Although Vice President Kamala Harris promotes clean energy and Donald Trump makes misleading claims and false claims None of the candidates have presented a comprehensive energy plan. Even if it did, a gridlocked Congress can be unlikely to pass it.
Instead, the subsequent president could have his best impact on clean energy by coping with the laws and regulations enacted since 2021 under the Biden-Harris administration. As Environmental engineer who studies Energy and climate changeI expect Harris, who has strongly supported these policies, to implement them, while Trump's record as president suggests he would seek to reverse them. Trade policy towards China, the leading producer of fresh energy technologies, may even be crucial.
Laws and regulations
Three bills passed by Congress under Biden and Harris – the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs ActThe Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS and Science Act – have modified US energy policy. The three bills allocated a whole lot of billions of dollars to construct infrastructure, incentivize the production and buy of fresh energy, and fund clean energy research.
It is probably going that none of those measures will probably be completely repealed, as each of those measures provides quite a few resources Projects in red states. However, implementation by the subsequent administration will determine how effective they’re in promoting clean energy growth.
For example this Ministry of Finance And Energy departments will determine which projects can receive incentives and loans. Other agencies, equivalent to the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energyreferred to as ARPA-E, will provide clean energy research funding.
The Environmental Protection Agency may even play an important role. Under the Biden-Harris administration, the EPA enacted the strictest emissions control regulations ever Fossil fuel power plants And Motor vehicles. These rules could speed up the transition to scrub electricity and electric cars.
But a Trump-led EPA could reverse course, just as it might repeal Obama-era regulations designed to accomplish that Reducing CO2 emissions from power plants in 2019 and weakened emissions regulations for vehicles in 2020. Trump also appointed three Supreme Court justices who voted to limit the EPA's powers to scale back emissions.
The role of market forces
Whatever policies the subsequent president decides on, domestic energy trends will depend largely on market forces. Both Trump and Biden ensured a boom in domestic oil and gas production. At the identical time as the associated fee of Wind turbines, Solar panels And Utility-scale batteries have collapsed, these technologies have collapsed dominated latest electricity generation capability.
There is currently one within the USA Order backlog of virtually 2,600 gigawatts of projects waiting to be integrated into the country's power grids. That's about eight times the quantity wind And solar Generation capability in US grids today.
However, Congress is deadlocked versus competing proposals to streamline licensing requirements. State and native governments in addition to regional network operators also play a key role and usually are not easily influenced by federal measures.
Nevertheless, the subsequent president can influence policy through the number of his commissioners Federal Energy Regulatory Commissionwhich regulates the interstate transmission of oil, gas and electricity. Presidents may also push Congress to pass licensing reforms.
Trade policy
As quickly as clean energy production and deployment has grown within the U.S. under the Biden-Harris administration, that increase is dwarfed by China's production. Chinese firms produce over three quarters of world production Solar cells and modulesgreater than half of the world's population Wind turbines and three quarters of it advanced batteries needed for power storage and electric cars. China too sells more electric cars than the remaining of the world combined.
Like it or not, for America to quickly deploy clean energy and electric cars, not less than some materials will should be imported from China. After a long time of backlog, there’s simply no technique to increase production fast enough within the United States achieve national climate goals. Even if solar panels, batteries or electric cars are installed here, they rely on it critical minerals that are mostly refined in China.
As president, Trump waged a trade war with China. He has promised to increase existing tariffs on other products from China if he’s elected for a second term.
Biden and Harris have also sought to vary the playing field in favor of US firms. The administration offers Loans And Incentives for domestic manufacturing and has also imposed a 100% tariff on electric vehicles and a 50% tariff on solar cells from China.
Such a policy may protect domestic manufacturers for some time, but is unlikely to make them competitive in global markets Switching to electric cars And Solar energy.
Also crucial will probably be compliance with the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, a legally binding treaty that sets goals to curb climate change. Countries all over the world have committed to switching to scrub energy to scale back emissions. The European Union enacts CO2 border tariffs This puts imports from manufacturers with high emissions at an obstacle.
If Trump again withdraws the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, as he did in 2017, and rolls back emissions regulations, U.S. manufacturers could face latest hurdles exporting their products abroad. For her part, Harris did supported the Paris Agreement and criticized Trump's decision to withdraw the US from it.
No reversal of the revolution
Markets are worldwide The rapid transition to renewable energy and electric carsthat will probably be cheaper, cleaner and more attractive than their fossil fuel alternatives. Popular Clean Energy Subsidies can be difficult to win back. China's dominance in clean energy technologies won’t be shaken anytime soon, irrespective of what trade policies the subsequent administration pursues.
Based on her record, Harris can be expected to construct on the laws and regulations passed under the present administration, while Trump would likely roll back some, but not all, of his advances. None of the candidates are proposing measures as transformative as those passed lately. Whoever is elected will govern in a clean energy landscape reshaped by these policies and by market forces beyond a president's control.
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