President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris arrive on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC during a celebration of the Inflation Reduction Act on 13 September 2022. (Photo by Nathan Posner/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Even for the world’s largest economy, $369bn is a lot of money. That figure, the carve out for clean energy transition and climate spending in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), is four times larger than the US’s previous largest investment in climate action.
Even more important than the size of that dollar figure is what the law does for investor confidence. Before the IRA, US federal clean energy policymaking was known more for its variability than its largesse – clean energy deployment spikes and slumps tracked the life…