Joe Biden Wants to Launch Low-Carbon Transportation Strategy

December 04, 2019

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by John Gallagher (Freight Waves) Former vice president and Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden is promoting a “new generation” of low-carbon trucking, shipping and aviation technologies through a plan to invest $400 billion over 10 years in a federal clean energy research program.

The proposal is part of a 10-year, $3 trillion infrastructure plan announced today (Nov. 14) that he says his administration would roll out if he’s elected president in 2020.

“Long-haul trucking, oceanic shipping and global aviation also contribute heavily to transit emissions,” Biden stresses in the plan. The clean energy program would therefore focus on reducing the cost of biofuels and developing more efficient engines “that can power long-haul trucks, planes and ships, to keep global commerce moving while reaching net-zero emissions by 2050,” a goal similar to that of Democratic rival Bernie Sanders, who announced his infrastructure plan earlier this year.

Biden said he would also “speed the transition to electric cars and trucks” by easing concerns about price, range, and access to charging stations.

“As president, he will restore the full electric-vehicle tax credit to encourage American families to buy electric cars for their personal use – and to incentivize American businesses to build or shift their existing fleets to electric vehicles,” the plan states. The U.S. Department of Energy would be directed to invest $5 billion over five years in battery and energy storage technology “to spur breakthroughs that can boost the range and slash the price of electric cars,” while enacting policies to promote domestic manufacturing of electric vehicles.

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Missing from the trillion-dollar plan are specifics on how it would be paid for, which has been a barrier to both President Donald Trump’s $2 trillion infrastructure package and reauthorizing a long-term surface transportation bill. READ MORE

Iowa Caucus: Joe Biden offers plan to "save the soul of America" in Mason City stop (Globe Gazette)

Politics: Biden, Finkenauer talk ag acquisitions in Dubuque (Telegraph Herald)

Joe Biden: Worse than even his policies, Donald Trump is destroying America's soul (USA Today)

Excerpt from Globe Gazette: The core of his speech spoke to the necessity of rural American involvement and how Trump had left rural Americans behind.

"President Trump chose oil companies over ethanol," Biden said in reference to the administration granting small refinery waivers to sites associated with Exxon.

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Biden promised that, if elected, he would make sure to invest billions in rural America.

While ethanol would be a part of that investment, there would also be a focus on carbon-capture processes in agriculture that Biden postulated would help in the fight against climate change. READ MORE

Excerpt from Telegraph Herald: In particular, (Abby) Finkenauer criticized Trump’s approve of 31 waivers of renewable fuel standard requirements given to refineries.

“(Those) have now cost our corn-growers 4 billion bushels of corn out of the market, dropping the corn prices to the lowest we’ve seen in decades,” she said. “And then (Trump) promised he’d fix it in a rule, but the rule wasn’t the right one, so he blamed the (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency), even thought it’s his EPA. … Our farmers are smarter than that.”

Biden said he would not only reverse course on the waivers, but advance biofuel opportunities.

“Turning away from the farmers and satisfying the oil companies is a gigantic problem,” he said. “We’re going to keep the commitment we made to ethanol and to cellulosics — new types of biofuels. ... As president of the United States, I will make sure that every single vehicle owned by the federal government, the largest owner of vehicles in the world, runs on ethanol, requires it as part of the mix, moving toward cellulosics and other bio-based fuels, because farmers are getting killed. But farmers are the answer.” READ MORE