The Sconi

Democrats from the House of Representatives gave details in September about their proposed $150 billion payment program as a part of President Biden’s Build Back Better package aiming to reduce and eventually remove greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector, according to a report by Reuters.

This would reward the production of clean power, like solar, hydroelectric, and wind, while penalizing companies not pursuing clean energy, the article states.

The Biden administration's proposed budget for fiscal year 2022 currently slots government spending to nearly $2 trillion more than what will be 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 impacting what households need to spend on energy, as energy costs nationwide are up 24.8% over the past 12 months, the Peach Tree Times said. 

Research published in 2019 by former director of Energy Policy at the American Action Forum, Phillip Rossetti, discussed what it would cost to go 100% renewable. The cost required to hit the Green New Deal’s goal, he said, would cost an estimated $423.9 billion annually, a number achieved using what Rossetti calls “extremely favorable assumptions.” Based on 2018 estimates from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the capital expenditures required to achieve such a goal would cost around $5.7 trillion dollars.

In his article, Rossetti also cited the unreliability of renewable energy such as solar and wind. “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,” he wrote.

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

The Build Back Better plan would decrease real income for households by $12,000 over the next decade, said Vance Ginn of the Texas Public Policy Foundation. 

Canary Media said the proposed energy section of the Build Back Better program would also allow for direct payment of the subsidies provided by the federal government. 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.