Edison Electric Institute, power industry execs support Biden’s Build Back Better plan
Edison Electric Institute (EEI) President Tom Kuhn and several top energy company leaders Wednesday afternoon voiced support for President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Act, which they said will provide the national economy and their companies and customers with myriad benefits as America moves forward on its clean energy plan.
The power industry stakeholders met with Biden during the Feb. 9 roundtable to discuss the president’s initiative, which would provide $550 billion in spending on energy and climate measures. While the U.S. House of Representatives has approved the measure, it remains stalled in the U.S. Senate, prompting the investor-owned utility executives to advocate for the bill’s energy tax credits at the White House meeting today.
Organized by EEI, which is the national trade association for investor-owned electric companies, the meeting with Biden was attended by EEI’s Kuhn; Tom Fanning, chairman, chief executive officer and president of Southern Company; Nick Akins, CEO and president of American Electric Power; Edison International President and CEO Pedro Pizarro; Lynn Good, chairman, president and CEO of Duke Energy; Dennis Arriola, CEO of Avangrid Inc.; Patricia Vincent-Collawn, chairman, president and CEO of PNM Resources Inc.; Ameren Corp. Executive Chairman Warner Baxter; Calvin Butler, senior vice president and chief operating officer at Exelon Corp.; DTE Energy Chairman and EEI Chairman Gerry Anderson; U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm; U.S. National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy; and other Biden administration leaders.
Kuhn said the electric industry’s leadership strongly supports the Build Back Better Act because it “incorporates forward-thinking actions to address climate change, including a robust clean energy tax package that will deliver significant long-term benefits for electricity customers.”
Specifically, the clean energy tax policies that were discussed would allow electric companies to accelerate the clean energy transition while preserving electric reliability and affordability for the customers and communities they serve, Kuhn said.
During the meeting, the president said that he was particularly grateful for the industry leaders’ willingness to discuss the need for his Build Back Better Agenda, which he said includes the largest investment in U.S. history to combat climate change.
“It’ll lower energy costs and create good-paying jobs, and build a clean energy future,” said Biden.
If enacted by Congress, the bill also would authorize federal investments in clean energy to make a stronger, more resilient grid and to reach 100-percent clean electricity by 2035, Biden said. “That’s a major piece of the puzzle among the commitments that I’ve made about what we need to do,” he said.
The bill is also about reducing family energy bills while protecting the grid from extreme weather and making power more reliable, said Biden, and will make the nation more economically competitive while reducing pollution, improving public health and helping the nation “meet the moment on climate change.”
“We can make these investments without increasing the deficit or raising taxes on anyone making less than $400,000 a year,” he said.
EEI and its member companies are urging Congress to support technology-neutral tax policies and to pass legislation that provides optionality in choosing between the production tax credit (PTC) and investment tax credit (ITC) for solar.
“The suite of tax incentives currently under consideration will create a level playing field that recognizes the role of electric companies in deploying more clean energy and will help to preserve the existing nuclear fleet, so new clean energy deployments contribute to additional emission reductions,” Kuhn said. “Importantly, they allow companies to make choices about what technologies they deploy, while balancing reliability and resilience.”
Additionally, EEI seeks alternatives to normalization for regulated electric companies; 100-percent direct pay for the clean energy credits; a nuclear PTC for existing facilities; new tax credits for storage, transmission and hydrogen; and expansion of the electric vehicle (EV) tax credit/EV infrastructure credit.
“Including 100-percent direct pay as an option for all the credits recognizes the importance of delivering these technologies to customers in an affordable way,” added Kuhn.
Vincent-Collawn of PNM Resources, which serves 800,000 homes and businesses in New Mexico and Texas, said the proposed legislation’s clean energy tax policies will be very helpful for the utility’s customers in those states.
For instance, New Mexico is the nation’s third-poorest state and the areas PNM serves in Texas “are not affluent areas,” she said. “As a regulated utility we pass back all of our tax savings to customers. Having tax credits for solar and for storage are also critical to ensuring our resources can be stored for when we need them.”
The bill’s provisions for building the transmission to export those wind and solar resources to other states are also critical to bringing down customer costs, said Vincent-Collawn. “And because we’re also looking to integrate more EVs into the grid, the bill will help us make the needed grid improvements at a lower cost,” she added.
DTE Energy’s Anderson said that in Michigan, “we’re at a transition point where solar has crossed over and is highly competitive,” and the company “will see our largest-scale investments go from wind to solar.”
At the same time, Anderson said, the public reception to solar has been very high and it is a great addition to the tax base via the billions that will be spent in construction and the permanent jobs that follow. “We expect it to be a well-received renewable in the state,” he said.
In fact, the addition of renewables today is a big cost savings, said American Electric Power’s Akins, who explained to Biden that during this quarter, the company plans to make operational a wind power project in Oklahoma that will be the largest in North America at 1,000 megawatts.
“It will save customers about $2.2 billion over the life of the agreement,” Akins said, adding that the president’s Build Back Better initiative is a “huge opportunity for us to bring these resources in, lower costs for customers and be able to move toward that clean energy future.”
Akins also agreed that the bill’s proposed tax savings would be passed on to customers, in turn helping local, state and the national economies. “The savings associated with renewables will actually pay for the transmission,” he said, “so that’s a key area for us to continue to grow.”
Though not in attendance at Biden’s meeting with utility CEOs today, American Clean Power Association CEO Heather Zichal called today’s roundtable “another important step in highlighting the critical clean energy provisions in the Build Back Better agenda.”
“We stand behind the efforts of these leaders to advance and raise awareness for legislation that a majority of Americans support,” Zichal said. “Further delay on the clean energy and climate provisions in this legislation would hurt the economy, the job market, and make it increasingly difficult to meet our country’s emission goals.”
She pointed to recent analysis from her organization showing that each month of delay in enacting the Build Back Better Act puts $2 billion of clean energy infrastructure at risk.
