Climate & Energy Cheat Sheet: Dem debates, EVs, and USE IT

Hi John,

Between the Super Bowl, the Iowa Caucus debacle, the reality show antics of President Trump’s State of the Union and the acquittal of the President, the first week of February 2020 felt like a full six months. With so much going on, we wanted to fill you in on the latest climate and clean energy news.

After tonight’s Democratic debate in New Hampshire, we’re looking forward to the February 19 debate in Las Vegas, where a climate journalist will be helping moderate for the first time. We’re hopeful that Telemundo’s Vanessa Huac, known for compassionate, objective reporting, will ask candidates incisive questions to help voters understand the climate positions of the Democratic field.

Related Tweet Thread of the Week

Electric Vehicles Charging Forward

After the White House nixed multiple clean energy and electric vehicle tax credits and incentives in an end-of-the-year spending bill in December, House Democrats are making sure those proposals are back on the table. House Ways and Means is working on syncing its 2019 tax extenders package with the Select Climate Crisis Committee’s recommendations on how to tackle climate change, expected out at the end of March. If enacted, the tax extenders will spur the growth of renewables and EV production in the U.S.

The auto industry’s not waiting around, but it still needs federal policy support to kick off our EV revolution. General Motors just announced it is pumping $2.2 billion into their Detroit-Hamtramck plant to develop an electric, autonomous shuttle. The investment is projected to create 2,200 new jobs in the state. The announcement “builds on a new chapter in Michigan’s automotive manufacturing heritage,” said Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who delivered one of the two Democratic responses to Tuesday’s State of the Union.

Ellen Hughes-Cromwick, former Obama Commerce chief economist and new senior resident fellow for Clean Energy Economy at Third Way, echoed the sentiment in her op-ed in The Detroit News this week: “We have so much to fight for in this shifting auto market: a robust innovation economy, a thriving domestic auto industry employing millions of Americans and cleaner air for future generations.” Read the full op-ed here.

Let’s USE IT
House Energy and Commerce’s Environment & Climate Change panel held a hearing Thursday on legislation to take a critical move forward on carbon capture and sequestration technologies. The bill directs funding toward direct air capture and would help develop CO2 pipelines. Committee Chairman Frank Pallone made clear he’d prefer a bill that focuses on pipeline safety and ensures captured carbon does not go toward enhanced oil recovery. But as bill sponsor Scott Peters said yesterday, USE IT is “not where we want to end, but it’s a good place to start.”

Talking points:

It’s really simple — the world’s leading scientists have said we need to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, and that there’s basically no chance of getting there without carbon capture. The USE IT Act is a smart way to move more carbon capture projects forward and move us closer to our climate goals.
The USE IT Act has 39 Democratic and 18 Republican cosponsors as of Friday. When there are so few areas of agreement between the parties on climate legislation, let’s move bills where we do actually align.
We’re pleased to see lawmakers generally in agreement that this bipartisan legislation is a step in the right direction. None of the contentions Pallone raised are dealbreakers for this legislation.

As always, let’s keep the conversation going,
Jared

Jared DeWese
Senior Communications Advisor | Third Way
202.384.1737 :: @jareddewese

T.J. Osborne
Climate and Energy Press Coordinator | Third Way
202.775.5163 :: @tjosborne_

Jackie Toth
Advisor for Policy and Content, Climate and Energy | Third Way
202.775.5167 :: @JackieTothDC