Name: Biden Wants 5 Times Obama's Climate Spending. That’s Still 5 Times Too Small.
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Biden Wants 5 Times Obama's Climate Spending. That’s Still 5 Times Too Small.

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×U.S. EditionPart of HuffPost Politics. ©2022 BuzzFeed, Inc. All rights reserved.×AdvertisementOn a private call with activist groups Tuesday evening that HuffPost listened to, White House climate policy czar Gina McCarthy acknowledged that the spending package may disappoint climate advocates hoping to see a more ambitious budget, but said it marked only one area of the administration’s decarbonization plans.“I don’t know if we’re going to meet your expectations on size, but it’s certainly going to be transformational to our economy,” she said. Advertisement“Deficit politics are getting in the way of building a more sustainable and resilient economy that works for all.”- Mark Paul, economist and fellow at the Roosevelt InstituteProgressives led by Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) announced a $10 trillion counterproposal to the White House plan on Monday called the THRIVE Act, which would pump $1 trillion per year into green infrastructure and care-economy work.AdvertisementAdvertisementA White House spokesperson did not respond to HuffPost’s email requesting comment. “The worst mistake we could make right now would be to let concerns about the state of the economy — overheating, inflation, the deficit — convince people to do less than what Biden is proposing,” said J.W. Mason, an associate professor economics at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. “That would be a disaster, a terrible mistake.”AdvertisementWall Street analysts saw the package less as a climate bill than an infrastructure overhaul that included some green provisions. “This is really rebuilding aging infrastructure, though he has also said that advancing environmental policy and getting to a net-zero power sector by 2035 is also a priority,” said Scott Levine, a senior energy and industrial analyst at the investment research firm Bloomberg Intelligence. “But those are different objectives.” “I don’t know if we’re going to meet your expectations on size, but it’s certainly going to be transformational to our economy.”- White House climate czar Gina McCarthyAdvertisementThe proposed spending on housing offered one of the starkest examples of where advocates say the package falls short of what’s needed.While U.S. Energy Information Administration that one-third of Americans can’t afford their utility bills, the plan pledges to “produce, preserve, and retrofit more than a million affordable, resilient, accessible, energy efficient, and electrified housing units” ― less than 1% of the housing stock. The proposal also offers $20 billion worth of tax credits over the next five years to build or rehabilitate about 500,000 homes, a line item that’s significantly smaller than the over $30 billion per year the federal government spends subsidizing mortgages. “Biden’s housing plan has nice rhetoric but its lack of ambition is catastrophic—squandering a once-in-a-generation moment,” Daniel Aldana Cohen, a sociologist and climate policy expert at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote in a of . “This plan is a drop in the bucket.”On the Tuesday conference call, McCarthy urged advocates to “hype” the infrastructure package, warning that criticism may splinter support in Congress and pare down the ambition of what it does include. One advocate responded by stating: “I don’t feel hyped up.” “Let’s be really smart and let’s just talk about how great it is to have a president that goes out as far as this,” McCarthy said. “Then we’ll argue and fight and debate and push amongst ourselves. But all of us will see our ideas in this. You will see what you proposed.”AdvertisementSee GallerySuggest a correctionNewsletter Sign UpHuffPost's top politics stories, straight to your inbox.Successfully Subscribed!Realness delivered to your inbox

×U.S. EditionPart of HuffPost Politics. ©2022 BuzzFeed, Inc. All rights reserved.×AdvertisementOn a private call with activist groups Tuesday evening that HuffPost listened to, White House climate policy czar Gina McCarthy acknowledged that the spending package may disappoint climate advocates hoping to see a more ambitious budget, but said it marked only one area of the administration’s decarbonization plans.“I don’t know if we’re going to meet your expectations on size, but it’s certainly going to be transformational to our economy,” she said. Advertisement“Deficit politics are getting in...

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AlexCKaufman

Alexander C. Kaufman

At HuffPost, we put people first. We believe that real life is news, and news is personal.

Biden Wants 5 Times Obama's Climate Spending. That’s Still 5 Times Too Small.

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