend watching this video from Hank Green. It’s the clearest explainer of the bill that I’ve found. And don’t just take my word for it. Here’s what Jeff Jarvis said:
“This is SUPERB: a clear, concise, passionate explanation of the climate bill by @hankgreen. This is journalism. This is education. I SO want a course at @newmarkjschool on how to research & make these explainers. Game, @hankgreen & @johngreen?”
(If you don’t know him, be warned that Hank talks fast. But YouTube’s player software has a pause button. Take as much time as you need. Play is as many times as it takes. You’ll learn a lot.)
Hank leaves politics out of his video. Personally, I think that’s a lapse. We have this bill because of Democrats. And only Democrats. No Republican voted for it. Not one. Not in the Senate. Not in the House.
But the struggle wasn’t simply between Democrats and Republicans. There was also a struggle within the Democratic Party and years of pressure from the community of climate activists. This bill reflects earnest effort to come into alignment and to develop policies that support the goal of reducing carbon emissions to net zero by 2050. We would never have this bill without The Sunrise Movement, the Green New Deal, Washington Governor Jay Inslee’s climate proposals and enormous staff work to turn goals into policies and policies into legislation. Does the bill reflect everything the climate movement wanted? No. Does it contain a few small concessions to the fossil-fuel industry? Yes. But the bill is, nevertheless, a breakthrough. It’s a cause for celebration and spur to renew efforts to achieve even more.
Dave Roberts has been writing about the climate movement and policies for decades, and in his most recent pod, he puts the new bill into the context of that struggle.
One key point that Roberts makes is worth remembering. This bill will not only invest in climate, it will create a constituency for climate action. Just as the Affordable Care Act became more popular once people experienced the benefits in their own lives, so, too, will this bill create more support as its effects are felt. Consumers who use the tax credits to upgrade major appliances, install solar panels, and buy electric vehicles will see continuing dividends in lower costs. New clean energy industries and jobs will create local support. This new climate legislation will kick off a virtuous feedback loop and, I’ll venture, cement Biden’s legacy as a transformational president.