

After months of anticipation, Democrats have begun to reveal pieces of their upcoming Build Back Better Act (aka the budget reconciliation bill), including the key clean energy provisions.
On Monday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee began markup of its full set of recommendations for the bill. Meanwhile, the House Ways and Means Committee released its draft tax package for the bill, including the clean energy tax credits.
As negotiations around the reconciliation bill move forward, I’ll have more to say about the politics, economics and larger implications of all this Democratic energy policy. For now, I just want to get the specifics on the record.
For one thing, there’s a lot of policy here, and it will take some time to think it through. For another, it will be important to track what gets added and (more likely) cut when the bill goes to the Senate, so this post can serve as our baseline for comparison.
Let’s start with Energy and Commerce and its Clean Electricity Performance Program, arguably the single most important piece of energy policy on offer.
(For a quick introduction to the Clean Electricity Performance Program, see highlights from my interview with Sen. Tina Smith.)
The $150 billion CEPP would offer grants to utilities that increase their year-over-year share of clean energy by at least 4 percent; it would charge fines to utilities that fall short of that goal. (“Utilities” here includes any and all end-use electricity providers: vertically integrated utilities, investor-owned utilities, co-ops and municipal utilities, etc.)
For the purposes of the bill, “clean energy” is energy that emits no more than 0.1 tons of CO2-equivalent per megawatt-hour of electricity generated. This 0.1 tons/MWh threshold is notably stringent — it would exclude all fossil fuels and biomass unless they are equipped with carbon capture and storage.
The grants are based on a somewhat complicated formula: $150/MWh x (year-over-year percent increase in clean share - 1.5 percent) x total retail sales.
Say a utility boosted its year-over-year clean share by 5 percent. Five percent minus 1.5 percent is 3.5 percent. So the utility would get a one-time grant of $150/MWh for 3.5 percent of its retail sales that year.
The formula for the fines is: $40/MWh x (4 percent - YOY percentage increase in clean share) x total retail sales.
Say a utility grew its share by 3 percent. Four percent minus 3 percent is 1 percent, so it would pay a one-time fine of $40/MWh for 1 percent of its retail sales. (The exception here is utilities with a clean share at 85 percent or above; they are exempt from fines but still eligible for grants.)
A utility is not allowed to fall steadily behind; any shortfall is added to the following year’s target. If it only hits 3 percent growth one year, the next year a utility must hit 5 percent growth.
Utilities can choose to tally up their performance over a two- or three-year period, to smooth over year-to-year spikes or valleys; for instance, if a utility hits 3 percent in year one and 3 percent in year two but 6 percent in year three, it averages out to 4 percent a year and is eligible to receive the grants.
This is all a bit convoluted; it would definitely keep accountants and lawyers busy. There are five things worth noting about the CEPP at this point.
First, $150/MWh is real money. Spread out over a 10-year power purchase agreement, it’s about $15/MWh/year, not that different from (but additive to) the clean energy tax credits. That, coupled with the tight definition of what constitutes clean energy, makes this a relatively strong offering, designwise.
Second, a lot of details would be left up to the Department of Energy, which would administer the program, such as how distributed and behind-the-meter resources will be counted, how much compliance can be done through renewable energy credits, and so forth. There are lots of devils in those details.
Third, it is not accurate to say that the CEPP targets, much less guarantees, 80 percent emissions reductions in the electricity sector by 2030. That is Biden’s goal, and it’s the aspiration for the full suite of policies Dems are trying to pass, but the CEPP, by design, does not guarantee any particular outcome. How would utilities respond to this level of incentives and fines? We hope to find out! It’s a new program; it’s never been tried before. (It would kick off in 2023.)
Fourth, a study by the independent firm Analysis Group found that, through 2031, the CEPP would expand the U.S. workforce by 7.7 million new jobs, add $907 billion to the national economy, raise $154 billion in tax revenue and lead to the deployment of over 600 gigawatts of new clean energy. It’s not a cost; it’s an investment.
Fifth, there’s no guarantee Senator Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) will let this pass unscathed, or even let it pass at all. He chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which will be marking up the energy parts of the bill. He could kill the CEPP. He could weaken the carbon-intensity requirements to allow for dirtier energy; he could lower the required rate of clean energy growth; he could reduce the incentives or the fines. Nobody knows what Manchin will do, or why, so we’ll just have to wait and see.
Also! Other items worth noting in the House Energy and Commerce Committee package.
All these numbers are, based on the need, too small — especially the retrofit and electrification numbers. The heat-pump money, for instance, is likely to be used up after a year or two.
How long would that $9 billion last? Assuming an average rebate of $4.5k (a mix of small and large heat pumps in LMI and rich homes), that's 2 million heat pump rebates. For reference, 3 million heat pumps were installed in the US in 2019. 5/https://t.co/lQCUj090kD
— Kevin J. Kircher (@kevinkircher) September 12, 2021
Nonetheless, with a limited pot of money, Energy and Commerce Dems have managed to cover quite a few bases.
Let’s move on to the House Ways and Means Committee tax package.
The tax package, which itself only covers a limited subset of policy areas, is a monster; even the section-by-section summary is 41 pages long. The green energy part (Subtitle G) starts on page 9. It is basically a long list of technologies and practices that will receive tax credits.
Before getting to individual items, it’s worth noting three intriguing provisions that apply to all the credits.
First, there are now strong prevailing-wage standards built in. To receive the full value of the credit, a project must show that it is paying prevailing wages and using qualified apprentices; without doing so, it can receive only one-fifth of the credit value (called the “base rate”).
Second, projects that use domestic content — defined as 55 percent of total project cost from made-in-USA components and services — can get another 10 percent on top of the value of the credit.
These are important policies for the domestic workforce, drawn from successful states (such as Washington), and will increase the amount of credit value that goes to good US jobs and supply chains.
Third, the energy tax credits are now “direct pay,” which means projects can get the full value without having to offset it against taxes owed. This opens up the credits to many more projects and eliminates a lot of wasteful lawyerly games around tax equity financing. (Note: The percentage available for direct pay declines over time for projects not using domestic content.)
On to some of the individual credits:
Note: Both the PTC and ITC would be restored to their full original value, higher than any current credit, and extended through the decade. This is a very big deal.
The electric vehicle tax credit has been revived and expanded. It would now be fully refundable and no longer linked to limits associated with specific manufacturers. It starts at $4,000 per vehicle; for vehicles that go into service before 2027, there’s an additional $3,500 (that’s $7,500); for vehicles built at a U.S. assembly plant with a union-negotiated collective bargaining agreement, there’s an additional $4,500 (that’s $12,000); for vehicles assembled at plants that use at least 50 percent domestic content, there’s an additional $500. So for a domestically manufactured, domestically sourced EV purchased next year, the total available credit is $12,500 (limited to half the vehicle purchase price). That’s huge!
Note: The EV tax credit would be available only for vehicles under specific price limits: $55,000 for sedans, $64,000 for vans, $69,000 for SUVs and $74,000 for pickup trucks. Also, the proportion of the credit available phases out quickly for joint households above $800,000 income or single households above $600,000. In short, it is meant to primarily benefit middle-class Americans buying midrange EVs.
Note 2: Automakers that use non-unionized workforces, including Toyota, Honda and Tesla, are furious about the union provisions. The awkward truth is that some of the best automakers on EVs have been non-union, while union shops like Ford and GM have been among the worst. It’s a bit of a dilemma for progressives.
Note: Folks are grousing on Twitter about how much more generous the EV credit is than the bicycle credit, and how the bicycle credit should be bigger, and how absurd it is to means-test a friggin’ bicycle credit, and they’re right about all of it. Still, it’s nice that e-bikes at least got a nod.
NEW: Production tax credit for EXISTING nuclear power plants.
— JesseJenkins (@JesseJenkins) September 12, 2021
Value uses a complex formula: $15/MWh - 80% (avg. electricity revenue earned per MWh - $5/MWh). Ex: if a plant earns avg of $20/MWh, PTC = $15 - 80% x ($20-$5) = $3/MWh. I think I read that right. Double check me pls. pic.twitter.com/TELLrob7fF
Notably missing from this list is any reduction in fossil fuel subsidies. This is frustrating, since less than 24 hours before the package was released, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was saying, “We need to take away all the subsidies for oil, gas and coal. We will have that in our bill.” (It’s at minute 26 of this video.) Where did the subsidy cuts go? Who took them out?
Anyway, all told, the Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that the Ways and Means tax package would cost $1.2 trillion over 10 years; the “green energy” subtitle would account for $235 billion. Of course, that’s just an estimate — it could be lower or higher in practice, depending on the uptake of the credits and the growth they spur.
Like I said, there will be more to talk about as the bill is negotiated. For now, I’ll leave you with three observations.
First, is this enough? Ha-ha, no. No climate policy is ever enough. This is far short of the $10 trillion that would be needed for a true Green New Deal. It’s far short of the $6 trillion bill Senator Bernie Sanders first proposed back in June. It is, from a climate perspective, a ludicrously low level of investment and mobilization.
Nonetheless, this is what the lamentably small group of climate-focused legislators were able to squeeze from a chaotic process. This is a reflection of the relative weight climate carries in the House.
Second, this is the high-water mark, so enjoy it while it lasts. Sens. Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Arizona) are going to try to hack down the overall level of spending, and Manchin has already signaled his intention to go after some of the energy provisions, including the CEPP. I have no idea what will happen in the Senate — my brain is tired from trying to predict — but given that Manchin is involved, it’s likely to be unpleasant.
Third, I know this isn’t helpful right now, but damn is it stupid for a wealthy democracy to make policy the way we do. Because every policy of any size has to be crammed through the budget reconciliation process, it all ends up in the tax code, a complicated skein of credits and loopholes that encourages rent-seeking and keep armies of lawyers employed.
This is not how any energy wonk, including the energy wonks on Democratic congressional staffs, would write policy if offered a blank sheet of paper. It is kludge upon kludge, a Rube Goldberg machine reverse-engineered to conform to anachronistic budget rules administered by a parliamentarian-cum-shaman.
But it is what’s possible now. American democracy is staggering, barely upright, and people of goodwill are scrambling to do the best they can under the circumstances. There’s no time left for infighting. Let’s just get this thing over the finish line.
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This article was originally published at Volts.
David Roberts is editor-at-large at Canary Media. He writes about clean energy and politics at his newsletter, Volts.
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