Details on Climate Provisions in the Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act

Senator Patty Murray, Washington State

This description of climate provisions in the Infrastructure and Jobs Act is take from Senator Murray's web page.

Electric Buses and Ferries

American school buses play a critical role in expanding access to education, but they are also a significant source of pollution. The legislation Includes key provisions from Senator Murray’s Clean School Bus Act, which will deliver thousands of electric school buses nationwide, including in rural communities, helping school districts across the country buy clean, American-made, zero emission buses, and replace the yellow school bus fleet for America’s children. The legislation also invests $5 billion in zero emission and clean buses and $2.5 billion for ferries. Senator Murray also worked to include language that would prioritize funding to low-income school districts and Tribal schools.

These investments will drive demand for American-made batteries and vehicles, creating jobs and supporting domestic manufacturing, while also removing diesel buses from some of our most vulnerable communities. In addition, they will help the more than 25 million children and thousands of bus drivers who breathe polluted air on their rides to and from school. Diesel air pollution is linked to asthma and other health problems that hurt our communities and cause students to miss school, particularly in communities of color and Tribal communities—in her role as Senate Education Committee Chair, Senator Murray fought to secure key provision to ensure the bill will target prioritize funding for communities hardest hit by pollution as we transition to clean, electric school buses.

Electric Vehicle (EV) Infrastructure

The bill invests $7.5 billion to build out the first-ever national network of EV chargers in the United States and is a critical element in the Biden-Harris Administration’s plan to accelerate the adoption of EVs to address the climate crisis and support domestic manufacturing jobs. The bill will provide funding for deployment of EV chargers along highway corridors to facilitate long-distance travel and within communities to provide convenient charging where people live, work, and shop. Federal funding will have a particular focus on rural, disadvantaged, and hard-to-reach communities. Washington state would expect to receive $71 million over five years to support the expansion of an EV charging network in the state, and also have the opportunity to apply for the $2.5 billion in grant funding dedicated to EV charging in the bill.

Environmental Remediation

In thousands of rural and urban communities around the country, hundreds of thousands of former industrial and energy sites are now idle – sources of blight and pollution. 26% of Black Americans and 29% of Hispanic Americans live within 3 miles of a Superfund site, a higher percentage than for Americans overall. Proximity to a Superfund site can lead to elevated levels of lead in children’s blood. The legislation invests $21 billion in environmental remediation, making the largest investment in addressing the legacy pollution that harms the public health of communities and neighborhoods in American history, creating good-paying union jobs in hard-hit energy communities and advancing economic and environmental justice. The bill includes funds to clean up Superfund and brownfield sites, reclaim abandoned mine land and cap orphaned gas wells.

Power Infrastructure

As the recent heat wave in the Pacific Northwest demonstrated, our aging electric grid needs urgent modernization. A Department of Energy study found that power outages cost the U.S. economy up to $70 billion annually. The legislation’s roughly $65 billion investment includes the single largest investment in clean energy transmission in American history. It upgrades our power infrastructure, including by building thousands of miles of new, resilient transmission lines to facilitate the expansion of renewable energy. It creates a new Grid Deployment Authority, invests in research and development for advanced transmission and electricity distribution technologies, and promotes smart grid technologies that deliver flexibility and resilience. It invests in demonstration projects and research hubs for next generation technologies like advanced nuclear, carbon capture, and clean hydrogen.

Climate Resiliency

People across Washington state have felt the effects of climate change this summer, as the Pacific Northwest was hit by a record heat wave and is still feeling the effects of major drought and forest fires. Last year alone, the United States faced 22 extreme weather and climate-related disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each – a cumulative price tag of nearly $100 billion. People of color are more likely to live in areas most vulnerable to flooding and other climate change-related weather events. The legislation makes our communities safer and our infrastructure more resilient to the impacts of climate change and cyber-attacks, with an investment of over $50 billion. This includes funds to protect against droughts, floods and wildfires, in addition to a major investment in weatherization. The bill is the largest investment in the resilience of physical and natural systems in American history.

Senator Murray worked with other Western lawmakers to ensure the bill includes a historic investment to help fight and manage wildfires in the immediate-term. Of the $50 billion, the bill invests $8 billion specifically in wildfire risk reduction by providing funding for community wildfire defense grants, mechanical thinning, controlled burns, the Collaborative Forest Restoration Program, and firefighting resources.

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Senator Maria Cantwell on Climate Change

Senator Cantwell responded to my letter asking her to put a price on carbon in the Budget Reconciliation Act.

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Dear Dr. Badalamente,

Thank you for contacting me regarding climate change. I appreciate hearing from you about this matter and share your sense of urgency about the need to tackle the climate crisis.

Our nation’s leading scientists and government agencies have determined that the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is causing the Earth's climate to warm, which will lead to more frequent and intense droughts, floods, wildfires and other extreme weather events. In Washington state, carbon pollution is already altering the region's natural systems, causing longer and more intense wildland fires, harming wildlife and salmon habitat, and making our oceans more acidic and less hospitable to marine animals. Doing nothing will cost trillions and risk leaving future generations with an uninhabitable planet.

I believe that putting a price on carbon pollution is the most effective and economical way to reduce our nation's dangerous over-dependence on fossil fuels, as long as low- and middle-income families and trade dependent industries are protected from any associated energy price increases.  That’s why I authored the bipartisan Carbon Limits and Energy for America’s Renewal (CLEAR) Act with my colleague Senator Collins of Maine. 

Our bill would require fossil fuel producers and importers to bid for a gradually declining number of permits in order to bring coal, oil, or natural gas into the U.S. economy. By using an auction to put a price on carbon, the CLEAR Act would harness the free market to find the most cost-effective ways to reduce carbon pollution without adding to the national debt. Of the hundreds of billions of dollars that would be raised annually from fossil fuel producers, three-quarters would be refunded directly to the American public through equal per-capita monthly dividends, protecting all but the most prosperous households from any resulting energy price increases. 

The remaining auction revenues would support a range of climate related needs including investments in clean energy technologies, improving the resiliency of our nation’s infrastructure and public lands, responding to extreme weather damage, reducing greenhouse gases in the forestry and agricultural sectors, and providing needs-based, regionally targeted assistance for communities and workers transitioning to a less carbon intensive economy. Unlike a carbon tax, this model guarantees that the U.S. will meet science-based emission reduction targets and comply with our international climate commitments under the Paris Agreement.

I am also pleased that last December Congress passed a bipartisan, comprehensive energy package that will support major new investments in clean energy R&D and spur the deployment of more renewable energy. This legislation included a number of provisions I authored to modernize our nation’s electricity grid and make buildings smarter and more efficient across the country. 

One of my bills that was incorporated in this energy package, S. 2332, the Grid Modernization Act of 2019, authorizes $1.6 billion over eight years to fund new Department of Energy (DOE) R&D into ways to upgrade our grid and demonstrate new technologies like energy storage, micro-grids, and advanced electric vehicle chargers. As our energy system faces the twin challenges of more extreme weather and the need to incorporate millions of new sources of renewable generation, I plan to continue pushing for the policies and federal investment necessary to build a 21st century grid able to provide every American with, reliable, resilient, and affordable power.  

I am also working to leverage my position as Chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, to push legislation that will improve our understanding and response to climate change impacts to our oceans and waterways. For example, I am focused on finding ways to improve ocean data collection and monitoring as well as bolster ocean acidification research, which is critical to protecting shellfish and fishery resources in Puget Sound.

Throughout my tenure in the United States Senate, making our nation’s energy system cleaner, more efficient, and more affordable has been a top priority and I’m proud to have successfully enacted legislation to promote the production of renewable energy, incentivize energy efficiency, and protect our environment. Those efforts include authoring the legislation that provides the $7,500 tax credit for consumers who purchase a plug-in electric vehicle, securing the first increase in fuel economy standards in 25 years, and championing clean energy tax incentives, financing instruments, and research and development that have enabled companies and credit markets to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in clean energy and empower homeowners to generate and save their own energy. 

Please be assured that I will continue to work with my colleagues to promote policies and enact laws that reduce carbon pollution and address the climate crisis.

Thank you again for contacting me to share your thoughts on this matter. Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future if I can be of further assistance.

Sincerely,
Maria Cantwell
United States Senator

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For future correspondence with my office, please visit my website at
http://cantwell.senate.gov/contact/