The Greenhouse Gas Protocol ("GHG Protocol" or "Protocol")—a leading standard setter for measuring and managing corporate greenhouse gas emissions, borne of a partnership between World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD)—has opened stakeholder surveys concerning the revision of its Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard, Guidance on Scope 2 Emissions, and the Scope 3 Standard and Scope 3 Calculation Guidance.

The GHG Protocol's standards and guidance are a foundational element of the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), which helps shape and verify corporate emissions reductions targets and ensure they are aligned with the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement.协议是大企业首选碳核算机制:2016年92%以上Fortune500公司向CDP报告排放数据时,根据Hgorm协议会计标准这样做。万博体育app手机登录自2004年以来公司会计报告标准从未修订过,范围2排放指南-即自2010年代初首次发布以来与公司电热三维排放相关联的排放量从未修订过。

This package presents the opportunity for Congress to finish legislating President Biden's Build Back Better agenda, completing the story detailed in our series The ABCs of the AJP.  As we left the saga last summer, we noted that the effort to enact that agenda was Not Broken, Simply Unfinished.  Today we are updating that series to detail the following energy related elements of the IRA:

• Accelerating efforts to decarbonize the economy and address climate change
• Ten year stability for expanded clean energy tax credits
• New funding for a National Green Bank through a Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund
• The Creation of a Methane Emissions Reduction Program
• Strong support for the electric vehicle sector and domestic supply chain
• Empowerment of environmental justice

As President Biden noted yesterday, "Sometimes seem like nothing gets done in Washington ...但政府工作可能缓慢和沮丧,有时甚至令人厌烦。 之后拒绝放弃支付的人辛勤工作时日月数计算。历史成真。生活变换 。 至此,这些情感可能还为时过早!Arizona-Has/news/2022/07/28/dmocrats-climate-xacco-Service-Bill-reces-00048459能源和气候政策,随着法案跨过立法过程最后阶段,我们将继续更新和补充覆盖量。

This is the twenty-sixth post in our series on "The ABCs of the AJP."

As we wrap up our blog series on the climate and energy implications of the Biden Administration's American Jobs Plan (AJP), it is an opportune moment to revisit our journey from A through Z, and reflect on whether the Biden Administration's proposed investment in infrastructure can set the nation on a path to achieve its 2050 net-zero target.

We started with our first post in the series on Earth Day, April 22, when, on the first day of the Leaders Summit on Climate, President Biden announced a new nationally determined contribution (NDC) to achieve a 50 to 52 percent reduction in economy-wide greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution from 2005 levels by 2030.

The President's announcement noted the many steps his Administration would take to support the NDC, which will be submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in advance of the Conference of the Parties 26 later this year in Glasgow.  The announcement also described the Administration's "whole-of-government" approach to addressing climate change, including through infrastructure investment and job creation.

We then discussed the ways in which the AJP could give life to the Administration's mantra to "Build Back Better," including through investments in battery technology, where we noted that Princeton's Net-Zero America study projected a massive build-out of batteries to achieve deep-decarbonization goals on par with this Administration's.  We also discussed why, besides addressing the climate crisis, the AJP is also intentionally designed to reverse the trend of China's dominance in manufacturing electric vehicle (EV) batteries and onshore that manufacturing capacity here in the U.S.

Other investments proposed by the AJP are intended to make the power grid more resilient, an objective made clearer by last winter's storms in Texas and the resulting power outages.  As the AJP notes in supporting its proposed investments in distributed energy resources (DERs), power outages cost Americans over $70 billion each year in lost productivity.

The AJP notes how past infrastructure investments – most notably, construction of the largest infrastructure investment in the past century – often split communities apart, such as the construction of an elevated freeway through the middle of a predominantly African American neighborhood in Syracuse, New York.  To leverage infrastructure investment to counteract environmental injustice, the AJP would instead target 40 percent of the benefits of climate and clean infrastructure investments to disadvantaged communities.AJP支持政府所有四大优先事项:响应COVID-19大流行创造工作支持经济恢复减少种族不平等and addressing climate change.

Recognizing the role that forests and working lands can play in climate mitigation and adaptation, the AJP also calls for $10 billion to create a new "Civilian Climate Corps."  The AJP also endorses legislation introduced in Congress, which proposes $120 billion in wildfire and climate change resilience projects, forest health, and watershed restoration, as a means of creating two million jobs in rural America.  Given the role that power lines have had in sparking wildfires in California, and the experience in Texas last February, the AJP also calls for $100 billion in grid modernization and hardening.

The AJP would also support game-changing technologies, such as green hydrogen.  Hydrogen is viewed as key to decarbonization of hard-to-abate industrial processes and would be supported by the AJP's proposal of 15 decarbonized hydrogen demonstration projects in distressed communities and as part of an additional $15 billion increase in funding for climate R&D priorities.

Such proposed investments may reveal the disconnect between the AJP's broad concept of "infrastructure" and some of its opponents' narrower formulation of what should appear in an infrastructure package.  While the Biden Administration views infrastructure investment as a vehicle to promote economic opportunity and equality and to address climate change, Republican proposals have sought to strip the package from many components viewed as either "soft" infrastructure or too focused on climate change.

As a vehicle of job creation, the AJP intends to blunt the impacts of the energy transition upon communities whose livelihood has centered around fossil fuels, including by ensuring that jobs in the clean energy economy would pay prevailing wages and provide opportunities for unionization.  The Administration's objective in this regard – often referred to as "just transition" – is shared by international efforts to address climate change, including in the Paris Agreement and the European Green Deal.

Some of that just transition could be fulfilled in part by the AJP's proposal to invest $100 billion to modernize kids' schools and childcare facilities.  Additionally, the AJP's proposal for a $40 billion Dislocated Workers Program to fund job training out of fossil-intensive industries and into union jobs might help support this transition in the labor force.

Other union-pleasing provisions of the AJP would seek to onshore critical supply chains, in accord with an Executive Order President Biden signed during his first week in office!题为“全美工人建设未来”,该命令将在整个联邦政府嵌入“BuyAmerica”限制,包括创建新主管s/www.insideEnergyandEnvironce.com/202/05/made- in-merica-spring-droduction-brough-buy-america-rules-bed/'Made-in-America The AJP would accomplish this through support for deployment of nascent technologies, such as small modular nuclear units and offshore wind, which the Administration announced it intends to increase by 30 gigawatts (GW) by 2030 through a series of federal actions.  By that date, the Administration has also set a goal of reducing power-sector emissions by 80 percent, including through a centerpiece "Energy Efficiency and Clean Electricity Standard" – what's generally referred to as a "CES" – which would require load-serving entities to increase their reliance upon zero-carbon power sources each year.

But these targets raise the question of what constitutes zero-carbon power and whether carbon capture, utilization and sequestration (CCUS) can play a role in cleaning up both the power sector and the broader economy.  Despite opposition to CCUS from many in the environmental community, the Administration made a bold move in the AJP, when it announced support for expansion of the bipartisan Section 45Q tax credit, and made clear that this would apply not only to hard-to-decarbonize sectors, but to direct air capture and retrofits of existing power plants as well.

Beyond its emission reduction targets, the AJP also intends to make the electricity grid more resilient, including through promoting utility-scale energy storage by making standalone storage projects eligible for the federal investment tax credit.

Much of the disconnect between Democrats and Republicans with respect to advancing the AJP's objectives involves how to pay for trillions in infrastructure investment.  Another major unresolved question is whether the Administration can advance a CES to reduce emissions from electric utilities through the reconciliation process.  The AJP, when announced, made it unclear whether the Administration would pursue this through executive action or legislation!indeed, the White House's statement that "President Biden will establish an Energy Efficiency and Clean Electricity Standard (EECES)" might be interpreted to suggest that no Congressional authorization is needed.

Another element of the AJP on the chopping block is its proposed $174 billion investment in EVs.  Although that investment in electrifying the nation's vehicle fleet was the single largest expenditure in the AJP as initially proposed, the bipartisan framework omits $100 billion in EV subsidies.

In contrast, that framework supports $55 billion of the AJP's proposed $111 billion in investments into improvements in drinking water and wastewater management systems, reflecting that replacing lead service lines may more clearly fall within what is viewed as hard infrastructure, than EV charging stations and rebates.

Perhaps the X-treme weather experienced globally this summer will cause both parties to come closer on the need to address the impacts of a warming environment, both by reducing emissions and promoting adaptation.  Yet, the more likely scenario is that, even if dressed as improving children's health, investments in climate mitigation lie in a politically intractable place.

What's clear is that the AJP's investments would amount to a significant down payment towards the changes in energy generation and consumption needed to achieve the Administration's new NDC.  Some Republicans say it is too much, too soon.  Some progressives say it is too little, too late!我们今天应该停止生产和使用化石燃料,而AJP指向美国正确方向上的最大问题肯定就是 何时何时何地大都参会 实现净零未来 //www.ludikid.com/2021/07/win-win-solutions-for-clean-water-from-wisconsin-to-washington-d-c/ 凯文波隆卡兹 Thu,08JUL20213:30:46+00 拜顿行政 环境司法 AJP EJ 基础设施 引导 水流 //www.ludikid.com/?p=7592

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Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework that the President endorsed last week would provide just about half of that amount – $55 billion – which the President nevertheless described as "the largest investment in clean drinking water and waste water infrastructure in American history."

Yet that includes all of the President's proposed investments in replacing lead-containing water service lines and pipes, reflecting apparent bipartisan agreement that reducing exposure to lead in drinking water is worthwhile.

Infrastructure, Unqualified and Unplugged

Municipal drinking water and wastewater treatment systems epitomize infrastructure.

In contrast to the electric vehicle and grid modernization technologies that the AJP also seeks to promote as solutions to the climate crisis, replacement of lead-containing domestic water service lines falls much more clearly within what's thought of as traditional infrastructure.

While the Bipartisan Framework would fund just half of the President's initially proposed water infrastructure investments, it includes all of the lead service-line replacement expenditures proposed by the President.  Additionally, the Democratic-controlled House last week passed the INVEST in America Act (H.R.包括1 672.5亿美元的饮用水和废水基础设施拟支用量,由两位共和党成员s/clerk.house.gov/Votes/202208投票 Environmental Protection Agency, there is no safe level for lead in drinking water and even low levels of lead in children's blood can cause behavioral and learning problems, lower IQ and hyperactivity, slowed growth, hearing problems and anemia.

The memory of the recent Flint, Michigan water crisis also looms large in the public mindset.  In Flint, where 40 percent of people live in poverty, the city made a cost-saving decision in 2013 to switch from obtaining its domestic water supply from Detroit, to the Flint River.  The Flint's water was much more corrosive and not adequately treated, which resulted in lead in service lines and household plumbing leaching into the water.

Now, after $250 million of state funding and $100 million of infrastructure funding awarded by EPA pursuant to the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation (WIIN) Act of 2016, the troubled service lines and household plumbing have largely been identified, with the last 500 service lines slated to be excavated, checked and replaced this month.

The situation in Flint – described by one researcher as the most egregious example of environmental injustice in recent U.S.历史 — — 成为对基础建设投资不足对贫困社区造成的不公平公共健康后果的象征Recent analysis suggests that lead exposure in the United States correlates to race.

Yet Flint is hardly unique:

• Newark, New Jersey, just recently removed over 18,000 lead service lines at no cost to residents.
• Washington, D.C., has embarked on a similar program, although one study found that customer-initiated service line replacements were being conducted primarily in higher-income neighborhoods.

These programs are costly and require significant levels of public investment to deploy at scale.  Recognizing that, the AJP had initially proposed $45 billion in EPA State Revolving Fund and WIIN grants to replace all lead pipes and service lines for both homes and 400,000 schools and childcare facilities.  The bill that the House passed last week includes funding for all of these efforts, plus an additional $53 billion to fund safe drinking water infrastructure and $51 billion for wastewater infrastructure.

Infrastructure and Environmental Justice

As described by our prior post, an animating principle of this Administration's infrastructure plan is addressing environmental injustice.  And perhaps no feature of the AJP so tangibly marries the concept of traditional infrastructure to the Administration's environmental justice objectives as the proposed investment in the replacement of lead-containing water service lines.

Unlike other public health threats, the risks from exposure to lead have long been understood and its presence in domestic service lines and plumbing well known.  As President Biden remarked upon pitching the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework last week in Wisconsin, more than 70,000 of Milwaukee's 160,000 water service lines contain lead, although Milwaukee is far from unusual!上星期二EPA管理员Michael Regan与Milwaukee市长和副手一起出现清除铅管道对保护儿童健康十分必要,但EPA将目光超出铅管和含铅涂料构成的威胁。管理员描述双党框架是解决这些威胁的“关键第一步 ” 。看起来双党联盟可能同意,将清除铅管道作为国会制定的任何基础设施包的可能构件。

This is the twenty-first in our series, "The ABCs of the AJP."

President Biden's American Jobs Plan (AJP) sets an ambitious goal of "achieving 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2035."  To accomplish this, the AJP proposes significant investments in grid modernization, transmission infrastructure, offshore wind, and energy storage, as detailed by our prior posts.  Whether these investments – carrots, if you will – will be sufficient to drive down emissions in all states and achieve the 2035 target, in the absence of an enforceable clean electricity standard (CES), remains uncertain.  Equally uncertain is the pathway for Congress to enact a CES.

A CES would mandate that electric utilities increase the amount of zero-carbon power they deliver to their customers on a gradually increasing schedule, until the target is achieved.  Such "sticks" would not only assure continued addition of renewables to the grid, but would also provide a strong incentive for the preservation of existing zero-carbon power sources at risk of retirement, such as nuclear.

A CES has been described as the backbone of President Biden's climate policy, given the role that the electricity sector is expected to play in decarbonizing the broader economy through electrification of transportation and buildings.  Yet the pathway to enacting a CES as part of an infrastructure package may be narrowing: The Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework that the President announced he would support last week includes no CES.  And whether a CES could be enacted through the budget reconciliation process is subject to considerable debate.

Existing CES bills in Congress seem unlikely to gain enough support to overcome a filibuster.

• The CLEAN Future Act, which would aim to achieve the Administration's goal of 100% zero-emission electricity by 2035, may be too ambitious to gain support of 60 senators.
• The Clean Energy Future Through Innovation Act, which targets an 80% reduction in power sector emissions by 2050, is likely to be dismissed by many within the Democratic caucus as not ambitious enough and because its targets would not go into effect until the DOE Secretary certifies that cost-effective market penetration of advanced clean power generation technologies has occurred, with no date certain.

Given the narrow chances for a true CES to be enacted by Congress, some suggest that the Administration may need a "plan B" to achieve its power-sector decarbonization target, either through EPA regulation of power plants or through a reconciliation-proof approach to a CES, in which the government would spend money to encourage clean generation (more carrots), without any enforceable mandate in place (no sticks).

Indeed, the AJP suggests that a CES could be established by executive action alone, declaring that, "President Biden will establish an Energy Efficiency and Clean Electricity Standard (EECES)," with no mention of a role for Congress.  Yet the experience of the Obama Administration, which had its centerpiece Clean Power Plan put on hold by the Supreme Court and then repealed by the Trump Administration, may leave both the Biden-Harris Administration and the electricity sector seeking a more durable policy.

And, despite a decision by the D.C.Circuit on the eve of the inauguration, striking down the Trump Administration's repeal of the Clean Power Plan and providing the incoming EPA Administrator Michael Regan what he called a "clean slate" to consider how to reduce emissions from the power sector, EPA recently categorized a new set of emission guidelines for power plants as a long-term action, meaning it is unlikely to move forward with a proposal in the near-term.

With total spending included in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework scaled down to $1.2 trillion from the AJP's proposed $2.3 trillion, some Democrats have said they will not support it, unless coupled with a broad reconciliation package.  The President himself had to walk back initial remarks, which suggested he would not sign the bipartisan deal unless it came to his desk with a reconciliation bill that fills in its gaps.  While that clarification appears to have satisfied key architects of the bipartisan deal for the time being, maintaining both that bipartisan support and the simple majority needed to pass a broader package through reconciliation could prove challenging.

The electricity sector is in the midst of a rapid transformation due to the rapidly declining costs of renewable and storage technologies, the low price of natural gas and customers' increasing demand for clean power.  These market forces so greatly outpaced projections made just a few short years ago that the Clean Power Plan's 2030 goal for the electricity sector was achieved a decade in advance, even though it never went into effect.  While this may beg the question of whether mandatory standards are even necessary if market forces are moving in one inexorable direction, utilities favor certainty due to their long-term planning horizons.  And that certainty may be lacking if any infrastructure package includes only a few carrots and no sticks.

This post is the 17th in our series, "The ABCs of the AJP."

President Biden's American Jobs Plan (AJP) sends strong signals in support of carbon capture and sequestration as an important tool to achieve the President's ambitious decarbonization objectives.

Most significantly, the President's plan would reform and expand the bipartisan Section 45Q tax credit, "making it direct pay and easier to use for hard-to-decarbonize industrial applications, direct air capture, and retrofits of existing power plants."  The President's plan would also "establish ten pioneer facilities that demonstrate carbon capture retrofits for large steel, cement, and chemical production facilities," while also ensuring – consistent with the plan's overall emphasis on redressing environmental injustices – "that overburdened communities are protected from increases in cumulative pollution."

According to many studies, such as Princeton's Net-Zero America report, carbon capture, utilization and sequestration (CCUS) will play an important role in achieving carbon neutrality by mid-century.  Princeton's modeling suggests that geological sequestration could amount to between 1 to 1.7 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year by 2050, with the majority occurring in the Texas gulf coast, and an additional 100 to 700 million tonnes of CO2 converted to synthetic liquid or gas fuels (through synthesis with hydrogen).

On a global scale, the International Energy Agency (IEA) recently concluded that "reaching net zero will be virtually impossible without CCUS."  In the IEA's Sustainable Development Scenario, the initial focus would be on retrofitting existing fossil fuel-fired power plants and industrial operations, including production of low-carbon hydrogen, but then, over time, the focus would shift to net removals of CO2, including through direct air capture, and as a source of climate-neutral CO2 for synthetic aviation fuels.

All these studies envision the build-out of regional "hubs" of pipeline infrastructure to transport captured CO2 from many sources, to sequestration reservoirs for permanent storage of the CO2.  Building that infrastructure in the U.S.would require a massive amount of capital and labor, hence, why CCUS features prominently within the President's job-creating climate strategy.

Yet none of these studies suggest that market forces alone are sufficient to cause wide-scale deployment of CCUS.  Particularly in the absence of an express price on carbon emissions, public support and incentives are critical.  That's where the Section 45Q tax credit comes in.

The 45Q credit has been available since 2008, but was expanded significantly by Congress in 2018.  It provides a volumetric tax credit for each ton of CO2 captured and either sequestered permanently, used in enhanced oil recovery or otherwise used in a commercial process.  The credit is available for 12 years after the capture equipment is put in service, with the amount of the credit rising from $34.81 in 2021 for a ton permanently sequestered in geological formations, to $50 per ton in 2026.  For EOR or other utilization, the credit tops off at $35 per ton in 2026.

The U.S.Treasury and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) finalized regulations earlier this year clarifying many issues that should remove regulatory hurdles that may have been stymying interest among taxpayers to develop projects directly or provide tax equity financing to CCUS project developers.  However, most observers acknowledge that more than the 45Q is needed at this time to motivate investment at the scale needed to realize the potential for CCUS as part of the U.S.'s carbon neutrality strategy.

State incentives can help make projects economically viable.  For example, California's Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) provides a ton-for-ton credit for direct air capture (DAC).  With LCFS credits currently trading just below the $200 per ton price ceiling, the promise of "stacking" the LCFS and 45Q credits has led to significant milestones in DAC project development in the U.S.  But the LCFS only provides access to credits for DAC projects and CCUS projects that are directly related to reducing the carbon intensity of transportation fuels!it provides no pathway for crediting CCUS in power generation or hard-to-abate sectors, such as cement and steelmaking.

Fortunately, the prospects for broader federal support of CCUS look good in Congress.  Despite the general disagreement between Republicans and Democrats on climate change strategies, several bills advancing through Congress that would help motivate the wide-scale deployment of CCUS have broad bipartisan support.

• The 45Q Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage Tax Credit Amendments of 2021, introduced in Senator Tina Smith (D-MN) with bipartisan support, would provide a direct pay option for the full value of the tax credit, meaning that project developers who don't pay income taxes would no longer be beholden upon tax equity sponsors to finance their projects.ahrfs/www.congress.gov/bill117-congress/senate-bill79/text>CSLE Representatives Marc Veasey (D-TX) and David McKinley (R-WV), would establish a financing mechanism at the Department of Energy for common carrier CO2 transport infrastructure, in essence, helping motivate development of the transportation infrastructure that doesn't qualify for 45Q credits.
• The Coordinated Action to Capture Harmful Emissions (CATCH) Act, introduced last month in the House by a bipartisan group of representatives, led by Tim Ryan (D-OH), would boost the 45Q credit to $85 per ton for industrial and power generation facilities securely storing CO2 in saline geologic formations and $60 per ton for EOR and other beneficial uses.

Together, this suite of bills, if enacted, could put CCUS projects in the money, regardless of the taxpayer status of their sponsors.

Yet many from the environmental community are critical of CCUS, including the White House's Environmental Justice Advisory Council (EJAC), which recently suggested that the Biden Administration should exclude CCUS and DAC from its tool chest of climate solutions because it would extend the lifespan of fossil-fuel generation.  White House domestic climate adviser Gina McCarthy responded by saying that the Administration has not "taken anything off the table" in terms of its carbon reduction strategy.

The EJAC's logic is apparently holding sway in places where the environmental justice movement first proved its ascendance.

Last week, the California Assembly approved a bill that would potentially sideline CCS from playing any role in achieving the state's carbon neutrality targets.  AB 1395 would limit carbon "removals" to no more than 10 percent of what is needed to achieve the state's carbon neutrality objective.  It would also define technology-based solutions, including electricity generation with CCS, as a removal.  This is scientifically inaccurate, as CO2 captured from a power plant is never emitted to the atmosphere in the first place.

But the bill would also impose criteria on the state's ability to rely upon any technology-based solutions, including that use of any such solutions shall not increase toxic and criteria air pollutants.  This could act as a poison pill for any CCUS project, as the process of stripping CO2 out of flue gas requires the use of amines and the chemical reaction between those substances and the flue gas results in small amounts of toxic air contaminants, which, albeit insignificant, are unavoidable.  Moreover, the primary argument against CCUS is that it will allow for continued production and consumption of fossil fuels, the consumption of which will result in criteria pollutant emissions, and that exclusion of CCUS would force a faster transition.

And so policymakers face a choice: They can relegate to the side a promising technology that can deliver significant reductions in CO2 because, according to one narrative, anything that allows for continued production and consumption of fossil fuels is per se bad.  Or they can focus on carbon reduction as the target and support investment in CCUS.  Based upon legislation introduced in the past several months, a bipartisan caucus in Congress is unwilling to write CCUS off.

As discussed on our previous post on grid modernization, new transmission lines must be installed to allow high-capacity, long-distance power transmission, so that renewable energy can be efficiently transmitted from remote areas where it is plentiful to more densely populated locations where it is needed.

Here, we explore how the AJP's aim of securing investment for development of transmission infrastructure may advance a number of additional objectives:

• It can help bridge the physical and jurisdictional lines drawn between the Nation's regional power markets.
• It can improve the resiliency of the grid to the reliability threats posed by increasingly extreme weather events.
• And it can help stitch together the historical opposition between environmental and labor interests.

Power Lines, Political Lines, and Linkages

The contiguous U.S.eia.gov/todayinEnergy/detail.php?id=27152基本分离网格连接点很少,只能互传递小量能量The boundaries at which the grids abut (and minimally connect) are known as "seams."

Ongoing research from the Department of Energy's (DOE) National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) suggests that fortifying these seams would provide substantial economic and environmental benefits, making it possible, for example, for solar power from the desert southwest to meet peak electricity demand in the northeast and then support similar demand peaks at later times in the west.

While NREL has yet to finalize its seams study, reportedly due to the prior administration's efforts to downplay those benefits, other studies have similarly projected tremendous return on investments in grid integration and improved power transmission.

• According to one such study, integrating the Nation's grids and installing high-voltage direct-current (DC) transmission lines – which can transmit energy over long distances more effectively than the alternating current (AC) lines that dominate the current grid – has the potential to save consumers over $47 billion annually.

In spite of the obvious benefits associated with a better-connected grid, overcoming the physical and jurisdictional boundaries separating the three interconnections will not be easy.

In particular, Texas has historically preserved its independence from oversight of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) by not significantly participating in interstate energy transmission.

That independence may be increasingly difficult to defend, however, in the aftermath of the failure of much of the Texas grid operated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) during this past February's extreme winter storm.

• Cities like El Paso, which are not part of ERCOT, fared relatively well, because they were able to receive power from neighboring balancing authorities and power markets.
• But the major metropolitan areas of Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth suffered catastrophic power losses because they were limited to the supply within ERCOT, which was designed to meet peak demand on a hot summer's day and could not keep up with the unprecedented winter demand.

It should come as no surprise, then, that the AJP's argument in favor of spending billions of dollars to improve our Nation's transmission infrastructure leads with a description of the Texas outages and prior research indicating that weather-related power outages cost the U.S.最大达每年700亿美元经济量。

This is the tenth in our series on "The ABCs of the AJP."

Jobs, unsurprisingly, are at the heart of the Biden Administration's ambitious, multi-trillion dollar infrastructure plan.  After all, the plan also goes by the name The American Jobs Plan ("AJP").  Each of the sweeping goals of the AJP—from addressing climate change, to developing a resilient electricity grid, to competing with China over clean energy supply chains—promises to create thousands of new jobs.

These jobs fall into multiple categories, including, but not limited to:

• Repairing bridges and highways, upgrading ports, airports, and transit. The Biden Administration wants to invest hundreds of billions of dollars on transportation infrastructure and resilience.  This includes thousands of individual projects, and, as discussed in a recent blog post, a significant portion of this investment will be aimed at redressing inequities created by past investments in transportation infrastructure.
• Electric vehicles and related supply chains. The Administration has announced plans to invest hundreds of billions of dollars into the domestic electric vehicle market, including investing in manufacturing at various stages of the supply chain.  The AJP also signals the Administration's plan to leverage the federal government's procurement power to give this manufacturing—and other types of manufacturing—a head start to competing on the global scale.
• Updating and expanding our electricity grid. To develop a more affordable, reliable, and resilient electricity grid, the Administration is calling for the creation of additional generation facilities and transmission lines.  The Administration views a transition to renewable sources of energy as a way to both create jobs and advance environmental justice concerns.  To this end, the Administration wants to accelerate investment in distributed energy resources in historically neglected neighborhoods, and create fifteen "decarbonized hydrogen demonstration projects in distressed communities."
• Updating other utility networks. The AJP will also expand broadband transmission to rural communities, and update water systems throughout the country to ensure universal access to clean water.  Regarding clean water efforts, the Administration is prepared to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the removal of lead pipes and on investment in new drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater systems.元老院同政府联动hrefss/www.congress.gov/bill/gress/senate-bill/914exts/bill/a一年之久 数十万个工作丢失 行业行政局认为对更清洁、更具弹性经济至关重要 。最新消息可再生能源(下降6%)网格现代化和电池存储量(下降7%) 清洁车辆制造量增长(增长3%)
  Now,2020年后退并实现AJP对地平线的允诺,这些行业预期增长量将超过这些就业机会损失的补偿量。
  One
• s/mjbradley.com/sites/default/files/EDF_EV_Market_Report_Series_202020_Update.pdf'>sreport 估计电动车辆行业2019-a数雇用近130 000人部分估计这些数字会急剧增加,因为政府支持家电车行业。
• ahrfss/acc/report-transmission-itc-bell-decate-650000-jobs-spur-153b-in-Investment/''sreport 预测会增加650 000个新工作,因为我们利用投资税抵充来改造传输网格。
• Recently, the National Solar Jobs Census released its annual report, which explains that the industry anticipates 400,000 solar jobs by 2030, and will need over 900,000 employees by 2035 to meet the Administration's emissions target.

It figures to be more difficult to measure progress against one of the Administration's other promises: that these new jobs will be "good jobs."

One possible metric is wages.  Those who have begun analyzing the quality of the types of promised jobs appear to be optimistic on this front:

• In April, the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution released its report, Advancing Inclusion Through Clean Energy Jobs.发现清洁能源雇员(广义定义)比全国所有工人挣得更高更公平的工资。
• 补充报告发现清洁能源工作通常很少有正式教育需求Indeed, the report found that roughly 50 percent of clean energy employees have a high school diploma yet earn higher wages than similarly-educated peers in other industries.

Despite these promising figures, some are concerned that the transition away from fossil fuels concentrates job losses in certain communities, while opportunity remains concentrated elsewhere.  Although the Brookings Institution report concludes that clean energy jobs compare favorably to average jobs nationwide, the numbers are not as rosy when clean energy jobs are compared to the fossil fuel jobs they figure to replace.  This disparity is also noted in a recent report from Environmental Entrepreneurs, Clean Jobs America 2021, which explains that "wages in clean energy as a whole are lower than fossil fuels."

Another important consideration is that many of the hotspots for clean energy jobs are in states and communities with relatively high average wages, relatively high costs of living, and a relatively low concentration of the types of jobs that will be rendered obsolete as our economy moves towards zero emissions.  To this point, on April 19, 2021, the United Mine Workers of America ("UMWA") released its report, Preserving Coal Country, which voiced concerns about the number of coal jobs—and jobs in related and unrelated industries—that Appalachia has lost and will continue lose as our energy grid moves away from coal.  UMWA noted the need for a plan to support the people and towns that are being left behind.

This objective – often referred to as "just transition" – is relevant not only in the US, but has been broadly embraced as part of international efforts to address climate change, including in the Paris Agreement resulting from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change's ("UNFCCC") Conference of the Parties ("COP") 21 in 2015, the Solidarity and Just Transition Silesia Declaration adopted at the COP 24 in Katowice, Poland in 2018, and as a major component of the European Green Deal.

The Administration appears sensitive to the need to assure a just transition for communities in Appalachia and elsewhere that depend on coal jobs, particularly given the even divide in the Senate and the need to either obtain bipartisan support or at least maintain the entire Democratic caucus to advance the President's infrastructure and clean energy goals.总统提名和参院一致 Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad, §218.  Not long after UMWA released its report, the Interagency Working Group ("IWG") released its own report, focusing on job creation and workforce development in communities with the highest concentration of direct-coal-sector jobs.

The IWG identifies almost $38 billion in "existing federal funding that could be accessed by Energy Communities for infrastructure, environmental remediation, union job creation, and community revitalization efforts."  It also focuses on the job creation and environmental justice potential of environmental remediation projects in "fenceline" communities located near energy or industrial facilities, which are among the most polluted communities in the country and are often communities of color.  This includes remediation of abandoned mine lands, orphaned oil and gas wells, and brownfields in communities with closed or abandoned power stations or mining sites.

The IWG also emphasizes the amount of federal money available for carbon capture and storage projects at existing power plants and industrial facilities, as well as funding to extract critical minerals from coal waste streams for use in the manufacturing of batteries and other components of electric vehicles.  This would help advance the Administration's goal of developing a domestic supply chain for electric vehicles, while also creating job opportunities for coal miners and others in energy communities affected by the transition away from coal.

Whether these investments will be enough to gain support of key members of Congress remains unclear.  Given how closely divided both chambers are, however, it seems self-evident that any infrastructure package that advances with some of the AJP's key clean energy elements intact – either as a result of bipartisan negotiation or through reconciliation – will undoubtedly include targeted investments for those communities most likely to be impacted by decreasing reliance upon coal and other fossil fuels.