How the Build Back Better Act Could Fight the Climate Crisis

Investments in clean technology, lower greenhouse gas emissions, and more — here are a few ways the Build Back Better Act aims to fight the climate crisis.

The Build Back Better Act would tackle the climate crisis in 3 major ways:
1) Lowering emissions
2) Major investments in clean technology
3) Environmental justice

No country has emitted more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than the U.S. The Biden admin has committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2030. The Build Back Better Act would support this goal by removing incentives for fossil fuel & chemical production. It would bring back Superfund taxes, reduce international subsidies for oil and gas, impose new restrictions on offshore drilling, and require oil & gas companies to address methane pollution.

The BBBA would invest nearly $300B in clean energy tax credits. These work as incentives for the manufacturing of clean electricity, clean vehicles, clean buildings, and will help towards decarbonizing the industrial sector. By growing the domestic supply chain of solar, wind, and electric vehicle industries, the bill is expected to create hundreds of thousands of jobs. An additional $12B will go toward consumer rebates, which would make shifting to renewable energy more affordable for Americans. The plan invests $3B in grants for environmental justice communities for community capacity building and pollution reduction. A new Clean Energy Accelerator program will directly fund clean energy projects and deliver 40% of the benefits to disadvantaged communities. The BBBA would also create a new Civilian Climate Corps, which will employ 300,000 Americans in a new climate workforce in their own communities.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House will vote on the BBBA act this coming week. The bill also commits billions to supporting Indigenous climate leadership, climate-smart agriculture, healthy forests and land conservation. In addition to the Build Back Better Act, Congress passed a bipartisan infrastructure bill in November, which also invests billions in transitioning to clean energy and combating climate change.

#ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #Politics #Earth #Environment #Science #NowThis

Connect with NowThis

NowThis Earth is daily news coverage of climate, sustainability, biodiversity, species extinction, environmental justice, and other planetary concerns.

NowThis is your premier news outlet providing you with all the videos you need to stay up to date on all the latest in trending news. From entertainment to politics, to viral videos and breaking news stories, we’re delivering all you need to know straight to your social feeds. We live where you live.

@NowThisEarth

[andyjohnson]

Having an degree in Environmental Studies I am happy for money to help fund many changes towards are past energy demands. Although nothing is ever brought up about reducing our need for our energy demand, reducing our waste of food and renewable resources, and reducing our amount of trash and reusable product. All the world ever talks about is more more more. Building millions of EVs will not prevent climate change, renewable energy will not solely prevent climate change, recycling will not prevent climate change but they are still very important.
Seriously reducing our demand for resources, education, and rethinking what's truly important in life is nessesarry to reverse our thoughts of dominance and keeping up with the status quo lifestyle that has been advertised to us for many decades is extremely important and needs to happen today.

[jessetorres]

I once saw this political cartoon where there was a map of the United States of America. In the image, all of the landlocked states were in red with one big word bubble that said "climate change is a myth." Meanwhile, all of the coastal/southern border states were blue with multiple word bubbles that said "we beg to differ" since those landlocked states don't experience the impacts of climate change that the coastal states do. Also, you'd figure that more Conservative Evangelicals would actually care about climate change and it's impacts on society. Keep in mind, The Bible does say that the Earth is God's gift to man, and it's our duty to take care of it and everyone and everything on it. But, even if they found a way around this, you'd figure that they would at least want to prevent millions of migrants from countries that are no longer habitable from wanting to come to America in the future. Finally, even if you don't support The Green New Deal because you don't believe in climate change (or are paid not to), why wouldn't you at least support it because it would promote new jobs here in the United States?

And I'll end with a joke:
Ben Shapiro: If you believe you're in an area that's gonna be flooded from climate change then just sell your house and move.
Responder: Just 1 small problem: Sell our houses to who, Ben?! Aquaman?!

[jenniferl]

Mandate Working from Home - the air was crisp and clear during the shut down period, which could drastically assist with getting rid of air pollution.

[mattgaboury]

Could the BBBA allow private investment to boost the overall investment? The public sector and private sectors must work together

[jeanclaudejunior]

The Build back better bill signed by President Joe Biden, will work absolutely.

[Perpetual_Kid]

Didn’t they just resume drilling in the Gulf of Mexico?

[brian]

1. “We have committed to reducing emissions by 50% by 2030”

Question who exactly vetted this plan? I ask because the Top industries per emissions are: 1. Transportation 29%, 2. Electricty 25%, 3. Industry 23%, 4. Agriculture; 5. Commercial Facilities 8%, 6. Residential Units 5%

This plan commits to converting all federal vehicles to EVs by 2030. That’s a monumental goal of converting 500, 000 vehicles. However this country has a total of 216 million ICVs meaning this monumental goal is actually only worth 0.2% (and thats assuming no production emissions in EV manufacturing, which isn’t realistic) of 60% (just looking SOLELY at cars and trucks, whereas all transportation also includes heavy vehicles, planes and ships) of 29% or 0.03% of total emissions.

That does not look nearly as


Outside of this federal plan for federal vehicles in the private sector a monumental achievement would be a conversion of 5% of vehicles by 2030 to EVs or 10.8 million. For comparison that’s over 3 TIMES many EVs as are currently manufactured in this country per year projected over the next 10 years. Let’s say we managed to actually accomplish this (which again would be massive). Assuming the federal fleet conversion was successful in addition to this projection we would still only reduce total emissions by

Ok so what about outside of transportation? Well let’s go to the second highest industry - electricity.

Arguably this is the hardest industry even though we actually have a lot of technologies and in fact about 39% of the US Electricity portfolio is already very low carbon output. The problem is A. The highest percentage of that 39% is nuclear, which takes a long time to build, is very expensive and this administration is pretty coy on whether it actually supports it or not. B. The second highest is hydro which is very geographically constrained due to necessary flow conditions for development - ontop of which there can be some environmental concerns during constructions which activists are very vocal about. C. We now get into solar and wind production. Here’s the first problem, we are ASTRONOMICALLY UNDERESTIMATING how many units we would really

In Bidens Clean Air Task Force it was reported that 500 million solar panels would be needed to supply 50% of the electricity in the US. Who in the world did the math on this???

The average utility output of residential solar in the US according to the SEIA is 200W. The average daily rate of irradiance in the US per day according to the NOAA is 7.4 hours. That means per year the average residential grade solar panel in the US will yield 540, 200 whs or 540.2 KWh. The USA in 2020 (even in the midst of the pandemic) generated 4, 007, 019 GWh according to the EIA. 1 GWh = 1, 000, 000 KWh. So at 50% generation you would need 7, 417, 658, 274 panels.

Only missed the mark by 6, 917, 658, 274

And yes I’m entirely aware of the fact that there are varying levels of efficiency in solar panels even at residential grade, and utility panels have significantly greater output and that PV is not he only type of solar. However this plan is being marketed for the average residential consumer and the task force specified residential grade. Their evaluation was very bizarre to begin with namely the fact that ZERO of their estimates are by capacity, generation or penetration which standards metrics for the In other words this “task force” appears to be made up of individuals who have no idea what they’re talking about.

But this isn’t even the only issue. Specifically in this plan it is extremely concerning how ASTRONOMICALLY LOW the allocations are for grid development. In 2019 EPRI (Electric Power Research Institute) found that 65% of the US Electrical grid was either nearing or past its warranty for the infrastructure. In response here are estimates from the industry, engineering institutions and government agencies on how much money is going to be required to replace and modernize equipment:

MITEI Utility of the Future Report: $1.54 trillion

IEEE Smart Grid for the 21st Century Report: $1.98 trillion

ASCE 2021 Infrastructure Report: $2.12 Trillion

ANL/FERC Grid Modernization Report: $2.04 trillion

US DOE 2020 Peer Review Grid Modernization Report $2.52 trillion


And how much does this bill allocate for grid infrastructure in the next 10 years? $73 or 4% of the LOWEST COST

Who in the world signed off on this????


It is mind boggling obvious that ZERO experts were actually consulted in making this bill and that the emissions goal is extremely likely to be completely infeasible with the allocations and directives in this plan. In other words the average American is being completely lied

[xeroxx]

Not even 30 seconds into the video, and I feel like the first point is either highly inaccurate or flat out incorrect. Maybe USA is ONE of the countries that had high emissions of greenhouse gas. However, CCP China should also be included and HAS to change. No buts, ifs, or whatever. CCP China (and USA, if you really want to include them) HAS to change FAST. But why leave CCP China out of the first point? Are we still going to rely on CCP China to do the 'dirty work' and still allow them to emit more greenhouse gas?

Didn't really think it through, although money is STILL a priority. People never learn and will never learn from their mistakes. Just goes through one ear and out the other and 'what's past is past' mindset.