Hello John,
There are many pieces to address climate change, energy security, and decarbonization in the U.S. Some are straightforward, like reducing emissions by driving less or by owning an electric vehicle. Others provide incentives for big fuel industry players to utilize new technologies or pay the price for emitting more than their fair share.
The Inflation Reduction Act made some historic progress in providing over $300 billion in funding for climate and energy initiatives. However, this funding will not reach its full potential if the projects it is meant to fund are held back.
This is best explained by Senator Schatz, who said the following in a POLITICO interview last Friday:
"The environmental movement of the last several generations was partly organized around stopping bad projects and that was important and reasonable. We've passed world-changing climate legislation, but it will be for naught if we don't enable projects to launch. So I'm for anything that will expedite clean energy development." — Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii)
The permitting processes of various environmental agencies need reform. New environmentally-conscious projects and technologies are trapped in a backlog of repetitive and circular processing.
