BlueGreen Alliance | Senate Reconciliation Bill Holds Massive Job Creation, Emissions Reduction Potential 

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Senate Reconciliation Bill Holds Massive Job Creation, Emissions Reduction Potential 

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August 1, 2022
Last week, U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) reached a deal with U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to vote for the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022—a budget reconciliation bill that includes $369 billion in energy and climate investments.  The BlueGreen Alliance immediately got to work combing through the more than 100 investments included in the bill and has completed an initial analysis of the potential job creation and emissions reduction benefits of just a handful of those investments. What we found is that those investments alone will create hundreds of thousands of jobs.  Specifically, our analysis found:
  • The investments in just two programs that will prepare facilities for electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing would create more than 250,000 good jobs retrofitting those facilities. Those programs are the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing program and Domestic Manufacturing Conversion Grants. They would also create or sustain hundreds of thousands of long-term jobs at thousands of factories established, expanded, or retooled with federal support and more throughout the economy.
  • An expanded tax credit to support manufacturing of clean energy technologies—from solar to wind to batteries—would support the creation of more than 220,000 good jobs.
  • A new program to invest in pollution-reducing upgrades at steel, aluminum, cement, and other emissions-intensive manufacturing facilities would create more than 90,000 good jobs. 
Additionally, we concluded that the loans, grants, and tax credits in the bill to support emissions reduction at steel, aluminum, cement, and other emissions-intensive manufacturing facilities will support not only cleaner air and good jobs, but also a more than 70 million metric ton annual reduction in U.S. climate pollution—the equivalent of running over 20,000 wind turbines for a year. The Inflation Reduction Act includes:
  • Tax credits for clean energy and energy storage and roughly $30 billion in targeted grant and loan programs for states and electric utilities to accelerate the transition to clean energy;
  • An estimated $30 billion in production tax credits for the manufacture of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, and critical minerals processing;
  • $10 billion investment tax credit to build and equip clean technology manufacturing facilities, like facilities that make electric vehicles, wind turbines, and solar panels;
  • $2 billion in grants to retool existing auto manufacturing facilities to manufacture clean vehicles and up to $20 billion in loans to build new clean vehicle manufacturing facilities;
  • A $4,000 tax credit for low- and middle-income families to buy used clean vehicles, and an up to $7,500 consumer tax credit to buy new clean vehicles;
  • Funding through grants and tax credits to reduce industrial emissions, including almost $6 billion for a new Advanced Industrial Facilities Deployment Program to reduce emissions from the largest industrial emitters like steel, aluminum, and cement plants; and
  • Additional funding to support the creation of good union jobs, direct the benefits of these investments to the communities that need them the most, drive down emissions, and clean up the nation’s air and water.

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