Joe Biden Bats For Clean Energy To Create Jobs

Joe Biden, the man who is challenging Donald Trump to become President of the US, has confirmed his support for clean energy, promising $2 trillion of ‘accelerated investment’ in the space within his first term, if elected. This, he believes, will set the country on an ‘irreversible course to meet the ambitious climate progress that science demands’.

The plan is part of Biden’s Build Back Better campaign to help the country tide over the public health crisis created by COVID-19 pandemic and the resultant severe economic downturn to eventually deal with the climate crisis.

His election campaign calls for accelerating job creation by transforming the US electricity sector to make it clean and help it focus on inventing, manufacturing and exporting clean energy technologies. The target is for the US to become a net-zero carbon emitting economy maximum by 2050. All American built buses need to be zero-emitters by 2030 and need to be all new commercial buildings.

For the power sector, his campaign assures the ambitious move to generate clean, American-made electricity to achieve a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035. “This will enable us to meet the existential threat of climate change while creating millions of jobs with a choice to join a union,” the campaign reads.

Under his administration, solar and wind power companies can expect to be supported through favorable tax credits as he promises to reform and extend tax incentives to generate energy efficiency and clean energy jobs. These measures along with the creation of a technology neutral Energy Efficiency and Clean Electricity Standard (EECES) for utilities and grid operators will ‘unleash a clean energy revolution in America, create good paying union jobs that cannot be outsourced, and spur the installation of millions of solar panels – including utility-scale, rooftop, and community solar systems – and tens of thousands of wind turbines – including thousands of turbines off our coasts – in Biden’s first term’.

Battery storage and renewable hydrogen are other clean energy initiatives that find mention in his campaign with a view to ensure these are all made in America.

Meanwhile, the American solar industry is making efforts to demand for financial support for clean energy to help rebuild the US economy. Close to 650 solar companies have written to the Congress to pass legislation to extend deadlines for the solar Investment Tax Credit (ITC) and create a direct pay option in a bid to save jobs from being lost. The US Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) claims 72,000 solar jobs had been lost due to the pandemic till June 2020. These measures, if passed, would help the economy recover from COVID-19, it said.

“With small policy changes, the solar industry can quickly and efficiently create jobs and add billions of dollars in investment. If lawmakers want to put Americans back to work, they should invest in solutions that can unleash the economic power of solar, one of the fastest-growing industries in America,” said SEIA President and CEO Abigail Ross Hopper.