Hi John,

America’s clean energy transition is well underway. As the White House’s Brian Deese, John Podesta, and Jake Sullivan wrote in a guest essay this week for The Economist, this is also reaching far beyond our borders. Delivering affordable and reliable clean power is not just about building energy security, it's patriotic –as Third Way’s Rachel Reh and Aliza Astrow note in The Hill, that's something that policymakers should not shy away from.

In this week’s On the Grid, we outline ways we can accelerate American clean energy by overcoming some big challenges and securing and maintaining leadership.

Last week, the US reached its borrowing cap of $31.4 trillion. The US Treasury is deploying short-term “extraordinary measures” to keep the government running and markets calm through the next few months. Unless Congress authorizes to increase or suspend the debt ceiling, then the tap will run dry, and markets will plunge. Republican lawmakers have remained adamantly opposed to this and instead hope to pass a draconian budget that would try to require dramatic cuts to discretionary spending, including education, healthcare, energy innovation, and national defense.

As Third Way’s Economics Team lay’s out, defaulting on our loans and obligations would be catastrophic for the US economy. But what does this mean for the Biden Administration’s clean energy agenda? Here’s a quick snapshot:

1. The cost of clean energy capital will skyrocket, putting a premium on the infrastructure we need to quickly transition to safer and more reliable energy.
    
2. The federal agencies–and workers–deploying clean energy programs, investments, and tax credits will be caught in the crosshairs of Republican-led spending cuts.
    
3. The shockwaves of hitting the debt ceiling will reverberate across global financial markets, plummeting confidence in American leadership and compromise our competitive edge at the precise moment everyone should be betting on America’s clean energy economy.

This week The Washington Post reported on how Rosatom, the Russian state-owned nuclear conglomerate, played a major role in the Russian military’s illegal seizure of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and circumventing international sanctions to help re-arm the Russian military. As a key supplier of nuclear technology, infrastructure, and fuel to the global civilian nuclear industry, including the US, Rosatom’s, and Russia’s, influence has proven difficult to circumvent.

We’ve mapped it out: demand for nuclear energy is only growing, both here and in Europe. With the right technical leadership, legislative support, and regulatory framework in place, the US is well-positioned to serve this expanding market and edge authoritarian states like Russia out of the arena. Getting to this point will take a lot of work–you can read our latest policy recommendations here–but more than anything, we need a renewed sense of urgency in Washington to get the job done.

For a deeper dive on Rosatom and the opportunities for American nuclear, check out this Twitter thread from Josh Freed, Senior Vice President for Third Way’s Climate and Energy Program.

How do we most effectively communicate the importance of a clean energy transition to a broad coalition of supporters?

In a new study published in Environmental Communication, the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication outlines the interpretation and impact of different word choices–greenhouse gas emissions, carbon emissions, and carbon pollution–on peoples’ perceptions of climate change and support for emissions reduction policies.

The main takeaway? There’s no “one-size-fits-all” climate message. While terms like “carbon pollution” and “carbon emissions'' were largely more familiar than “greenhouse gas emissions”, it’s clear that being selective for unique messages pays off, like when talking about the harmful health effects of climate change, where terms like “carbon pollution” resonate best.