Debt Ceiling Agreement Mostly Spares Biden’s Investments in Clean Energy, Infrastructure

The debt ceiling agreement reached by President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy — and now passed by both the House and Senate — largely preserves Biden’s major signature investments and the administration’s focus on reinvesting in America through government programs and incentives.

That’s despite the fact that the deal cuts funding for vulnerable people who rely on government assistance, such as child care and low-income housing; pulls back billions of dollars meant to revamp the Internal Revenue Service; and requires the return of unspent funds appropriated for electric vehicle chargers, scientific research hubs and Pentagon purchases of climate technology, such as heat pumps.
 

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While one of the agreement’s major elements — speeding the environmental review of infrastructure projects — worries environmentalists, it could accelerate the construction of clean energy projects funded by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. “The compromise does seem to preserve key elements of the IIJA and the Inflation Reduction Act,” said Joseph Schofer, professor emeritus of civil and environmental engineering at Northwestern University. “Concerns have been expressed about weakening of the environmental review provisions of [the National Environmental Protection Act]. It does not appear that much (if any) damage has been done.”

The deal is an “important down payment on much-needed reforms to improve the efficiency of the permitting process,” Jason Grumet, president of the renewable energy lobbying group American Clean Power, told Reuters. The debt ceiling pact helps preserve some of the administration’s biggest initiatives, drawing praise from International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers International President Kenneth W. Cooper, who said the bill “maintains the Inflation Reduction Act’s climate and clean energy provisions.” The agreement also expands an infrastructure bill from 2008 to include energy storage projects that are key to the development of solar, wind and other renewable energy.

For months, House Republicans were demanding measures that threatened some of Biden’s new economic paradigm, such as repealing clean-energy tax credits and a methane pollution fee in the Inflation Reduction Act. But they didn’t get most of the cuts they wanted, while Democrats failed to score new victories, such as expanding transmission lines, which are essential for building out a clean energy grid. In addition, Biden might have a hard time fulfilling his fiscal 2024 budget request that proposes to raise $5.5 trillion in new revenue — the defeated effort to revamp the IRS was a big part of that plan, and the president reportedly didn’t push for ways to raise tax revenue in negotiations.

Meanwhile, community leaders who have benefited from federal funds as part of Biden’s initiatives are hoping the agreement doesn’t cut off that stream. Jamie Kinder, the mayor of Meadville, Pennsylvania, said that his rural town is doing road resurfacing on a major street with dollars from the Infrastructure Act, which will deliver $13.2 billion to the state over five years for highways and bridges. “We have used that federal money; we bought a fire truck,” he told Public News Service.

Nevertheless, Biden can accurately claim that the deal safeguards the core of his economic agenda, which leans heavily on federal investments not seen in more than 50 years. As Politico reported, “White House officials argue that [Biden] effectively out-negotiated the GOP, agreeing to small, near-term concessions in exchange for preserving a litany of major economic investments … .”

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