Biden infrastructure plan seeks hundreds of billions to advance climate change agenda

US President Joe Biden’s vast plan to modernize the nation’s infrastructure includes hundreds of billions of dollars to boost the market for electric vehicles, renewable power and advanced clean energy technologies while stripping away subsidies for fossil fuels.

That makes the $2 trillion infrastructure blueprint one of the administration’s biggest steps to date in achieving its agenda to decarbonize the US economy by 2050 and restore the nation’s leadership in addressing global warming, reports Reuters.

While much of the package is aimed at traditional infrastructure goals like rebuilding roads and bridges, about a third, or $628 billion, is linked to climate, according to an estimate by investment firm Raymond James.

The proposals, which must still be debated and approved by Congress before becoming reality, drew cheers from the renewable energy industry and some environmentalists, along with criticism of oil and gas drillers.

“President Biden’s infrastructure proposal is a significant step in meeting our collective clean energy goals,” Solar Energy Industries Association Chief Executive Abigail Ross Hopper said in a statement.

The American Council on Renewable Energy said the plan “will move the clean energy sector beyond the endless cycles of temporary stopgap incentives.”

The American Petroleum Institute, which represents the country’s biggest oil and gas companies, said the plan would “undermine the nation’s economic recovery and jeopardize good-paying jobs.”

Among the biggest climate-related provisions, the plan includes $174 billion in investment to “win the EV market” by spurring domestic supply chains and giving consumers rebates to buy electric cars.

It also delivers a key win for wind and solar project developers with a proposal to extend the industry’s key tax credits by a decade, far longer than the timelines the subsidies have enjoyed in the past.

By contrast, it would strip away billions of dollars worth of subsidies available to fossil fuels producers, mainly in the form of tax breaks.