Pandemic relief, taxes, income inequality, climate change, infrastructure, healthcare and civil rights: the new US administration is moving forward rapidly on President Joe Biden’s stated priorities. So how are these new policies affecting your business? We’re here to keep you informed!
McDermott Will & Emery’s multidisciplinary team of industry-leading lawyers are monitoring key legal areas to help you navigate and gain perspective on the most critical impacts of changing US policies. Access the latest updates in our new resource center.
Earlier this week, Michael Reganwas confirmed as the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), winning US Senate approval by a 66–34 vote. Regan’s confirmation will serve as an asset to the Biden administration’s agenda on climate change. In his remarks, Regan noted that he plans to “move with a sense of urgency on climate change, and stand up for environmental justice and equity.” Such sense of urgency will play a major role in ensuring President Joe Biden’s Executive Orders on climate change are fulfilled.
Regan, having served as the secretary of North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality, is expected to have a good relationship with state environmental agencies. Prior to that role, Regan worked at the EPA in the air quality office through both the Clinton and Bush administrations.
Regan’s confirmation also reaffirms President Biden’s commitment to ensuring his administration and federal leadership looks like America. Regan will be the first Black man to lead the EPA in the agency’s 50-year history.
On International Women’s Day, US President Joe Biden signed an Executive Order establishing the White House Gender Policy Council. The council, which was formerly called the White House Council on Women and Girls under the Obama administration, seeks to advance the equality of opportunity while simultaneously combating systematic biases and discrimination against women. The council plans to do this by coordinating federal government efforts to increase economic support, promote gender equity in leadership, prevent all forms of gender-based violence and bolster initiatives to empower women, both domestically and internationally. Although the election of Kamala Harris as the first female vice president in American history disrupted gender norms, the revival of this council serves as a salient reminder that there is still much to do to combat systemic biases and advance gender equality.
The federal government is not alone in its endeavor to combating gender inequity. Renewable energy has proven to be an industry where there is significant potential to break institutional biases. The renewable energy workforce, for example, comprises 32% women, whereas the larger energy sector workforce only employs 22% women. Although this is a notable start, these numbers illustrate that there is still progress to be made in achieving gender equality across industries and that these goals should be prioritized moving forward.
The renewable energy industry has several initiatives prioritizing gender equality that should continue to be lauded and supported. One such program is the Women of Renewable Industries and Sustainable Energy (WRISE) program, which supports the educational, professional development and advancement of women in the renewable energy sector with the aspiration of combating systemic inequities. The Women in Renewable Energy (WIRE) Network is a network of women working in renewable energy and combating existing structural gender inequities that could be exacerbated by the consequences of climate change. The Clean Energy Council’s Women in Renewables initiative serves as a platform to champion women working in renewable energy as they advance to become leaders of industry. Other notable programs and initiatives include:
Powered by Women, which consults with renewable energy companies on how they can sustainably build growth and close gender gaps at their respective organizations.
The Clean Energy Trust, a nonprofit supporting female or minority-owned startups aspiring to innovate in the realm of clean energy and sustainability.
The American Solar Energy Society, which is recognizing women who have contributed extraordinary developments to the technological developments or wide-spread advancement of solar energy.
The Department of Energy, which has sought to recruit more women into the clean energy field and recognize accomplished women for their contributions and leadership through the US Clean Energy Education & Empowerment (C3E) Initiative.
The Solar Energy Industries Association, which has developed the Diversity Best Practices Guide for the Solar Industry, aims to build a diverse workforce by providing guidance to companies as they navigate diversity and inclusion efforts.
The establishment of the Gender Policy Council displays a commitment by the United States to ensure that [...]
On Tuesday, US National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy publicly underscored President Joe Biden’s commitment to supporting the electric vehicle (EV) industry and other industries aimed at tackling the climate crisis. She noted the administration’s goal is to build more than 500,000 EV chargers. The electric vehicle charging station market size is projected to surpass around USD $39.2 billion by 2027 and witness a compound annual growth rate of 40.7% from 2020 to 2027.
McCarthy made her comments during a meeting with key stakeholders and influential policymakers in the EV and EV charging industries, including senior staff of the Department of Transportation, chief executive officers of companies producing electric vehicle charging infrastructures, the National Economic Council and the Council of Environmental Quality.
This is a further demonstration by the administration that it will rely upon the insight of renewable energy leaders to produce, navigate and accelerate the production of national renewable energy infrastructure. The administration also sees the modification of our national renewable energy infrastructure as a means to strengthen American manufacturing, create new employment opportunities and speed economic recovery through the pandemic crisis.
McCarthy’s remarks are part of a growing trend to find executive and legislative avenues to addressing the climate crisis. Democrats in the US House of Representatives have introduced legislation that aims to reduce economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2050. This emphasis has similarly carried over into the realm of domestic infrastructure. The CLEAN Future Act aims to require all retail electric providers to generate 100% of their power from zero-emissions resources by 2035, and 80% by 2030.
The federal government is not the only actor racing to find ways to meet the anticipated demand for electric vehicles and the subsequent infrastructural changes that will be required. A conglomerate of utilities has committed to cooperating to create a “seamless network” of charging stations along major highways.
These efforts across industries and branches of government indicate the inevitability of growth in the renewable energy industry and that the desire for opportunities for electric vehicles across the country will continue to be fueled.
Today, Jennifer Granholm was confirmed as secretary of energy, winning US Senate approval by a 64–35 vote. Granholm’s confirmation serves as another boost to President Joe Biden’s plan to tackle climate change and develop clean energy across the United States. Granholm, who is an advocate for electric vehicles and other low-carbon technologies, will join Pete Buttigieg, the secretary of transportation, as a member of President Biden’s cabinet selected to further a green economy and green infrastructure.
Granholm, who served two terms as the governor of Michigan, worked with the automotive industry during her term to obtain more than $1 billion in federal funding for Michigan companies to manufacture electric vehicles and batteries. Under Granholm’s leadership, Michigan also adopted standards requiring utilities to utilize renewable energy sources. Granholm promoted the use of wind and solar technology during her confirmation hearing by telling senators, “We can buy electric car batteries from Asia or we can make them in America. We can install wind turbines from Denmark or we can make them in America.” She believes investing in renewable energy technologies will create more American jobs and boost the US economy.
Granholm’s confirmation will likely serve as encouragement for developers, lenders and investors in the renewable energy industry, as this will create more opportunities for renewable energy projects across the country and amplify the need for clean energy.
The energy market has undergone significant change in the past 12 months, with even more on the horizon. Our webinar series explores how these changes have shaped—and will continue to impact—the energy industry, including discussions of what’s to come.
Our latest webinar featured Greg Wetstone, president and CEO of the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE).
Below are key takeaways from this week’s webinar:
The renewable energy industry continued to grow throughout the Trump administration; 2020 was a banner year with 28.5 GW of new wind and solar (the previous record, in 2016, was just below 23 GW).
The renewable industry is likely to receive its first legislative action as part of the infrastructure bill (likely through the budget reconciliation process); however, it will likely not occur until after impeachment proceedings and a COVID-19 relief bill have been completed.
It is not clear that a clean energy standard could be passed through the budget-oriented reconciliation process or that carbon pricing would have sufficient votes to even pass the reconciliation process, so the best current option may be to continue and expand tax incentives for renewable energy.
The Biden administration has committed to a “whole of government” approach to clean energy, which is expected to include an aggressive Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) policy once a third commissioner is appointed in June; sweeping executive orders (some of which we have already seen); aggressive federal procurement targets; streamlined permitting; and broader Department of Energy guidance in innovation.
A refundable tax credit at 85% of the current value is very much on the table, but it remains to be seen whether there are sufficient votes in the Senate for this to make it through the reconciliation process.
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Many stakeholders have called for the United States to adopt a carbon tax. Such a tax could raise billions of dollars in annual revenue while simultaneously reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Several carbon tax proposals were introduced in the last Congress (2019-2020 term), and it is likely that several more will be introduced in the new Congress. Several conservative economists have endorsed the idea, as has Janet Yellen, President Biden’s Secretary of the Treasury. But the details of a carbon tax matter—for revenue generation, emissions reductions and fairness. Because Congress is likely to consider several competing carbon tax proposals this year, this article provides a way to compare proposals with a checklist of 10 questions to ask about any specific legislative carbon tax proposal, to help understand that proposal’s design and implications.
1. What form does the tax take: Is it an emissions tax, a fuel tax or a production tax?
The point of a carbon tax is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by imposing a price on those emissions. But there is more than one way to impose that price. Critically, the range of options depends, to a very large degree, on the type of greenhouse gas the tax is trying to address.
The most ubiquitous greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide (CO2) and the largest source of CO2 emissions is the combustion of fossil fuels. Those emissions can be addressed by imposing a fee on each individual emission source or by taxing the carbon content of the fuel—because carbon content is a reliable predictor of CO2 emissions across different combustion circumstances. Most carbon tax proposals are fuel tax proposals; they impose a tax on fuel sales, corresponding to the amount of CO2 that will be emitted when the fuel is burned.
For CO2 emissions, the fuel tax approach has one significant advantage over the emissions fee approach. The fuel tax can be imposed “upstream,” rather than “downstream,” thereby reducing the total number of taxpayers and the overall administrative burdens associated with collecting the tax. A tax imposed on petroleum products as they leave the refinery, for example, is a way to address CO2 emissions from motor vehicles without the need to tax every individual owner of a gasoline-powered car. Most CO2-related carbon tax proposals work that way—they are upstream fuel taxes rather than downstream emissions taxes.
But not all greenhouse gas emissions can be addressed through a fuel tax, because not all greenhouse gas emissions come from fossil fuel combustion. Methane, for example, is released in significant quantities from cows, coal mines and natural gas production systems. A carbon tax directed at those emissions is likely to take the form of an emissions fee imposed on the owner or operator of the emission source. Many carbon tax proposals, however, simply ignore methane emissions or expressly exempt agricultural sources.
Fluorinated gases are yet another type of greenhouse. If they are subjected to a carbon tax, that tax is likely to take the form of a production tax, which would be imposed [...]
Today, Pete Buttigieg was sworn in as secretary of transportation after his nomination passed the US Senate 86-13. His confirmation means a likely boon for investment in US infrastructure, particularly for those investing in renewable energy infrastructure, electric vehicle infrastructure and electric vehicles. In an email distributed to his staff today, he advised them that “…we will break new ground: in ensuring that our economy recovers and rebuilds, in rising to the climate challenge and in making sure transportation is an engine for equity in this country.”
US President Joe Biden has made similar pledges about infrastructure. Last week he signed an Executive Order that took bold steps to combat the climate crisis both at home and throughout the world, creating a number of opportunities for developers, lenders and investors in the renewable energy space.
Buttigieg’s confirmation is noteworthy since it is another concrete step by the Biden-Harris administration to implement its climate change agenda. For instance, the Biden-Harris administration has committed to replacing all government cars and trucks, including the fleet of United States Postal Service vehicles, with clean zero-emission electric vehicles. This would require replacing more than 645,000 vehicles, which reflects the most recent amount of government vehicles reported by the General Services Administration in 2019.
Buttigieg will now be responsible for overseeing the nation’s transportation system and creating safer roadways. The 86-13 vote signals that rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure will receive cross-party support. Buttigieg’s former experience as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, will likely aid him in impacting the local levels.
New guidance from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) extends the Continuity Safe Harbor to 10 years for both offshore wind projects and projects on federal land. The relatively quick release of this guidance following enactment of the offshore wind investment tax credit (ITC) last week suggests strong support for these projects by Congress, the US Department of the Treasury and IRS.
The US stimulus bill passed into law yesterday includes several key extensions and additions to the tax credits available for renewable energy. The bill had been agreed to by Congress early last week and was signed into law by the president last night.
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