This is the second in a two-part series on the implications of the historic climate and health spending package, which President Biden signed into law earlier this week. Read the first post here.
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) will subsidize our nation's clean energy revolution and have a positive impact on climate-driven economics, as noted in Part I of this series. That said, the IRA isn't flawless. Notably, it includes several subsidies for fossil fuels, which will be counterproductive as our nation works toward its climate goals.
Worse still, not all "carrots" for clean energy technologies are good, and the IRA includes a potentially bad one. Specifically, the IRA risks subsidizing the clean energy transition through perpetuating environmental injustice in how we obtain and use energy to fuel our economy.
It is well known that the fossil fuel industry was built in part by concentrating the costs of its polluting activities on so-called "sacrifice zones" — that is, structurally marginalized communities that lacked the economic or political clout to fight back. (See, for reference, "Cancer Alley" in Louisiana.) Even as the IRA aims to steer the industry toward an orderly decline, it would do nothing to prevent it from continuing to concentrate harms in marginalized communities as it does so.
At the same time, the IRA offers little assurance that, as carbon-free energy sources ramp up, any resulting environmental harms will not also be concentrated on structurally marginalized communities. At the very least, climate justice demands that we not seek to subsidize the transition to renewable energy by forcing low-wealth people and communities of color to bear a disproportionately large amount of the costs of this transition.
In the final analysis, it seems clear the IRA is a "win" in an absolute sense; that is, its climate benefits certainly outweigh its climate costs. But attention to the injustices of how these costs and benefits may ultimately be distributed reveals a much more complicated picture of the law's wisdom.
The Climate Justice Imperative
The IRA is what we have, though. And there's much the environmental community can and should do to ameliorate the inequities of its provisions. As noted in Part I, grants and subsidy programs by their nature have a lot of "play" in their joints, which loosen the connection between what they are intended to do and what they accomplish in reality. Environmentalists can seize these opportunities to ensure that the benefits of the IRA reach marginalized communities while working to defeat the effectiveness of the law's subsidies for fossil fuels.
Second, large environmental advocacy groups should make passing new environmental justice legislation a top priority before this fall's midterm elections. Two of the most important bills in this area are the Environmental Justice for All Act, which would take important steps to address generations of environmental racism, and the Public Health Air Quality Act, which would require the EPA to better monitor toxic air pollutants at the fenceline of polluting facilities.
Where once the future of climate policy looked grim, the IRA now brings much needed hope that we can maintain a habitable planet for future generations. But the law is just a first step. Now, we must translate the optimism and momentum it inspires into further action that will bring us even closer to the ultimate goal of a future of climate justice.
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Alexandra Rogan, James Goodwin | August 18, 2022
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) will subsidize our nation's clean energy revolution and have a positive impact on climate-driven economics, as noted in Part I of this series. That said, the IRA isn't flawless. Notably, it includes several subsidies for fossil fuels, which will be counterproductive as our nation works toward its climate goals. Worse still, not all "carrots" for clean energy technologies are good, and the IRA includes a potentially bad one. Specifically, the IRA risks subsidizing the clean energy transition through perpetuating environmental injustice in how we obtain and use energy to fuel our economy.
James Goodwin | August 10, 2022
After more than 50 years, the Clean Air Act is due for an upgrade to account for changing circumstances. We can now recognize how the law is insufficiently attentive to the realities of structural racism and systemic disparities in environmental protections. Polluters have exacerbated these problems by weaponizing uncertainty to oppose stronger protections for those who need them most. In speaking to both challenges, the Public Health Air Quality Act would help ensure that the Clean Air Act is well positioned to continue serving the American people for the next 50 years.
Daniel Farber | August 8, 2022
What wetlands and waterbodies does the Clean Water Act protect? Congress failed to provide a clear answer when it passed the statute, and the issue has been a bone of contention ever since. The Biden administration is in the process of issuing a new regulation on the subject. Normally, you'd expect the Supreme Court to wait to jump in until then. Instead, the Court reached out to grab Sackett v. EPA, where landowners take a really extreme position on the subject. Not a good sign.
Sophie Loeb | August 4, 2022
On July 27, I had the privilege of testifying at the North Carolina Utilities Commission (NCUC) public hearing regarding the Duke Energy Carbon Plan. The Asheville hearing was one of six forums designated for public witness testimony on the proposed decarbonization plan. In 2019, North Carolina joined 34 other states investing in solar, wind, and other renewable resources when it passed its Clean Energy Power Plan, and, in 2021, when it passed House Bill 951, which commits to a 70 percent carbon reduction by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2050. When Duke Energy, a major corporation with outsized influence over the state’s decarbonization plan, submitted its proposal to meet those goals, it failed to account for affordability and equity.
Hannah Klaus | August 3, 2022
Last week, the Center for Progressive Reform joined 90 organizations in expressing strong support for the Environmental Justice for All Act in a letter as the bill went before the House Committee on Natural Resources for markup. The coalition, led by Coming Clean, a collaborative of environmental health and environmental justice experts, and the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform, urged committee members to advance this important legislation to the House floor. The bill, introduced by Reps. Raúl M. Grijalva of Arizona and Donald McEachin of Virginia, is the most significant effort by the federal government to address generations of environmental racism.
James Goodwin | July 27, 2022
The Biden administration’s path forward on climate change -- as the widely deployed metaphor goes -- has become more difficult with the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in West Virginia vs. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). If the Biden administration is to successfully navigate that path -- and it must if we are to avert the worst consequences of the climate crisis -- the president will need to abandon the “compass” that his predecessors have relied on for decades to guide their policy agenda: Executive Order 12866: Regulatory Planning and Review.
Thomas McGarity, Wendy Wagner | July 25, 2022
Law professors dream of the day when the U.S. Supreme Court will rely on one of their publications for a proposition that is crucial to the outcome of an important case. What better validation of all the blood, sweat, and tears that were poured into the publication? What an existential high to know that they have finally arrived at the pinnacle. We experienced none of those emotions when reading Chief Justice John Roberts' opinion in West Virginia v. EPA. The citations to our work were both minor and innocuous, so that fact helps allay any sense of accomplishment. But equally significant, the Court's analysis bears little relationship to our own understanding of Section 111(a) of the Clean Air Act.
Daniel Farber | July 20, 2022
What government powers would be unlocked by declaring a climate change emergency? One immediate possibility would be to use the same power that former President Trump used to divert military construction funds to other uses -- in this case, perhaps building wind or solar farms or new transmission lines. But what else could President Biden do?
Grace DuBois | July 20, 2022
Corporations’ widespread use -- and abuse -- of forced arbitration in employment contracts allow them to steal billions of dollars from workers every year with impunity. Employers have unilaterally imposed mandatory arbitration agreements onto 60 million American workers, and the practice is only becoming more widespread. By 2024, 80 percent of nonunion workers will be subject to forced arbitration.