President Biden is expected to call on Congress to aggressively tackle climate change and promote clean energy during his State of the Union address Tuesday night, trying to pick up the pieces of his failed Build Back Better bill.
The clean energy initiatives and priorities he will tout mirror those that were included in the $1.75 trillion Build Back Better Act. However, a White House fact sheet that reviewed his speech notably makes no mention of plans for helping families looking for immediate relief from gas and energy prices.
The White House said Mr. Biden’s push for a clean energy sector that relies on renewable resources would result in “lower costs for families, good-paying jobs for workers, and healthier air and cleaner water for communities.”
The language is designed to appease Mr. Biden’s far-left base that has grown frustrated by the inability to take more aggressive and sweeping action on climate change.
Mr. Biden will touch on combating consumer energy costs but his focus, the White House said, will be offering tax credits and spending on clean energy projects to achieve the goal. Energy groups and Republicans on Capitol Hill have called on Mr. Biden to address rising costs more rapidly and aggressively, such as ramping up domestic production of oil and gas at a time when war between Russia and Ukraine has further inflated prices and highlighted the global energy dependence on Russia.
As part of a coordinated effort among members of the International Energy Agency (IEA) to soften the war’s impact on energy markets, the Biden administration said Tuesday that it would release 30 million barrels of oil from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve. In total, IEA countries plan to release 60 million barrels.
The White House fact sheet only made one direct mention of oil and gas. The reference highlighted steps that the president has taken to reduce methane emissions, including authorizing more than $1 billion for states to plug abandoned oil and natural gas wells emitting greenhouse gas.
The crux of the energy and climate portion of Mr. Biden’s address, according to the White House, will focus on clean energy manufacturing, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, achieving 100% carbon pollution-free electricity by 2035, touting progress on clean energy action taken by the administration and other ways the federal government should combat climate change.
Source:Washington Times
