The US Transition That Might Have Been
The Biden administration will leave office with the US lagging in the energy transition. Other priorities could have created positive momentum.
Lots went wrong with the Biden administration’s US energy-transition policy to hear me tell it. That being the same policy many a climate activist has praised effusively. Before 2024 and the Biden administration both pass into history, it seems worth trying to lay out politically plausible alternatives to the parts of the Biden policy I have dumped on hardest. Maybe there are lessons to be learned for the foggy future into which we’re wandering.
Way back in 2022 when the Democrats held the US presidency and both houses of Congress — it seems so distant! — two “conservative” Democratic senators, Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema, set themselves up to block all climate and further social legislation in the House of Representatives-passed “Build Back Better” bill. (With lots of help from Republicans, of course, but nevermind).
Few now remember that giant bill which would have extended indefinitely many of the social programs initiated during the brief Covid moment of Democratic left-of-center activism: childcare, elder care, more expansive public medical coverage, as well as high-impact clean-energy incentives.
Then Manchin, a former coal executive from West Virginia, abruptly agreed to go with a clean-energy-only bill — something stripped of social programs and tailored to suit his fossil fuel-supportive perspective. The so-called Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) that resulted was flawed, but perhaps not hopelessly so.
It would have been possible — hard, maybe, but possible — to make the law with all its warts the source of genuine hope for climate activists that many have continued to pretend it is. Not the sop to oil companies and their absurd ideas for carbon capture and other diversionary tactics that it turned out to be under Biden Admin management.
Priorities
I see it as a matter of priority. If national climate action is going to work at anything like the speed the rapidly deteriorating climate demands, it needs to be the government’s №1 priority. The entire government, not just a subcommittee. It needs to be treated as more important than trade and foreign policy. More important than defense, given that the US is (theoretically) not at war. More important than highway repairs or student-loan relief. More important than anything else.
If we truly believe that climate chaos and ecological deterioration threaten life on Earth, human and non-human — the way Biden said he did before other things grabbed his attention and that of the rest of the Democrats — we should act with the kind of urgency that both parties demonstrated when Covid led to the shut-down of much of the economy. The Biden Administration could have framed its implementation of the IRA that way.
Instead, the Administration chose to focus on China bashing, most of it not required by the IRA and carried out through executive order. Climate deterioration grew visibly worse, but the Climate Crisis virtually disappeared from officials’ public statements. No wonder the public didn’t rank climate action as a high priority even as they came to accept the reality of climate change in ever larger numbers. Out of sight — and public discourse — out of mind.
In my favored near-term transition policy, climate’s №1 priority status would translate into buying lots of solar generating equipment and batteries from the cheapest and best supplier, China. I’m not suggesting it’s a great idea for the US, or the entire world, to be as heavily dependent for clean energy technology and equipment on China as it is now. The US, EU, India, and lots of other places should start building factories to make more of their own solar, batteries, and electric vehicles (EVs).
But if the climate is Priority №1, the government shouldn’t cut off imports of Chinese products before those factories are built in order to protect non-existent or miniscule domestic manufacturers — with the result being to slow the spread of solar, batteries, and EVs of all origins and to burn more oil and gas. Which is exactly what happened under the Biden administration.
Tariffs
Using tariffs to block Chinese solar panels and components is the cheap way for the government to encourage would-be domestic manufacturers who know they won’t be able to compete with Chinese-made goods. Protectionist tariffs cost virtually nothing. To the extent imports continue, they instead make money for the government — as past and future President Donald Trump is fond of pointing out.
But inevitably, tariffs on clean energy equipment result in a slower energy transition, since imports either stop or the imported gear becomes more expensive relative to fossil fuels. Which is exactly what happened under the Biden administration.
My preferred alternative would be to subsidize domestic clean-energy manufacturers to the full extent required for them to compete with tariff-free Chinese imports. The IRA provides sizeable subsidies to companies that build or expand clean-energy factories. But apparently the Biden administration didn’t think it would be enough. They evidently felt that tariffs were also needed.
Assuming they were right, the US should make its subsidies bigger, thus lowering the price of domestic clean-energy equipment to Chinese levels, rather than raising the price of Chinese gear. If that still doesn’t work because US companies hesitate, the government could do the kind of things it’s done before in wars and emergencies: build or buy factories itself. This would cost the government money, but it would mean much cheaper solar panels and batteries and EVs for US people and companies.
How is the government to pay for it? If they’re worried about it — in a way Republicans haven’t been when they want to cut taxes — politicians could slap tariffs on other stuff from China, starting with the likes of fast fashion, plastic toys, gasoline-powered wind blowers, and power yachts. That would not just raise money, pacify the anti-China crowd, and encourage manufacturing of all sorts in the US. It would be good for the climate and the environment, as it would make ecologically destructive products more expensive.
Talk
Under the IRA, subsidies similar to those provided for solar, onshore and near-offshore wind, and battery manufacturing and installation are also available for more expensive, less practical, and oil-industry-friendlier technologies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS), clean hydrogen, and giant floating offshore wind platforms. However, the IRA doesn’t require that these probably unworkable technologies get much attention.
The Biden administration talked incessantly about CCS and hydrogen, not just at home but at international climate conferences, lending credibility to oil company efforts to delay or even derail the transition by making such unworkable ideas a centerpiece of the UN’s global transition strategy. This helped discredit the entire effort.
In my transition, as little as possible would be said about the availability of CCS and hydrogen subsidies. Instead, the focus would be on what works: Solar, wind, batteries and EVs.
One last thing: In my dream transition (IRA aside), everybody would talk not just about renewables but about the climate and broader ecological crises. A lot. Realistically. Not hopelessly. But with acceptance of how harsh change is likely to be. And equally importantly, with attention to the possibilities for a better life that will open up when we redesign our future to prioritize life, human and non-human. Not to prioritize GDP growth and corporate profits.
Biden and his team blew it, and now we are getting Trump and his team. It certainly won’t be better, and it may be much, much worse. The national government isn’t going to save us. Probably state/provincial governments aren’t either. We have to save ourselves by designing our own transitions to a better, cleaner world at a local level. Let’s get on with it!
