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The Biggest Climate Bill of Your Life - But What does it DO!?

2022-08-12 · explainer · Hank, Jesse Jenkins, Michael Regan · 22:23 · watch on YouTube

Topic: US politics & society (also: Science & nature) · mode: News analysis · tags: timely hook, guest or collab, self promotion

Formerly titled The Biggest Climate Deal in History Almost Didn't Happen.

As Joe Biden prepares to sign the largest climate bill any country has enacted, Hank explains its three goals (cutting emissions, making the energy shift good for people, and making the US a clean-tech manufacturing centre), walks through its spending, its few sticks for fossil fuels and Joe Manchin's concessions, and says he is more optimistic than ever that climate change can be tackled.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — The bill is about to be signed; coverage is thin; Hank's research

  • ★★★ Hank says Joe Biden is probably signing today the largest single piece of climate legislation any country has ever enacted. (hedged) — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Finding coverage thin on detail, Hank researched the bill himself: nonpartisan analyses, CBO reports, their authors, the EPA administrator and the 700-page bill text. — 00:00:00

00:00:29 — From early life and fossil fuels to carbon dioxide trapping heat; we can't just turn the power plants off

  • ★★ Hank notes that early photosynthesizers' oxygen once killed almost everything, so life changing the atmosphere to its own harm is not new. (playful) — 00:00:29
  • ★★ Fossil fuels are the remains of dead life trapped in the earth, heated and squished into coal, oil or natural gas, storing energy from the sun. — 00:01:06 · Earth
  • ★★★ Burning them releases carbon dioxide, opaque to infrared, so heat stays in the atmosphere, changing weather and increasing droughts, fires, storms and heat waves. — 00:01:35 · climate change
  • ★★★ Hank says we need that energy for survival, food and transport, so we can't just turn the power plants off: people would start dying quickly. — 00:02:04

00:02:32 — US emissions since 2005, cheap renewables (Jesse Jenkins), optimism and net zero by 2050 (Michael Regan)

  • ★★ In 2005, shortly before the channel began, US carbon emissions peaked at 7 billion tons per year. — 00:02:32 · United States
  • ★★ Jesse Jenkins recalls that wind power under $100 per megawatt hour, triple the normal rate, was a great deal, and solar cost ten times normal power. — 00:02:32
  • ★★ Jesse Jenkins: Jenkins says supportive policies in the US, China, Germany, Japan and elsewhere turned expensive alternatives into cheap, trillion-dollar mainstream technologies scaling rapidly. — 00:03:02 · China, United States
  • ★★ Hank is more optimistic now than 20 years ago because he has seen a lot of change. — 00:03:31
  • ★★★ Since the channel began, US emissions have dropped from 7 billion to 5 billion tons per year. — 00:03:31 · United States
  • ★★★ Citing Jesse Jenkins's models, Hank says US emissions will probably fall to 3.5 billion tons within 15 years, 50% below the peak. (hedged) — 00:03:31
  • ★★ Michael Regan: EPA Administrator Michael Regan says technology, quick innovation and new business models mean we can move faster than ever before. — 00:04:00
  • ★★ Hank says the aim is net zero emissions in America by 2050. — 00:04:00 · United States
  • ★★★ Hank says this is the first time in his life he has felt net zero by 2050 might be possible. — 00:04:25
  • ★★ The energy shift is unprecedented, perhaps except original electrification, and must happen much faster; it is more complex than anyone thinks and no one person understands all of it. — 00:04:25

00:04:54 — The bill's three goals and its big pieces: renewables, manufacturing credit, nuclear and firm power, home electrification, EV credits

  • ★★★ Hank frames the bill's first two goals: decrease carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions, and make climate, pollution and energy-shift impacts less harmful to people, especially the most disadvantaged. — 00:04:54
  • ★★★ The bill's third goal, key to understanding it, is to make the US an industrial centre of the clean technology revolution. — 00:05:23 · United States
  • ★★ Hank represents the bill's spending as 369 blocks of a billion dollars each. — 00:05:23
  • ★★★ The biggest share incentivizes power producers to install wind, solar and grid-scale batteries, lowering electricity bills and the carbon of charging electric cars. — 00:05:52
  • ★★ These incentives also come with minimum wage and apprenticeship requirements and require components made in America or by free trade allies. — 00:06:21 · United States
  • ★ Hank compares the stacking incentives to the trick multipliers in Tony Hawk Pro Skater. (playful) — 00:06:21
  • ★★★ The second biggest piece is a manufacturing tax credit: about $37 billion is expected to help companies make solar panels, batteries and wind turbines in the US. — 00:06:51 · United States
  • ★★ For firm power, the biggest piece of cash keeps existing nuclear power plants open and operating, with wage and apprenticeship requirements. — 00:07:20
  • ★★ Smaller investments go to possible future firm power: advanced nuclear, advanced geothermal and advanced biofuels, any of which could matter. — 00:07:49
  • ★★★ For people: $22 billion helps households electrify appliances (heat pumps, water heaters, stoves, electrical boxes), $14 billion goes to building efficiency and $12 billion to EV tax credits. — 00:08:18
  • ★★ Your house has an exhaust pipe: gas furnaces, water heaters and stoves emit carbon dioxide and can only be cleaned up by switching to electric appliances. (playful) — 00:08:18
  • ★★ Gas prices fluctuate more than electricity, hitting low-income people hardest because energy is a larger share of their spending. — 00:09:17
  • ★★ Earlier EV credits covered only each maker's first 200,000 vehicles, used up by GM and Tesla; the bill extends them for 10 years if manufacturing requirements are met. — 00:10:15
  • ★★ Because of the manufacturing requirements, few cars will qualify for the EV credit at first, and they will sell very quickly. — 00:10:15
  • ★★ Other countries have had such industrial policy for decades, building their industries; the bill's authors want the US to have it, for better or worse. — 00:10:15 · United States

00:10:44 — The many smaller provisions and community grants

  • ★★ Hundreds of smaller provisions include $3 billion each for power-plant carbon capture, electrifying most of the postal fleet and reconnecting communities divided by interstates. — 00:11:13
  • ★★ Other provisions cover forest fires, aviation fuels, electric buses, farms, ports, building materials, transmission lines, EV charging, tribal grants and rural co-ops, plus non-prescriptive community money. — 00:11:42
  • ★★ Michael Regan: Regan says grants go to community groups with universities and incubators, and solutions can look a thousand and one ways: there is no one size fits all. — 00:12:41

00:13:03 — Why no carbon tax: carrots not sticks; methane fines, Superfund tax and federal-land changes

  • ★★★ Asked why not do the one thing that would do everything, make fossil fuels more expensive, Hank answers with the Mean Girls line: it is not going to happen. (playful) — 00:13:03
  • ★★ An ex-ExxonMobil lobbyist was caught on video saying nobody will propose a tax on all Americans, so backing a carbon tax is just a talking point. — 00:13:03
  • ★★★ With high inflation and $5 gas, no member of Congress would raise fuel costs, so the bill is nearly all carrots for clean energy and a few sticks for fossil fuels. — 00:13:31 · United States Congress
  • ★★★ Methane is even better at trapping heat than CO2, 80 times over the short term, and it leaks at every step from wellhead to home. — 00:14:00
  • ★★★ Hank loves the Methane Emissions Reduction Program: incentives to fix leaks, inspection teams and rising fines that force companies to clean up. — 00:14:30
  • ★★ The other sticks are minor: a reinstated Superfund tax, higher government returns on oil and gas from federal land, and higher costs for idle leases. — 00:14:59
  • ★★ Mostly the aim is for fossil fuel costs to stay steady or fall as demand drops because the alternatives are better. — 00:15:28

00:15:53 — Joe Manchin's fossil-fuel provisions

  • ★★★ Joe Manchin forced in oil and gas leases in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico that Trump authorized and Biden paused; Hank calls it weird, frustrating and outside normal process. — 00:15:53 · Donald Trump
  • ★★ A second provision ties clean energy projects on federal land to offering oil and gas leases elsewhere, blocking lease bans for the next decade. — 00:16:23

00:16:52 — Projected emissions cuts by 2030 and 2035

  • ★★ Modelers show these provisions reduce the bill's overall carbon effectiveness by only about 2%, though Hank finds them disappointing. — 00:16:52
  • ★ Manchin got everyone talking about his love of fossil fuels and became a title name on the bill despite being one of its biggest opponents. (satire) — 00:16:52
  • ★★★ By 2030 the bill cuts about a billion tons of CO2 a year: transport 280 million, power 360 million, industry 130 million, buildings about 70 million. — 00:17:21

00:17:50 — What was lost, how close the bill came to failing, and why Hank now believes it can be done

  • ★★ The changes are projected to cut another 500 million tons by 2035. — 00:17:50
  • ★★ Hank is unapologetically excited but mad about losing the Civilian Climate Corps and frustrated at the lost due process on the oil leases. — 00:17:50
  • ★★ Hank thinks this might be the last chance for years to do something substantial; four weeks earlier, like much of Build Back Better, it seemed it wouldn't happen. (hedged) — 00:18:20
  • ★★ Jesse Jenkins: Jenkins recalls that, as he was leaving for vacation with his family, he got the call from Senator Schumer's staff that the bill was dead. — 00:18:50
  • ★★ Jesse Jenkins: Jenkins likens the fight to the phases of grief: some stopped at anger at Manchin, while some, including a few senators, bargained, and against all odds it worked. — 00:18:57
  • ★★★ Hank says no perfect legislation exists; with 330 million of us, the fact that anything gets done at all is a little impressive. — 00:19:26
  • ★★★ Over the last decade US emissions cuts came largely from government investment: about $20 billion a year in 2009-2017, rising to $80 billion a year over the next 10 years. — 00:19:26
  • ★★★ Powerful opponents moved from denying climate change to saying the costs are too great, and Hank expects them to say next that it is too late. — 00:20:04 · climate change
  • ★★★ For the first time in decades Hank believes climate change can be tackled, thanks to many people's hard work and effects too real to ignore. — 00:20:33 · climate change
  • ★★ We might be in a narrow window when effects are too present to ignore but not yet so present they block solutions. (hedged) — 00:21:02
  • ★★ One big step does not get us over the mountain pass; there is much more to do. — 00:21:25

00:21:50 — Full interviews on Hank's channel; thanks to everyone who worked on the bill

  • ★ Hank's full interviews with Jesse Jenkins and Administrator Regan are on Hank's channel. — 00:21:50 · hankschannel
  • ★★ Hank thanks the thousands of viewers who worked on the bill, also on behalf of his son, whose future he wants powered by clean energy. — 00:21:50 · Orin Green

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description says the bill will have a huge, mostly unnoticed impact for years, as good legislation does, though some parts won't work and will make news. — video description
  • ★★ Hank is not gung-ho on all of it, and some parts anger him, but sees it as an amazing step he did not think America would make. — video description · United States

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: carbon dioxide · climate change · energy transition · fossil fuel · industrial policy · Inflation Reduction Act · Jesse Jenkins · Michael Regan · United States

Also: People: Chuck Schumer · Donald Trump · Joe Biden · Joe Manchin · Orin Green · Pablo Picasso

Projects: hankschannel

Works: Mean Girls · Tony Hawk's Pro Skater

Organizations: Congressional Budget Office · ExxonMobil · General Motors · Tesla, Inc. · United States Congress · United States Environmental Protection Agency · United States Postal Service · United States Senate

Concepts: carbon tax · due process · Electric car · five stages of grief · greenhouse gas · heat pump · induction cooking · inflation · methane · minimum wage · natural gas · nuclear power · photosynthesis · public land · solar power · tax credit · wind power

Places: Alaska · China · Earth · Germany · Gulf of Mexico · Japan

Products: Zune

Policies: Build Back Better Act · Civilian Climate Corps · Superfund

Also centred on carbon dioxide: How Climate Change /Actually/ Works...in 4 Minutes · October 4, 2024

Also centred on fossil fuel: Invalid Arguments: Climate Change · The Paris Accord: What is it? And What Does it All Mean?

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