As we close out St. Andrew’s focus on the Green Team during May, the Green Team felt it was important to highlight positive environmental progress on both the U.S. national climate emergency over the past three years and also recently in California. Summary of accomplishments below:
Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act – the most significant investment in U.S. history to tackle the climate crisis – and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Together, these bills are saving families hundreds of dollars per year on energy bills; creating millions of good-paying jobs for American workers through clean energy manufacturing; strengthening our resilience to extreme weather events; and delivering cleaner air and water for our children and grandchildren.
The Biden Administration has taken hundreds of executive actions to restore protections for the environment and public health, strengthen pollution standards, advance environmental justice, and protect more than 41 million acres of public lands and waters.
Companies have announced investments to build more than 580 new clean energy manufacturing facilities from coast to coast – a manufacturing renaissance that is creating tens of thousands of good jobs for workers to forge the wind turbines, solar panels, batteries, and electric vehicles (EVs) we need to support a livable climate and a fairer economy.
New investments in U.S. clean energy manufacturing, electric vehicles and batteries, and clean power projects have reached over $390 billion during the Biden Administration. Clean energy jobs have grown in every single state, employing more than 3 million Americans across solar, wind, storage, energy efficiency, electric vehicles, and more.
EV sales have quadrupled and the U.S. achieved the milestone of 1 million annual EV sales 3 years earlier than forecasters anticipated. The number of public EV chargers has increased by more than 70% to over 175,000. Companies have announced enough new battery manufacturing capacity in the United States to supply as many as 13 million EVs per year by 2030.
From The White House, President Biden’s Historic Climate Action
California has passed SB54 ("Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act"). Key components of the Act: All packaging must be 100% recyclable or compostable by 2032; all plastic packaging must have a recycle rate of 65% by 2032 (current recycle rate is <10%); packaging manufacturers will incur heavy fines for non-compliance.
While much has been accomplished, much more needs to be done. This is the decisive decade for the world to confront climate change.
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