provisions of the climate legislation in this week and their effect on areas like clean energy, job creation, electric vehicles and agriculture to help kick that off we are joined by robinson meyer, the founding executive editor of a heat map news, here to talk about the clean energy provisions in the inflation reduction act and more, your organization or your -- what you focus on? >> we are a new media company focusing on what we think is the biggest story in the world, climate change and energy. we >> we focus on decarbonization. it is cultural fallout, you can find us at map. news. we do new reporting every day. >> how are you funded?

>> single investor, subscription based. one of the decisions we have made is at this point with digital media it is the best way to align incentives and how we work is to get revenue from readers, so we ask them to subscribe. $80 annual subscription, eight dollar monthly subscription. we think that having a pay wall, a digital subscription is the best way to serve readers. >> what are you writing about? what are you reporting on? >> policy and politics of energy transition. any day we might have a review of an electric vehicle, a story about a court case or a lobbying considered that will affect energy, oil markets for solar and wind market. we have great disaster coverage

so when there is a large wildfire -- this year when there was the canadian snowstorms -- smoke storms, the maui buyer, we are covering all of those things. one thing i said buyer is some weather coverage has climate change and one thing i admire is we try to be honest about this factor, this disaster did contribute to climate change, this did not. we know whether disasters are becoming more common. >> this morning, you said several things this morning about the wildfire in that we and a step-by-step guide to wildfire evacuation. heat map. news. we are going to focus on the climate provisions and the inflation reduction act. what was the intent one year ago of the law? >> there are a few intense when

we look at the energy provision. the first was to meet the target under the paris agreement, to cut u.s. carbon emissions in half by 2030 or to their all-time high. the law does not get us there but it gets us close. the second is revitalize u.s. manufacturing and manufacturing competitiveness. a number of biting administration policies including the infrastructure law and chips act. it was a goal of the ira. the third goal was -- this encompasses the others, but it was to give the united states a climate policy and a starting place from which we could build the rest of our plan and policy. it is important to step back and say climate change became a

political issue let's say at 1988 when scientists alerted the senate that climate change had begun. 1992 there was a u.n. conference but for the next 32 years the united states did not have climate policy, we did not have a plan. we did not have a way to reduce carbon emissions, no consensus on how to do this read what the ira did was create a framework through tax credits and r&d grants, a whole slew of different tools to give us a climate policy. that in some cases was the biggest goal of the ira, have america be able to be part of this global climate transition and for us to stop kind of being a retro grade actor. >> the climate policy and biting

administration, it had to be through this vehicle known as the inflation reduction act. >> all tax credits, subsidies in the law, those are focused on reducing emissions. >> let's take a look at the 10 million dollars to build electric vehicles, wind turbines. one year sense, where are we on that? >> where we really see the tax credit taking hold is manufacturing. since the law, there have been 51 new factories or solar -- for solar. these are not just solar panels, all the parts of the supply chain. transformers, although tools you need. where we are early is seeing money trickle through and bring electricity to the grid and changing the grid. last year which of course all

the decisions that went into the grid preceded the inflation reduction act. 83 percent of new electric capacity in the u.s. was clean, wind, solar, zero carbon. i would expect that to rise but we don't have a date yet. >> in that bill signed last year, $7,500 tax credit or rebates for buying an electric vehicle. because americans bought into that? >> it depends on where you look in one thing that is interesting is it is divided into two parts. vehicles made in the united states and then half of it if you have refined minerals and vehicle batteries in the united states or allies. the second half is if the battery was manufactured in the u.s..

it's a rising percentage over time. we are seeing something happen in the electrical vehicles market but the goal of the provision shaped by senator joe mansion was to build a u.s. ev manufacturing base. the manufacturing base for electric vehicles and i think we have seen a response. so again, it is 51 new electric vehicle manufacturing the civilities in the u.s.. >> our guest is robert meyer, founding executive editor of heat math news. were talking about the inflation reduction act, climate visions and some of the provisions implemented over the past year. we welcome your calls and comments. excuse me, that is the republican line. 202-748-8000 four democrats.

and for independents, 202-748-8002. you've delineated which ones were eligible for the tax credit. at the time or shortly thereafter a number of manufacturers, european, were concerned that they were being shut out of the market. it has that been resolved? >> somewhat resolved but foreign manufacturers are opening in the united states. they've seen how the law works. they are playing along. there is another provision that gets talked about s, $7,500 credit for leasing in electric vehicle. and none of the domestic requirements apply because any electric vehicle will qualify. one thing we've seen is the number of leases have increased. vw, most of the electric cars,

what would look like a new vehicle is happening through leasing because they have to get that credit. >> $20 billion loans available for promoting electrical vehicle manufacturing. in this country there were battery factories built in states like georgia, alabama, kentucky, huge battery manufacturing. were those plants -- did they start because of the provision or are they benefiting from that? >> both, so first of all we saw electric google manufacturing facilities opening in the years before the ira. there has been an explosion partially because the provision and tax credits encourage domestic manufacturing so much to domestic made content. in terms of manufacturers using

credits, ford is opening a large kentucky facility in conjunction with south korean battery manufacturers and that facility is going to be entirely paid for by one kind of government support including large-scale loans the ira. >> where would you say in your reporting have american consumers seen the biggest benefit out of climate provisions? >> that's a good question. so far american consumers have seen the biggest benefits through the ev provision broadly. in the years to come they will see the biggest benefits through renewable tax credits, through what i would say many folks associated with the bill expect to be declining electricity prices, easier and cheaper to install renewables in your home. >> our american utility companies benefiting from converting to green energy?

>> they are but they are fighting at the same time that the law has set up protections and subsidies and tax credits, to build out renewables and clean electricity forms of generation read the epa is trying to put down rules that will force facilities to do that. utilities are fighting but many utilities have already committed to a zero carbon target, either eliminating all carbon emissions from electricity by 2035 or 2040. >> what states have done follow on provisions or laws in the wake of the passage of the provision? >> we've seen policies in blue states meant to drive out renewables. new york state passed a law that basically said utilities are not building quick enough the state will step in.

in the south what we have seen is it does not look like policy or say, not a law, but we've seen tax credits at local manufacturers to encourage them to build facilities in the sunbelt and what we are calling the battery belt. >> do you have any idea in terms of the level of employment? battery makers, electric vehicle manufacturers, what are the numbers? >> 37,000 new jobs in the supply chain announced across the country read i would say how many would form anyway? it is hard to say but there is an explosion and this is in some ways the biggest take away, the biggest place we are seeing the impact right now is that there was no guarantee that the u.s. was going to develop an electric vehicle supply chain. we have a good internal combustion supply chain but

there was no guarantee we would dominate electric vehicles. europe and china were going to excel at that and since the ira the u.s. has stepped up and it seems likely that we will meet or exceed kind of our domestic demand for electric vehicles through north american manufacturing. >> your calls and comments. 202-748-8001 the republican line. democrats, 202-748-8000. independents and all others 202-748-8002. mark is on the republican line, good morning. >> good morning. what i would like to bring up is the fact that whenever there is a charge about climate issues, what is emitted from the conversation is when you use words like tax credits for buying an electric vehicle or we are going to subsidize things.

that is kind of like a soft way of saying we are going to soak the american taxpayer because what is going to happen is people in the lowest tax bracket who make less than $40,000 a year are not going to be able to buy an electric vehicle with their tax money is going to go by force to people who can afford to buy electric goal -- electric vehicle. the whole thing with the climate i wish you would say what it really is. the people behind this believe there are too many people on the planet. climate change people make prediction after prediction which they have for the last 70 years, it keeps changing. first it would be global warming, then global freezing. leonard nimoy in 1979 claimed new york would be under a constant snow dealt within 10 years, you know?

in 1980 nine there was a washington post article that said the world was going to come to an end in 10 years. >> to mark's point on the tax credits and who is picking up the tab for the tax credits, is he right? >> there is a criticism that you hear from actually the left, the far left as well as republicans is that many incentives do not help renters and low income. you want to buy an electric vehicle, who is buying one, mid to upper income folks. there's a lot of incentives that we have not talked about to help by a heat pump or home appliances that emit less carbon. those help homeowners. who is homeowners? mid to upper income. the ev tax credit and home appliance tax credit are income cap so if you make more than

150,000 dollars a year you cannot take advantage of the tax credit >> let's start with those provisions, climate provisions in the inflation reduction act, signed an year ago this week by president biden. $9 billion for energy retrofits. 20 billion to assist farmers and ranchers with climate change and $30 million for cities and states to transition utilities to clean electricity we talked a little about that. touch on the assistance for farmers and ranchers. >> we are at the beginning of understanding how to do this but we know a ton of carbon is absorbed by the soil and there is actually more carbon in the soil than there may be in the atmosphere. so the idea is if we can get the soil to absorb more carbon than it is right now we may be able to use farms and ranches as a carbon soak, a place to fight

global warming. that is meant to fund research and encourage farmers to change approaches to reduce carbon. >> have you seen examples? >> that is early and what it will come down to is the science is very regional. techniques that reduce your carbon in the bay area of california or the central valley, it is not the same technique in iowa or the corn belt. one thing i think the money should go to is make sure we understand every region of the country is using land and existing agricultural -- higher education institutions to figure out what every region should be doing differently. >> let's go to tony in chicago on the independent line, good

morning. >> good morning. appreciate sec. -- segments like these on c-span. i unfortunately was missing from this bill in my knowledge, something i think would help either renters, low income, especially folks in urban areas, electrifying rail lines. there is a lot of incentives going toward the manufacturing of electric vehicles. even with credit goes will be priced too far out for workers who have their wages being decimated by inflation and all of that. to build out more transit infrastructure especially our rail lines and expanding the

rail lines that we have. we could be building electrified -- china is the global leader and i would like to say on china some of the calls, china is a global leader in green energy and their omissions are lower than the united states. china's emissions are lower. there is a lot to learn from them in terms of their technology and the way in which they direct the manufacturing products, not through a mix of incentives, through national planning and control of the market, so that the whole country can move forward and accomplish a goal, that is missing. private utilities, private manufacturers. incentives that it will at the job done but that will take too

much time with the prices that we have now, the credits that we have now will not allow us the time. this approach is going to take many. >> the comment is well taken. there were a few points as i was thinking about that but there is not much public funding transit. that being said that is because the administration believes it has put appropriate funding for public transportation in the infrastructure law. by the time the ira past, they thought we have already topped off public transit funding, however it is true that there is not the same investment in public transit in this law as some folks would say is appropriate according to that. not only do we need to electrify the car fleet, the private car

fleet in this country, we need to reduce the number of miles that every car driver has to drive. one way to do that is to roll out public transit. to the point about public planning, that is an interesting question because on the one hand, the ira -- there is no central planning authority behind the ira which i have to say, there is no authority behind the ira that says you must hit these targets democrats look at the provisions that would have heavily encouraged that kind of target where utilities do not reduce emissions by a certain amount they face higher taxes or fines. joe manchin rejected those plans. the u.s. has borrowed more -- the u.s. has adapted the chinese

policy playbook to work in the american system. other things that china does is clusters together high-tech manufacturers so that they can all rely on the same power sources, subcontractors. the u.s. is going to do that with direct air capture and other technologies. we have extended credit support, making it cheaper, in the u.s. it is a credit if you want to open a factory. >> you mentioned that you view this as our first real climate policy, the chinese do not have to worry about climate policy changing every four years. what are the potentials of in a situation where a republican is elected president, that any provisions in the ira are cut back? >> republicans in the house have proposed repealing tax credits including renewable tax credits. they're not quite renewable by

2025. they have already proposed repealing those, i think it will be interesting to see if republicans get a track record in 2025, if they follow through. there could be aca provision where republicans talk about repealing the law but when push comes to shove they realize these manufacturers are in their district. the largest solar manufacturer is in georgia. they are benefiting from these provisions and i think whether they are willing to pull back that support when they take office is an open question. republicans and republican rhetoric, the focus is on increased funding, that is outside of the scope of this. >> with regard to rail is there

a tension between priorities of mass transit, federal policy and local policy and the growing field of electric vehicles, individual transportation? where do we allocate -- were talking federal, where do we allocate federal dollars? >> the caller is testing my deep knowledge of the law. i believe there is funding in the infrastructure law as well in trade rail, that's how we move most rail in this country's. there is a tension, i don't think we will hit that for the next decade. there's a lot that cities can do to increase public transit options. one thing cities are focusing on right now is public transit in america is more expensive per mile of subway than china or europe which has many of the

same environmental laws that we do. figuring out how they can build public transit, build it cheaper and building out the system, doing electric bikes within cities. most americans live in suburbs or beyond in rural areas. in rural areas there is stuff we can do to improve public transit, but those are very car dependent transportation systems that we have and folks with homes and single-family homes, what they can do for decarbonization help and policy is ev's. >> executive editor, founding editor of heat map. news. we go to tamika in sanford, florida, good morning. hi. >> oh, hi, my name is tamika. i would like for -- to do more

networking. >> you wanted who to do networking? >> my cellular phone, all electronic angles. leveraging of the rod, that situation. that makes it tough to be another manufacturer. $250? so please remove those entities. at&t off of my cellular phone. >> that sounds like an individual issue. we are going to go to dominic who is calling from ontario, canada. good morning. >> hey, how is it going, good morning. first thing is you've got to

nationalize the energy industries, that is the first thing that has to happen. that is the base thing. then next, you invest that into your rail infrastructure so you can move people from one place and things from one place. and then when you do that, you build off of that and then you get social housing in there. then you get some people living and maybe surviving. and then maybe, maybe you have a functioning society. i don't know, i don't know, i don't know if i'm talking -- the energy companies and their reaction to this in terms of their transitions. some partial transitions, some of them to green energy. have they generally -- have they generally raise the provisions of the ira? >> no they have not. oil and gas companies at the tail end of the trumpet

administration, beginning of the biden administration, many published plans to say where not just going to be in oil and gas, sela fuel, were going to invest in renewables. then the ukraine war happen, russia invaded ukraine, oil prices spiked and oil became a profitable business again. one thing you saw oil executives realize is that oh, oil as long as we need oil will remain more profitable business than these very low margin, dependable, value-based renewable utility structures. and they pulled back some of those plans. you do see oil companies going, particularly a company based in texas, these oil companies -- the strongest and only example of this, they are talking about

their business not as oil and gas but carbon management. they say you take carbon out, burn it and then later we bring it back in. in order to meets -- in order for the world to keep below -- celsius we have to de-carbonized, reduce use of fossil fuels and it will not be enough to have us burn gas and then factories in texas that put carbon into the ground. we will need a little carbon removal from the air from these hard to do carbonized processes like steelmaking, let's say. oil companies are within that niche but it is quite early. >> barely a car company exist that does not offer an ev. as the push been accelerated by the climate act? >> it has entered the trump

administration and early biden, there were some like toyota that were not. every major car market in the world, china, u.s., europe, all have robust support. that means companies look around and say the ev transition is going to happen. not only will it happen but they can see a world where you can get a better car for less than you can at home. basically the cost of batteries will clear the threshold, it will become cheaper not only to run an ev but to buy an ev and when that happened they said ev's are the future, you have to embrace it. >> let's hear from randall in ohio on the independent line, go ahead. >> oh yes, good morning. i was going to purchase an ev simply because of the tax credit , though i am retired and live

on social security and savings. i found out the tax credit is much more collocated than what it sounds. you have to have earned income. if you do not have that you do not get the money as i understand it. if you are low income or in my case social security not taxed, living on savings, it was a surprise to me. i was wondering why is the tax credit and not a rebate, that's how it seems to be advertised, that the dealer would knock off $7,500 if you chose a hybrid plug in and a chrysler van, that is what it was. could you explain that please? >> absolutely, they are right, this is a tax credit and not a rebate. you need what they would call tax equity to take advantage of

this credit. what that means actually is that when you look at the income cap price, the tax of 150, if you make more than that you only start generating enough tax equity to -- you only start having enough viability to use the rebate around $45,000, so there are income brackets where the tax credits become susceptible. it is a tax credit and not a rebate because it is cheaper, easier. >> when you say score? relation to the deficit? >> exactly. that being said they may be able to take advantage of a leasing credit which is not the same income cap. it accrues to the manufacturer. you do not own a car, you are leasing. >> does it require a certain

amount of years? >> i do not believe it does. you see automakers rolling out deals, lease for 399 a month and then you put a certain amount down in the lease credit is included. there is a change and this has not been implemented, but there is a change coming where the dealer will be able to take advantage of the rebate or of the tax credit at point of sale. i do not believe that changes the tax equity question, where if you do not have enough taxed income you basically cannot use the credit. that will not be implemented until next year, so i don't know exactly how that works. >> a question via text, scott in massachusetts says does mr. meyer believe we will have the infrastructure in place to go fully electric at this point in time? my believe is we need to build out infrastructure prior to getting more electric vehicles

on the roads. >> i think this is a big question. there are two different places where the question opens. the first is are we building up charging infrastructure? the owners can have places to charge, pull over when their car runs out of battery. can they go on road trips? there is money in the law for charger buildout. transportation has started to award it. some of that is in the infrastructure law but it is early days. one thing that is happening is automakers are moving to using the tesla charging to charge. they have a sophisticated network today. the second place where the caller's question is pertinent is as we build out an ad renewables and zero carbon electricity to the grid, that will be certain places with the best renewable resources.

right now we are using the grid on a thomas edison model where you stick a coal plant in the middle of the city and run power lines out from it. that is not how the grid will work if we have wind turbines and solar panels in the windiest parts of the country. we would need to build more transmission right now in order to clean up our grid and bring electricity onto the grid, which will be important because there will be demand from electric vehicles. >> charlie in north carolina on the independent line, go ahead. >> yes, thank you for taking my call this morning. i want to ask the gentleman that you are speaking with, and he explained to me what happened to the dust plant that has gone out of business and the taxpayers of the united states have lost $6 billion and nobody knows where it went? then the solar panel thing that

you're talking about, down in georgia, what happened to the solar panel business that was done in california by president obama, were lost $500 million in three months of that? how can they explain kind of all of this changing over from combustible vehicles that we used, saving us any money. >> what was the bus plan? >> it was up in upstate new york somewhere for wherever vice president harris went to and she is the one promoting this plan. >> ok. >> i believe the caller is representing a company which did go out of business. and i think companies go out of business. in terms of -- i can speak better to solar that you're

talking about in california. it's true the obama administration coming out of the financial crisis, trying to bring back the economy, the recovery act of 2009 spent money and try to build up a solar manufacturing base in the united states. at the time they looked around and said the u.s., we are going to invest in the most advanced solar technology. if we can bring them to market they will generate more electricity than the existing solar we have now and investments were made by the government on that theory. at the same time china was trying to come back from a financial crisis and chinese entrepreneurs were part of the story. in 2010 and 11 china skilled