By Jonathan Lacock-Nisly, IPL Federal Policy Associate

Members of Congress are back from their summer recess, and entering the home stretch on what has the potential to be the biggest climate bill ever passed into law.

A quick-ish review of the timeline 

The bipartisan infrastructure bill (H.R.3684, which includes some positive provisions, but is not a climate bill) passed the Senate in August. Progressive champions in the House, as well as Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have held that bill and say they won’t bring it up for a vote until the rest of the President’s agenda is ready to pass at the same time through a budget reconciliation bill. 

That budget reconciliation bill, now called the Build Back Better Act, is the place we can make significant progress on climate change and environmental justice priorities. House committees finished work on their respective sections of the bill and passed those pieces out of committee on September 15th. (Many thanks to all of the IPL affiliates who did great work planning actions and driving calls ahead of that important deadline!)

Now, the House will look to pass their Build Back Better Act on the House floor and send it to the Senate, where there will be significant debate and revisions before the Senate passes their own version. That Senate version of the Build Back Better Act will go back to the House for what likely will be an up-or-down vote with no further chance for revision. At that point, the House will also pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill that they’ve been waiting to move. And all of this is supposed to happen before September 27th, based on a complicated set of promises between moderates and progressives, as well as the expiration of the current surface transportation law at the end of the month.

What’s in the House version of Build Back Better (No bill number yet)

There’s a lot of good news here, although all with a huge caveat. House committees have passed their sections of the bill, and it includes almost all of IPL’s priorities. However, disagreements remain over how the bill should be funded. And even once those questions are answered in the House, the bill faces a much tougher path in the Senate, with Democratic moderates (most notably Senators Joe Manchin (WV) and Krysten Sinema (AZ)) expressing doubt about the size and scope of the bill.

For today, however, let’s list the highlights. This bill, in combination with state-level action, would put the US on track to meet President Biden’s goal of cutting climate pollution 50% by 2030. House committees approved:

-Clean Electricity Performance Program: This is the latest name change for what started as the Clean Electricity Standard. Through a system of payments for clean electricity and penalties for dirty electricity, this program would put us on track for 80% carbon-free electricity by 2030—the intermediate target for 100% carbon-free electricity by 2035. 

We also have (the House’s) answer for what constitutes clean electricity. Unfortunately, their definition does include nuclear and fossil fuels with carbon capture. IPL will keep advocating for truly clean, renewable energy sources like wind and solar, but it is worth noting that advocates (including IPL) were successful in keeping methane gas from receiving partial credit as a “clean” source under the House proposal. A recent meta-analysis found that even with this less-than-desirable definition of clean electricity, the program would ensure that almost all new generation in the US in the coming decade is in the form of wind, solar, and batteries.

-Clean electricity tax credits: The tax credits that have helped fuel the boom in wind and solar electricity over the past decade were scheduled to start phasing out at the end of this year. Instead, they will be expanded and extended into the 2030s.

-Lead pipe removal: President Biden had listed removing every lead pipe across the country as a key environmental justice provision of his agenda. Yet the bipartisan infrastructure bill fell far short, funding only $15 billion of a needed $45 billion. The House’s version of Build Back Better closes the gap, with an additional $30 billion for lead pipe removal.

-Electric vehicles: The bill pushes the tax credit for electric vehicles up to $12,000 and eliminates the vehicle cap for manufacturers (which means that GM and Tesla vehicles will again qualify for the credit). It also includes $13.5 billion for electric vehicle charging stations, on top of funds provided in the bipartisan infrastructure bill.

-More environmental justice provisions: The bill includes $2.5 billion for low-income solar projects, $5 billion in grants available to communities for environmental justice projects, and $10 billion for cleanup of Superfund sites. It also includes an additional $4 billion beyond funding in the bipartisan infrastructure bill for reconnecting communities divided by interstates, in recognition of the racist highway planning processes that have disproportionately harmed Black communities. It is disappointing, however, that the climate and environmental provisions of the bill do not uniformly meet the President’s promise that 40% of benefits would go to environmental justice communities. IPL will keep pushing for lawmakers to meet this minimum target.

-Civilian Climate Corps: It’s difficult to track the funding scattered across several different federal jobs programs, but it seems that a Civilian Climate Corps—intended to put Americans to work at jobs that help the country reduce climate pollution and adapt to a warming world—is included in this version of the bill. 

-Methane fee: One way the bill helps pay for itself is by putting a fee on methane pollution. This, in combination with EPA and Bureau of Land Management rules currently in the works to directly restrict methane emissions, can make a big dent in this climate super polluter.

Thanks again to all the IPL affiliates raising up the faith voice on this bill and keeping the pressure on our members of Congress! We wouldn’t have made it this far without the work of so many faithful advocates across the country, and we need you all in the coming weeks to get across the finish line.

By Bill Bradlee, IPL Organizing Director and Affiliate Liaison

Transportation is the largest source of carbon pollution in the United States. One of the most important climate change policies we have on the books is vehicle fuel efficiency, because it determines how much carbon pollution our vehicles will put into our air. We refer to this as the clean car standards and they are up for revision right now. This rule, along with the reconciliation bill being debated in Congress this month, are two of the most important pieces of climate policy in a decade.

President Biden promised bold action on climate. With the reconsideration of the previous administration’s attack and rollback of clean car standards, President Biden, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Transportation (DOT) have the opportunity to make good on that promise by establishing the strongest possible clean car standards.  

More than 1,500 clergy and faith leaders from across the United States are calling on President Biden and EPA Administrator Michael Regan to enact those strong standards. The religious leaders stated, in part, that “the climate crisis is a challenge of racial, economic, and generational justice, and we call on the Biden administration to meet it with an eye towards the most vulnerable in our communities. Choosing to make less efficient vehicles isn’t just wasteful—it is a moral travesty. Children, our elders, low wealth and Black and Brown communities are all suffering disproportionately due to increased pollution and climate-fueled disasters.” 

The last line of the letter reads: “We urge you to consider this moral opportunity to enact bold new standards that truly envision the best for our communities, our nation, and our world.” Indeed, this is a critical opportunity. We have to be bold in addressing climate solutions and showing the rest of the world that we are again willing to lead. We have no time left for inadequate half-measures. 

IPL President and IPL-DMV director Joelle Novey met with EPA officials and dropped this letter off in person (outside and socially distanced). 

Please join with IPL and the religious leaders in asking the Biden EPA to:

• Restore national standards gutted under Trump administration and revise them beyond levels set during the Obama-Biden administration;
• Establish a 2030 standard for cars and light-duty trucks that achieves fleet average greenhouse gas emissions 60 percent or more below today’s average;
• Put the nation on a trajectory to make all new cars and light-duty trucks zero-emission vehicles no later than 2035;
• Ensure all new trucks and buses are zero-emission no later than 2040.

 See the full letter and signatories here. 

 We’re asking three things from everyone at this critical time: 

1. Send a comment to the EPA is support of strong clean car standards 
2. Share this alert with your family, friends and colleagues
3. Keep an eye out for future opportunities to speak up on this issue

By Jonathan Lacock-Nisly, IPL Federal Policy Associate

It’s almost August recess in DC, normally a time when work slows down and legislators book tickets back to their home states. But nothing about this year has been normal. While members of the House have left town, senators remain hard at work on two bills at the heart of President Biden’s agenda. And Senate Leader Chuck Schumer is threatening to keep them here until they can deliver.

Infrastructure and Climate Updates

We finally have text for the bipartisan infrastructure bill, and it should be coming up for a vote in the Senate tomorrow. (For a refresher on the current two-track approach to infrastructure legislation, see the June update here.)

Of IPL’s priorities, the bipartisan bill includes:

• Funding to clean up Superfund sites and other legacy pollution, including abandoned mine lands ($21 billion, with $11 billion for abandoned mine lands)
• Investments to improve and expand ‌Amtrak‌ ‌service‌ ‌($66 billion)
• Some funding for ‌clean‌ ‌drinking‌ ‌water ($63 billion, only $15 billion for lead pipe removal)
• Investments in ‌the‌ ‌development‌ ‌of‌ ‌a‌ ‌21st‌ ‌century‌ ‌electrical‌ ‌grid‌ ($65 billion)
• Building electric‌ ‌vehicle‌ ‌charging‌ ‌stations‌ ($7.5 billion)

These provisions are important, and the funding for abandoned mine lands is especially encouraging, as it would more than cover the funding that IPL has long sought through the RECLAIM Act. Collectively, however, this package falls short of the investments needed and does little to address the climate crisis. We must ensure that the reconciliation package includes real funding for:

• Clean energy: The bipartisan deal includes no meaningful support for wind and solar power. We need the reconciliation package to include an extension and expansion of clean energy tax credits for wind, solar, and electric vehicles, as well as a national Clean Energy Standard that supports truly clean, renewable energy.
• Replacing lead pipes: This deal cuts the total funding for clean water to half of what the President had initially proposed, and only $15 billion for removing lead pipes. This is significantly less than $60 billion the water industry estimates is needed to ensure all communities have lead-free drinking water.
• Clean transportation: The bipartisan deal includes insufficient funding for public transit, rail, electric school buses, and electric vehicle charging.
• Investing with justice: As President Biden promised on the campaign trail, we need to see at least 40% of funds spent in the communities hurt the most by our current polluting economy.

Democratic senators are expected to vote on a budget framework (the basic outline of their reconciliation deal) as soon as the bipartisan deal passes. Then the real work will begin.

Voting Rights

The For the People Act (H.R. 1 / S. 1) (see fact sheet here) passed the House earlier this year. It had stalled in the Senate because Sen. Joe Manchin, the Senate’s most conservative Democrat, had refused to support it, but it gained new life in June with a compromise measure from Manchin that includes many of the essential pieces of the bill.

Senators are now working behind the scenes to write up a new version of the bill that includes the provisions Manchin supports in both the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (S. 4263 in the last Congress). For now, Manchin and several other Democratic senators still oppose any changes to the filibuster that would allow this important legislation to pass with a simple majority vote, as IPL has called for.

Yet the fact that a new version of the bill is being worked on is itself a victory. Voting rights legislation still has a chance in this Congress thanks to the many faithful advocates across the country who have kept talking to their senators about the For the People Act.

Keep the faith, and keep the pressure on your senators this summer! Check back here for updates.