On Wednesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “All In,” former Biden White House National Economic Council Director Brian Deese reacted to projected cost overruns in the Inflation Reduction Act’s green provisions by stating that “people have been fundamentally asking the wrong question” when they ask how much the act will cost, and the question should be, “how much clean energy investment can these incentives actually produce in the country?” He also stated that “the only way the cost of the Inflation Reduction Act goes up is if we have significantly more investment in clean energy projects and solving climate change and creating jobs” “And so, the more that we can build clean energy infrastructure, the better.”
Host Chris Hayes asked, “[T]he Inflation Reduction Act, the amount of climate investment was a score from the CBO where they projected that people will use these tax credits at x hundreds of billions of dollars. But there’s no limit to them, the credits are just there, and if more people want to use them, we have more investment. And I think, like, what’s happening right now in the green energy space has basically never happened before in the 20 years I’ve covered climate. How encouraged are you, how worried are you about what’s happening in terms of those incentives and that investment?”
Deese answered, “Look, you’re right, it’s a little technical, but people have been fundamentally asking the wrong question, which is, how much will the Inflation Reduction Act cost? But the structure of the bill was these long-term tax incentives. And so, really, the question we should ask is, how much clean energy investment can these incentives actually produce in the country? And I have to tell you, over the course of the last nine months, I have been surprised, the top end of my expectation in of terms what we’re seeing around the country. You said you haven’t seen this, I haven’t seen this in my professional lifetime either. … But the opportunity here, the potential is much greater than we anticipated when we passed this law. And that is fundamentally good news, because the only way the cost of the Inflation Reduction Act goes up is if we have significantly more investment in clean energy projects and solving climate change and creating jobs. So, that is kind of one of the positive benefits of the structure of the bill. And as you say, the appetite is only limited by how much clean energy investment can we attract to the United States? There’s no other limit other than that. And so, the more that we can build clean energy infrastructure, the better.”
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