Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Podcast

Why Treasury’s No. 2 Official Wants Permitting Reform

Inside season 2, episode 1 of Shift Key.

Solar workers.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Two years ago this week, President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest investment in clean energy and climate mitigation in American history. It contained roughly two dozen new or expanded tax credits that will — if the forecasts bear out — provide hundreds of billions of dollars in funding over the next decade. The administration is now rushing to finalize those provisions before the November election.

Perhaps no official has been more central to setting up those tax credits than Wally Adeyemo, the deputy secretary of the U.S. Treasury Department. He is also the Treasury’s No. 2 official and chief operating officer. Adeyemo has led the agency’s effort to implement the climate law, overseeing a group of tax lawyers and political appointees who are critical to the legislation’s ultimate success. He joins Shift Key this week to help us kick off our second season and talk about how the effort to implement the climate law is going, what could stand in its way, and why he wants some kind of permitting reform.

Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap, and Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University.

Subscribe to “Shift Key” and find this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can also add the show’s RSS feed to your podcast app to follow us directly.

Here is an excerpt from our conversation:

Robinson Meyer: So obviously, one of the huge risks for investors is that the IRA is repealed, in part or in full, in the next Congress. And we know, just as a fact, that Congress is going to have to do something on taxes. Next Congress, the Trump tax cuts are expiring, there’s going to be, there’s interest in doing something with a child tax credit. It’s going to really come down to who has control of the two chambers.

How are you thinking about, as a Democratic administration, protecting the IRA going into a very ambiguous 2025 environment, and how are companies who you talk to thinking through that quite large political risk around the threat of repeal next year?

Wally Adeyemo: So maybe I’ll break it down into two different types of tax credits, the business tax credits and the consumer-oriented tax credits. When it comes to business tax credits, as you both know from following this for a while, those don’t usually go away. Because ultimately, what happens is that, for these businesses, they do a fairly good job of making clear to members how those tax credits are tied to jobs that end up being in their districts.

One of the things that I’m proudest of is, when you look at the dispersion of projects tied to the IRA throughout the country, it puts us in a place where a number of people who voted for — and even, in some cases, many who didn’t vote for — the IRA now have significant projects being funded by the IRA happening in their districts, that they’re hiring people based on IRA-related projects, and it’s driving real economic activity. So when it comes to these business tax credits, my sense is that there’s going to be a case for keeping them, independent from the climate goals, which they’re helping to achieve because of the fact that they’re creating jobs in these districts that are helping to power those local economies.

On the consumer tax credits — and just today, I think we’re speaking on August 7, we put out a report about more than 3 million Americans claiming a set of consumer-oriented credits to help install things like solar panels on their homes, and heat pumps. And on these credits — they existed before the IRA. And frankly, what we did with the IRA was, we further incentivized people and created some flexibility within these credits.

These credits existed in the last administration. They’ve existed during the Obama administration. So the reality is that for some of these consumer-oriented credits and some of the business-oriented credits, they had both existed in Republican administrations. There have been Republicans who have supported them. For example, when you think about the wind credits, there have been a number of senators from the Midwest, both Democrats and Republicans, who have been huge advocates for them because they matter to their district.

So from my standpoint, the most important thing we can do to preserve the IRA is to make sure that we get these rules done as quickly as possible, so that not only businesses but individuals start to rely on them. They help, from my standpoint, address the climate crisis that we face. But from the standpoint of consumers, they help lower their cost. And the report we put out today showed that for some consumers installing a heat pump, for example, it lowered the cost of utilities by up to $3,000 a year. The more that happens, the more people who take advantage of it, the more likely that those tax credits are going to remain. And I think that’s also true for the business tax credit. So that’s the strategy, and I think that it’s one that’s been borne out by other business and consumer tax credits in the past.

This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …

Watershed’s climate data engine helps companies measure and reduce their emissions, turning the data they already have into an audit-ready carbon footprint backed by the latest climate science. Get the sustainability data you need in weeks, not months. Learn more at watershed.com.

As a global leader in PV and ESS solutions, Sungrow invests heavily in research and development, constantly pushing the boundaries of solar and battery inverter technology. Discover why Sungrow is the essential component of the clean energy transition by visiting sungrowpower.com.

Antenna Group helps you connect with customers, policymakers, investors, and strategic partners to influence markets and accelerate adoption. Visit antennagroup.com to learn more.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

Yellow

You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe today to experience Heatmap’s expert analysis 
of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Texas Flood Among Worst in 100 Years
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: The remnants of Tropical Storm Chantal will bring heavy rain and potential flash floods to the Carolinas, southeastern Virginia, and southern Delaware through Monday nightTwo people are dead and 300 injured after Typhoon Danas hit TaiwanLife-threatening rainfall is expected to last through Monday in Central Texas.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Death toll in Central Texas floods climbs to 82, with more than 40 still missing

  Jim Vondruska/Getty Images

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow
Politics

The Permitting Crisis for Renewables

A fifth of U.S. counties now restrict renewables development, according to exclusive data gathered by Heatmap Pro.

Counties, clean energy, and pollution.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images, Library of Congress

A solar farm 40 minutes south of Columbus, Ohio.

A grid-scale battery near the coast of Nassau County, Long Island.

Keep reading...Show less
Green
Hotspots

Judge, Siding With Trump, Saves Solar From NEPA

And more on the week’s biggest conflicts around renewable energy projects.

The United States.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

1. Jackson County, Kansas – A judge has rejected a Hail Mary lawsuit to kill a single solar farm over it benefiting from the Inflation Reduction Act, siding with arguments from a somewhat unexpected source — the Trump administration’s Justice Department — which argued that projects qualifying for tax credits do not require federal environmental reviews.

  • We previously reported that this lawsuit filed by frustrated Kansans targeted implementation of the IRA when it first was filed in February. That was true then, but afterwards an amended complaint was filed that focused entirely on the solar farm at the heart of the case: NextEra’s Jeffrey Solar. The case focuses now on whether Jeffrey benefiting from IRA credits means it should’ve gotten reviewed under the National Environmental Policy Act.
  • Perhaps surprisingly to some, the Trump Justice Department argued against these NEPA reviews – a posture that jibes with the administration’s approach to streamlining the overall environmental analysis process but works in favor of companies using IRA credits.
  • In a ruling that came down on Tuesday, District Judge Holly Teeter ruled the landowners lacked standing to sue because “there is a mismatch between their environmental concerns tied to construction of the Jeffrey Solar Project and the tax credits and regulations,” and they did not “plausibly allege the substantial federal control and responsibility necessary to trigger NEPA review.”
  • “Plaintiffs’ claims, arguments, and requested relief have been difficult to analyze,” Teeter wrote in her opinion. “They are trying to use the procedural requirements of NEPA as a roadblock because they do not like what Congress has chosen to incentivize and what regulations Jackson County is considering. But those challenges must be made to the legislative branch, not to the judiciary.”

2. Portage County, Wisconsin – The largest solar project in the Badger State is now one step closer to construction after settling with environmentalists concerned about impacts to the Greater Prairie Chicken, an imperiled bird species beloved in wildlife conservation circles.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow