How Tonko helped shape Biden's $2 trillion infrastructure plan into a climate bill

WASHINGTON — After weeks of behind-the-scenes conversations working on the package with White House officials, U.S. Rep. Paul Tonko, D-Amsterdam, said Tuesday President Joe Biden's  $2 trillion infrastructure plan will "result in a huge climate response," through investments in electric vehicles, renewable energy, and weatherization.

Tonko, who leads a House subcommittee on climate change, has been working with cabinet officials and White House liaisons to ensure Democrats' key environmental priorities are tucked in the infrastructure plan that Biden will unveil in a speech in Pennsylvania Wednesday.

"I think it's got the basics," Tonko said in an interview Tuesday.

Broadly, the infrastructure plan will direct $2 trillion over the next decade to upgrade the nation's transportation system, improve Internet, electricity and water systems, building out the country's care-giving industry and invest in research and development, an administration official said. Each investment will be underpinned by directives to make this infrastructure greener, low-emission, sustainable and able to survive climate change-fueled weather disasters.

The plan will invest $115 billion to modernize the nation's worst road and bridges, $80 billion to improve Amtrak, including in the high-traffic North East corridor, and billions more to improve airports and water ports, an administration official said. It will also deliver "100 percent coverage" for broadband, improve public school buildings and veterans hospitals and invest in research in semiconductors, advance computing and other technology.

The plan will be paid for over 15 years by tax changes Biden is also proposing, an administration official said. Those include raising the corporate tax rate to 28 percent, setting a global minimum corporate tax, take steps to block off-shoring of jobs and increasing tax enforcement against companies.

Biden has been clear that he views climate-related investments as a huge economic driver and a big part of the path out of the economic downturn caused by COVID-19. In his first days in office, Biden set a goal of making the power sector "carbon pollution free" by 2035 and achieving net-zero emissions across the entire American economy by 2050.

As a result, Biden's massive infrastructure plan goes well beyond roads, bridges and buildings, advancing many of Democrats' foremost climate priorities.

The bill will feature $174 billion investment to help put more electric cars on the road, based on a proposal developed by Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y. It would offer incentives for Americans to exchange their gas-powered car for an electric one and invest in putting electric vehicle charging stations all over the country. The federal government would buy electric vehicles for its fleet, including the U.S. Postal Service.

"Senator Schumer was proud to be an early champion for transforming American cars from carbon-polluting engines to clean electric energy and is glad that candidate Biden adopted this vital push," said Allison Biasotti, a spokeswoman for Schumer, who worked closely with the administration on the bill. "Sen. Schumer looks forward to working with President Biden to realize this change because the catastrophe of climate change requires big, bold change."

Tonko said he "stressed" the need for electric vehicle investments "big time," in recent conversations with the executive branch on the bill. Tonko spoke with White House National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy and members of the White House Climate Task Force, a group that includes the heads of nearly every federal agency as well as other federal officials, he said.

Tonko said he highlighted in conversations with the administration prioritizing investments in weatherizing buildings, using tax credits to offer long-term support to the renewable energy sector and implementing a "clean energy standard," a baseline that requires a certain amount of the nation's electricity portfolio to come from renewable energy or low emission sources.

Biden's plan will establish a new federal "Energy Efficiency and Clean Electricity Standard," an administration official said, but did not specify what the standard would be.

The infrastructure plan will also invest $35 billion into research in climate science and methods for reducing emissions. Biden will ask for $46 billion to help the federal government purchase clean energy technology to upgrade its own systems.

The infrastructure package will also offer tax credits to incentivize the construction of new high-voltage transmission lines to move power around the country and tax credits to support companies involved in clean energy generation and storage. In addition, the bill will put money toward building energy efficient homes and schools.

Matt Huber, associate professor of Geography and the Environment at Syracuse University, said many of the ideas included in the plan sound similar to former President Barack Obama's climate-related stimulus measures, which leaned heavily on electric vehicles and tax credits and have helped renewable energy expand quickly.

"The Clean Electricity Standard is the new policy on the block," Huber said. "It's the new exciting magic bullet policy. Carbon pricing had been that, carbon taxes in particular, and nowadays people have moved away from that."

All these infrastructure measures will either have to win bipartisan support to pass through Congress or Democrats might again use a complicated budget process to pass them with Republican support.

Progressives in Congress, like Tonko, have been pushing the administration to use the Democratic majorities to make sweeping change in areas like climate change and on other priorities.

"Certainly there are the tools in the kit for climate response that are required in ordered for us to reach our rather robust goals in response to decarbonization," Tonko said Tuesday. "At the same time, even for those who may not embrace the concept or urgency of climate, is it so difficult or so negative to clean the air we breathe, to make more safe the water we drink and remediate the soils we require?"

Some Democrats, like Green New Deal architect, Sen. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., want Biden to go even further on climate: he's advocating for $10 trillion in spending over the next decade.

Republicans are expected to oppose many parts of the infrastructure plan, especially its tax proposal, which would unwind portions of their 2017 tax law.

“I don’t think there’s going to be any enthusiasm on our side for a tax increase," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said this month.