Biden Releases $2 Trillion Jobs and Infrastructure Plan

April 01, 2021

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by Erin Voegele (Ethanol Producer Magazine) President Biden on March 31 released a $2 trillion infrastructure and jobs plan, officially titled the American Jobs Plan. Biofuel/bioproducts and carbon capture and storage (CSS) are each briefly addressed in the plan.

One provision of the American Jobs Plan calls for the U.S. to become a leader in climate science, innovation and research and development. Biden is asking Congress to invest $35 billion “in the full range of solutions needed to achieve technology breakthroughs that address the climate crisis and position America as the global leader in clean energy technology and clean energy jobs.”

Part of that effort calls for the launch of ARPA-C to develop new methods for reducing emissions. In addition to a $5 billion increase in funding for other climate focused research, Biden’s plan would also “invest $15 billion in demonstration projects for climate R&D priorities, including utility-scale energy storage, carbon capture and storage, hydrogen, advanced nuclear, rare earth element separations, floating offshore wind, biofuel/bioproducts, quantum computing, and electric vehicles, as well as strengthening U.S. technological leadership in these areas in global markets.”

Also regarding carbon capture and storage (CCS), Biden’s plan would reform and expand the Section 45Q take credit, “making it direct pay and easier to use for hard-to-decarbonize industrial applications, direct air capture, and retrofits of existing power plants.”

Growth Energy issued a statement stressing that the U.S. will need biofuels to help decarbonize transportation.

"It’s disappointing that President Biden put forth a robust, $2 trillion infrastructure plan that overlooks the urgent need to expand access to low carbon biofuels, like plant-based ethanol,” said Emily Skor, CEO of Growth Energy. “The President campaigned on a platform of using 'every tool at his disposal' to 'promote and advance renewable energy, ethanol, and other biofuels'. The details of the American Jobs Plan released today assuredly missed an opportunity to meet these promises.

“It is now even more crucial that any further legislation proposed by the Administration and Congress include a robust role for ethanol. Since 2010, biofuels like ethanol have been responsible for cumulative carbon dioxide savings of nearly 600 million metric tons in the U.S., or the equivalent of removing 130 million cars from the road, roughly half of our nation’s fleet,” she continued.

“Earlier this year, a new report from the Rhodium Group, a leading independent climate analysis firm, found that biofuels are an essential element of our path to a net-zero future by 2050,” Skor added. “Ethanol reduces life cycle greenhouse gas emissions from motor fuel by an average of 46 percent, as demonstrated most recently in groundbreaking research. Continuous innovation has fueled this environmental progress, allowing biofuel producers and farmers to ramp up production year after year, without expanding our environmental footprint. Biofuels can help us reduce emissions today, and the innovations being driven by our industry will continue to reduce the carbon intensity of fuels.

“We look forward to working with this Administration and our bipartisan Congressional champions to ensure that biofuels have a leading role in helping our nation upgrade its infrastructure and address climate change."

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A fact sheet on the American Jobs Plan can be downloaded from the White House website. READ MORE

Growth Energy: To Decarbonize Transportation, America Must Turn to Biofuels  (Growth Energy)

MORE EVs PLEASE: (Politico's Morning Energy)

Biden calls for $174B investment in EVs, supply chain (E&E News)

Biden aims to make the U.S. an EV powerhouse. Congress may not be plugged in (Los Angeles Times)

Biden’s infrastructure plan aims to turbocharge U.S. shift from fossil fuels (Washington Post)

Biden’s $2.3 Trillion Infrastructure Plan Boosts EVs: The proposal includes grants and incentives to build 500,000 EV chargers by 2030. (NACS/Convenience.org)

WHERE’S THE CARBON PRICING? (Politico's Morning Energy)

Senators Want Joe Biden To Ban ICE-Powered Vehicle Sales By 2035 (Ford Authority)

YELLEN ON THE PRIVATE SECTOR: (Politico's Morning Energy)

US electric car incentive is rumored to increase to $10,000 in program reform (Electrek)

Federal Tax Credit Should Not Subsidize Electric Vehicles Made in China (Morning Consult)

HOW BIDEN WANTS TO SPEND ON EVs: (Politico's Morning Energy)

AP sources: Biden to pledge halving greenhouse gases by 2030 (Associated Press)

SHORTCHANGING BIDEN ON INFRASTRUCTURE: (Politico's Morning Energy)

Excerpt from Politico's Morning Energy: MORE EVs PLEASE: The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine is urging Congress and federal agencies to bolster zero-emission vehicles, as well as revising a decades-old fuel renewal law that their report dubs dated.

The report from NAS recommends Congress set a target date when all new light-duty vehicles have to emit net-zero emissions, pass a law to allow the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to count zero-emission vehicles in setting CAFE standards and a number of other moves to increase fuel economy of petroleum-powered vehicles.

Biden’s infrastructure package calls for investing $174 billion in electric vehicles. Phasing out emissions in transportation is a major priority for Biden as he aims to hit a net-zero emissions economy by 2050. Alex has more on the recommendations. READ MORE

Excerpt from Washington Post: Boots, who chaired the White House Council on Environmental Quality during the Obama administration, added that in addition to funding demonstration projects, the federal government could leverage its purchasing power to cut the cost of existing technology, including the production of hydrogen fuel by splitting water molecules or capturing carbon from the air or producing sustainable aviation fuel.

“Those are technologies that are ready to go; they’re just a little too expensive,” he said.

Transmission lines also are part of Biden’s plan. He would create a Grid Deployment Authority at the Energy Department to speed the use of existing rights of way along roads and railways. And he would help create financing tools to spur additional high-priority, high-voltage transmission lines. Last week, Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) introduced a bill to provide tax credits for transmission lines.

The transmission tax credit and other policies in the Biden infrastructure plan would enable a couple dozen large-scale transmission projects to move forward in the near term, Gramlich said. “The biggest barrier to large-scale transmission, even more than siting and permitting, is that there is currently no functioning way to recover costs of the large-scale inter-regional ‘highways’ that we need.” READ MORE

Excerpt from NACS/Convenience.org: NACS has advocated that convenience and fuel retailers have the same access to grants and incentives to build out EV charging infrastructure as any other business sector and that any infrastructure proposal should promote a competitive market and remove hurdles to private sector investment. NACS believes that convenience and fuel retailers, which operate more than 122,000 fueling locations in the U.S., should have the option to sell any legal source of transportation energy. READ MORE

Excerpt from Politico's Morning Energy: HOW BIDEN WANTS TO SPEND ON EVs: The lion's share of the $174 billion for electric vehicles in Biden’s infrastructure proposal will go to consumer rebates for EVs, according to an outline of the objectives obtained by Pro’s Tanya Snyder — $100 billion would go to that end, with $15 billion to build chargers. With Biden’s goal of building 500,000 charging stations, that boils down to about $30,000 per charger.

For reference, building the chargers that drivers can use on the road (as opposed to parked overnight) can easily cost $500,000, and some lawmakers say $30,000 is far too low.

There also appears to be an ARPA-I in the works, possibly akin to the ARPA-E program for energy research. It’s unclear what exactly that would look like, but Buttigieg campaigned in the Democratic primaries on creating an ARPA-Infrastructure. Read more from Tanya.

Related: EV spending remains a pretty partisan issue, with 76 percent of Democrats supporting spending $174 billion on EV transition and only 28 percent of Republicans saying the same. More from a POLITICO/Morning Consult poll on support for Biden’s energy infrastructure proposals. READ MORE

Excerpt from Politico's Morning Energy: SHORTCHANGING BIDEN ON INFRASTRUCTURE: Republicans unveiled their infrastructure counter offer Thursday, and it clocks in at around a quarter of the price of Biden’s proposal. The $568 billion package dramatically reduces the scope of the effort, focusing primarily on transportation infrastructure, as well as broadband and clean water.

The funding mechanism remains vague, with Republicans calling for repurposing leftover Covid funds and charging user fees for EVs. Sam Mintz has more for Pros.

The proposal offers far less funding for clean water than Biden’s version, and cuts out Biden’s major grid investments and EV infrastructure boosts, Annie Snider reports for Pros. Democrats have already been saying the GOP proposal is a nonstarter, and the Zero Emission Transportation Association called it a major “step backward” for EV adoption. READ MORE