Congress has moved to fund clean energy—including $11 billion for nuclear energy and $6 billion for CCUS—and phase out a class of potent planet-warming chemicals and provide billions of dollars for renewable energy and efforts to suck carbon from the atmosphere as part of the $900 billion coronavirus relief package.
The bill also authorizes $2.9 billion for the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-e), a program that funds high-risk, high-reward research and that Trump has sought to eliminate multiple times.
The increased funding is expected to make emerging clean-energy technology cheaper and more widespread. This is especially significant for ideas that have proved effective but are struggling to make the jump to commercial viability.
“This is an opportunity to not only make significant advances in climate action and reducing HFCs, but to help maintain leadership of U.S. technology and our competitiveness in that global market,” said Marty Durbin, an energy lobbyist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the largest corporate lobbying group in Washington.
Read more in the The Washington Post: “Stimulus deal includes raft of provisions to fight climate change.”