In passing the Build Back Better budget package today, the U.S. House of Representatives has advanced historic investments in clean energy, transportation, manufacturing, buildings, and agriculture that mark the nation’s largest-ever climate legislation. Ceres applauds the House for taking action on climate, and urges the Senate to swiftly approve this landmark legislation to position the U.S. as a leader in the transition to a clean energy future.
“The Build Back Better package is the climate deal that leading companies and investors have long been calling for,” said Anne Kelly, vice president of government relations, Ceres. “The House has today taken a major step toward building the clean energy economy we need to protect the country from dangerous pollution and costly climate disasters, while creating good jobs, stabilizing energy prices, and sparking American innovation. The Senate must now follow the House’s lead and pass the Build Back Better package with these urgently needed climate investments. Our businesses, communities, and economy depend on it.”
The Build Back Better package features $555 billion in climate investments, highlighted by $320 billion for tax credits for investors, companies, and consumers to encourage widespread clean power development, as well as adoption of electric vehicles and other clean energy technologies that will save companies and consumers money.
The package’s climate provisions also include $110 billion to develop supply chains that will grow clean industries and advance clean manufacturing, boosting competitiveness and creating jobs in industrial regions. Another $105 billion would go toward climate resilience and environmental justice initiatives, such as helping communities withstand extreme weather and clean up historic pollution.
Leading investors and companies have championed the economic benefits of these provisions throughout 2021, with advocacy efforts that have included the annual LEAD on Climate lobbying push in May and the America Is All In coalition’s Hill Day in July. Ceres also organized more than 160 companies and investors that signed a letter urging Congress to include the strongest possible climate measures in the Build Back Better package. And three founding partner CEOs of the Investor Agenda recently called for passage of a budget reconciliation package with the bold climate provisions.
The Build Back Better package passed the House just weeks after the chamber approved the bipartisan Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act, which also includes some climate-smart funding for clean transportation, energy, and resilience. However, the U.S. needs the larger-scale investments of the Build Back Better package to dramatically grow its clean energy industries and achieve the national goal of reducing climate pollution by at least 50% by 2030 to prevent its worst impacts.
“The investments in the Build Back Better package are cost-effective measures that will save the U.S., its companies, and consumers enormous amounts of money over time, especially when you consider the escalating costs of unchecked climate disaster, while building new industries to power the economy of the future,” Kelly said. “U.S. senators now have a chance to deliver both immediate and long-term benefits to our economy by finalizing the most ambitious climate investments in the nation’s history, and we urge them to take advantage of it as soon as possible. Neither the climate crisis nor this economic opportunity can wait.”
Ceres is a nonprofit organization working with the most influential capital market leaders to solve the world’s greatest sustainability challenges. Through our powerful networks and global collaborations of investors, companies and nonprofits, we drive action and inspire equitable market-based and policy solutions throughout the economy to build a just and sustainable future. For more information, visit ceres.org and follow @CeresNews.