Energy Highlights in President Biden’s American Jobs Plan

On March 31, 2021, the Biden administration released details on its infrastructure proposal titled the American Jobs Plan. In total, the plan will invest about $2 trillion this decade. If passed alongside President Biden’s Made in America corporate tax plan, it will be fully paid for within the next 15 years and reduce deficits in the years after. Find highlights for energy and efficiency below. For full details, view the White House's factsheet and President Biden's speech in Pittsburgh announcing the proposal. 

Biden quotables

• On Buildings: “We’ll build, upgrade, and weatherize affordable, energy-efficient housing and commercial buildings for millions of Americans.”
• On R&D: “The American Jobs Plan is the biggest increase in our federal non-defense research and development spending on record. It’s going to boost America’s innovative edge in markets where global leadership is up for grabs – markets like battery technology, biotechnology, computer chips, clean energy, the competition with China, in particular.”
• Bottom Line: “We can do this. We have to do this. We will do this.”

Buildings 

Goals

Build, preserve, and retrofit more than two million homes and commercial buildings, modernize our nation’s schools and child care facilities, and upgrade veterans’ hospitals and federal buildings.

• Produce, preserve, and retrofit more than a million affordable, resilient, accessible, energy efficient, and electrified housing units.
• Extend affordable housing rental opportunities to underserved communities nationwide, including rural and tribal areas.

Details 

American Jobs Plan invests approximately $215 billion to produce, preserve, and retrofit more than 2 million affordable and sustainable places to live through targeted tax credits, formula funding, grants, and project-based rental assistance.

• $40 billion to improve the infrastructure of the U.S. public housing system;
• $27 billion Clean Energy and Sustainability Accelerator, modeled after Green Banks, to mobilize private investment into distributed energy resources, including retrofits of residential, commercial and municipal buildings; and clean transportation networks;
• $100 billion to upgrade and build new public schools, through
  • $50 billion in direct grants and an additional
  • $50 billion leveraged through bonds
• $20 billion to build and rehabilitate 500,000 homes for low- and middle-income homebuyers through Neighborhood Homes Investment Act (NHIA) tax credits over the next five years (H.R. 2143, Higgins 117^th; S. 98, Cardin-Portman 116^th ) will result in approximately 500,000 homes built or rehabilitated
• $18 billion Veterans Affairs hospitals
• $10 billion in the modernization, sustainability, and resilience of federal buildings, through bipartisan Federal Capital Revolving Fund (more on this, requires offsets to fund) to support investment in a major purchase, construction or renovation of Federal facilities

Further policies (without $ attached):

• WAP, Tax Credits: Upgrade homes through block grant programs (EECBGP), the Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP), and by extending and expanding home and commercial efficiency tax credits. No indication of $, FY22 PBR pending.
• EECBGP: Support state, local, and tribal governments choosing to accelerate this modernization through complementary policies – like clean energy block grants that can be used to support clean energy, worker empowerment, and environmental justice.

TRANSPORTATION

• $621 billion for transportation-related infrastructure and related R&D (AutoWeek);
• Traditional: Fix highways, rebuild bridges, upgrade ports, airports and transit systems.
  • Modernize 20,000 miles of highways, roads, and main streets.
  • Fix the ten most economically significant bridges in the country in need of reconstruction.
  • Repair the worst 10,000 smaller bridges, providing critical linkages to communities.
• $174 billion for electric vehicle incentives, including EV point-of-sale rebates, tax incentives, national EVSE network (500k by 2030).
  • Replace 50,000 diesel-powered transit buses.
  • Establish Clean Buses for Kids program, electrifying 20% of school bus fleet.
  • Federal procurement to electrify the federal fleet, including the United States Postal Service.

POWER SECTOR (Active Efficiency/Decarbonization Related)

10-year extension and phase down of an expanded direct-pay investment tax credit and production tax credit for clean energy generation and storage.

• 100 percent carbon-pollution free power by 2035.
• EECES: establish an Energy Efficiency and Clean Electricity Standard (EECES) aimed at cutting electricity bills and electricity pollution, increasing competition in the market, incentivizing more efficient use of existing infrastructure.
• Procurement (FEMP/Agencies) including 100% clean power for federal buildings: Use the federal government’s incredible purchasing power to drive clean energy deployment across the market by purchasing 24/7 clean power for federal buildings.
• $400 billion, extend & expand tax credits for clean energy generation and storage.
• New tax credits
  • Energy storage (grid-connected batteries)
  • 20GW High-voltage, long-distance XM

RD&D

• $50 billion in the National Science Foundation (NSF), creating a technology directorate that will collaborate with and build on existing programs across the government. It will focus on fields like semiconductors and advanced computing, advanced communications technology, advanced energy technologies, and biotechnology.
• $30 billion in additional funding for R&D that spurs innovation and job creation, including in rural areas.
• $40 billion in upgrading research infrastructure in laboratories across the country, including brick-and-mortar facilities and computing capabilities and networks. These funds would be allocated across the federal R&D agencies, including at the Department of Energy. Half of those funds will be reserved for Historically Black College and Universities (HBCUs) and other Minority Serving Institutions, including the creation of a new national lab focused on climate that will be affiliated with an HBCU.
• $35 billion in the full range of solutions needed to achieve technology breakthroughs that address the climate crisis and position America as the global leader in clean energy technology and clean energy jobs. This includes launching ARPA-C to develop new methods for reducing emissions and building climate resilience, as well as expanding across-the-board funding for climate research.

PROCUREMENT – MADE IN USA

• Jumpstart clean energy manufacturing through federal procurement. The federal government spends more than a half-a-trillion dollars buying goods and services each year. To meet the President’s goals of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, the United States will need more electric vehicles, charging ports, and electric heat pumps for residential heating and commercial buildings.
  • $46 billion investment in federal buying power, creating good-paying jobs and reinvigorating local economies, especially in rural areas.
• Make it in ALL of America.
  • $20 billion in regional innovation hubs and a Community Revitalization Fund. At least ten regional innovation hubs will leverage private investment to fuel technology development, link urban and rural economies, and create new businesses in regions beyond the current handful of high-growth centers.
    • The Community Revitalization Fund will support innovative, community-led redevelopment projects that can spark new economic activity, provide services and amenities, build community wealth, and close the current gaps in access to the innovation economy for communities of color and rural communities that have suffered from years of disinvestment.
  • $14 billion in NIST to bring together industry, academia, and government to advance technologies and capabilities critical to future competitiveness. He is calling on Congress to quadruple support for the Manufacturing Extensions Partnership —increasing the involvement of minority-owned and rurally-located small- and-medium-sized enterprises in technological advancement.