Palmetto State News

President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better package has drawn attention as Democrats from the House of Representatives detail a proposed $150 billion payment program. The package, aiming to reduce and eventually remove greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector, would reward the production of clean power while penalizing companies for not pursuing green energy, Reuters said.

The Biden Administration's proposed budget for fiscal year 2022 calls for government spending that will surpass by nearly  $2 trillion the amount of revenues collected in taxes. In a recent report by the Peach Tree Times, distinguished fellow for the Foundation for Economic Education and associate professor of economics at Duquesne University, Antony Davies, called this level of spending harmful to consumers. 

"To finance these deficits, the government is increasingly relying on loans from the Federal Reserve," Davies told the Peach Tree Times. "When the Federal Reserve loans to the government, the money supply increases, and that puts upward pressure on prices."

Those rising prices have been directly affecting households already, as energy costs nationwide are up 24.8% over the past 12 months, the Peach Tree Time said. 

In 2019, Phillip Rossetti, former director of Energy Policy at the American Action Forum said the cost required to hit the Green New Deal’s goal would be an estimated $423.9 billion annually, a number achieved using what he calls “extremely favorable assumptions.”

Research cited by Pittsburgh Works highlights the effect the reliance of clean energy can have on consumers' pocketbooks. Besides price increases, the four highest energy prices by state and 10 of the top 13 are members of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).

Rossetti also cites the unreliability of renewable energy such as solar and wind, saying “Solar power only produces its stated capacity roughly 25.7% of the day, (while) wind power on average only provides power for 34.6% of the day.”

Though discussions are still in progress as to which provisions would be included in the massive reconciliation bill, the goal is a 4% increase in the production of “clean” electricity, which is defined as that which produces a maximum of one-tenth of a metric ton of carbon dioxide per megawatt, Reuters said. Failing to meet that goal would result in a $40 penalty per megawatt hour per month.

The proposed energy section of the Build Back Better program would also allow for direct payment of the subsidies provided by the federal government, Canary Media said. An $8 billion loan and grant program would fund the integration of clean energy into the grid, and $13.5 billion would be used to create a national network of EV charging stations and to support the creation of electric heavy-duty vehicles.

Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin has been a staunch adversary of the increased penalties on fossil fuel production, Canary Media states. He hails from the state of West Virginia, which relies heavily on coal production for energy and jobs that would be hit heavily by the provisions outlined in the reconciliation bill.