A Year Into Biden’s Climate Agenda, the Price Tag Remains Mysterious
The uncapped incentives of the Inflation Reduction Act mean spending sparked by the historic US climate law could triple initial estimates and push past $1 trillion.
US President Joe Biden speaks at a groundbreaking for an Arcosa Wind Towers manufacturing facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Aug. 9, nearly a year after he signed the Inflation Reduction Act.
Photographer: Ramsay De Give/BloombergIt’s been exactly one year since President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, securing a core part of his domestic agenda with what’s by far the most significant climate law in US history. There’s been no shortage of numbers attesting to the rapid transformation of the American economy: $86 billion in private investment, 51 new or expanded plants for producing solar panels, 91 new factories for making batteries, more than 100,000 clean-energy jobs.
One number has remained much harder to pin down over the past year: precisely how much will be spent as a result of the IRA. Cost estimates have continued to shift upward and now span a range of more than half a trillion dollars.