Biden Unveils $2 Trillion Plan To Move US To “100% Clean Energy” By 2035

One of the more laughable campaign promises embraced by Democratic primary opponents during the 2020 primary campaign was a promise – featured prominently in AOC and Sen Markey’s “Green New Deal” policy proposal – to move America to “100% clean energy” by 2035.

Many who read this initially probably don’t understand that yes, they’re really calling for the entire US economy to move off of fossil fuels by 2035. Accomplishing such a rapid, radical shift would require a font of disposable capital that would only really make sense under an MMT framework where debt can be accrued without limit and without ever intending for debts to be repaid.

Now, that policy commitment has become a featured component of Biden’s economic spending plan, which he plans to unveil on Tuesday during another speech. Except unlike the plan he embraced in the primary, this one will include an additional $300 billion commitment to finance the left’s green economy dream.

Here’s more from BBG:

Joe Biden on Tuesday will call for setting a 100% clean-electricity standard by 2035 and investing $2 trillion over four years on clean energy, three people familiar with his plan said Monday.

The Democratic nominee’s new commitments mark a clear shift toward progressives’ environmental priorities and cutting the use of fossil fuels. The people briefed on his plan spoke on the condition of anonymity ahead of its formal rollout Tuesday in Wilmington, Delaware.

The $2 trillion in spending across four years is in place of the more modest $1.7 trillion over 10 years plan that Biden proposed last year while fighting for the nomination. Most of that investments in the new proposal would be one-time costs with the goal of spending the money to the maximum extent possible during those four years.

As BBG acknowledges, the Biden plan leaves out some of the more extreme proposals included in the new deal – though not for want of trying: By decimating air travel, the virus has effectively curtailed air travel (since planes are right up there with cow farts in terms of environmental threat level).

But after all that braying and howling about Biden being “neoliberal scum”, it appears the far-left has gotten to the former VP, and his team is now overcompensating to a degree that threatens to alienate centrist voters.

Yet the challenge for Biden lies in convincing progressive voters that he hasn’t left them short even as he set aside some of the more ambitious moves called for in the Green New Deal championed by left-wing Democrats including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.

Biden’s new proposals bring him closer to the positions of his more progressive former primary opponents, including Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and Washington Governor Jay Inslee, whose campaign focused on climate change. Inslee had proposed a 100% clean electricity standard by 2035 that Warren later endorsed. A task force of allies of Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders offered a similar idea last week, recommending that Democrats commit to eliminate carbon pollution from power plants by 2035.

Biden foreshadowed his proposals at a Monday fundraiser, telling donors that “2050 is a million years from now in the minds of most people. My plan is focused on taking action now, this decade, in the 2020s.”

Another great example of this is Biden’s plan to create a “climate corps”, which has been described as a “climate conservation corp” modeled after “the work-relief programs of Franklin Delano Roosevelt”.

Biden will also call for the creation of a climate conservation corps modeled after the work-relief programs President Franklin Delano Roosevelt created during the Great Depression, according to two more people briefed on the initiative.

Oh, and let’s not forget the piece de resistance: Taking the Obama EV tax credits one step further, Biden will instead hand out cash vouchers allowing citizens to trade in their gas powered cars for electric models.

The plan also embraces Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s proposal to rapidly turn over of the nation’s automobile fleet, with taxpayers enticed by cash vouchers to trade in their gas-powered cars for plug-in electric, hybrid or hydrogen fuel cell cars, the two people said. The initiative also would steer tens of billions of dollars toward building charging infrastructure including in rural communities.

A chicken in every pot, and a Tesla in every garage. Maybe yesterday’s $TSLA reversal really was just another dip to buy?