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Michael Howard is an emeritus professor of philosophy at the University of Maine and an external associate of the Climate Change Institute. He is a member of the Maine chapter of the national Scholars Strategy Network, which brings together scholars across the country to address public challenges and their policy implications. His views are his own and do not represent any institution or organization.
Among many objectionable cuts in the budget bill recently passed by the House of Representatives and now under consideration by the Senate are the cuts in clean energy tax credits. Sen. Susan Collins, as chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, is in a key position to try to restore these tax credits, which are vital globally, nationally, and for the state of Maine.
We are in a climate emergency as the average global rise in temperature approaches 1.5 degrees Celsius, and we are already seeing catastrophic sea level rise, more, and more severe, hurricanes and storms, droughts, wildfires, along with species extinction, and here in Maine threats to fisheries from rapid warming of the Gulf of Maine. We need to take strong action to reduce our carbon emissions as rapidly as possible, to sustain a habitable planet for ourselves and future generations.
Collins, unlike many of her colleagues in the Republican Party, is not a climate change denier. On the contrary she has shown leadership on climate change in the past. With Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell, Collins co-sponsored the CLEAR Act in 2009, a cap and dividend bill that if adopted would have moved us much further toward carbon emission reductions goals than we are today.
More recently she has worked to preserve funding from the bipartisan infrastructure bill for the grid-scale battery storage project in Lincoln. As the BDN reported in late April, the “$147 million grant funded by that law … [will] revitalize the shuttered Lincoln pulp mill by building a[n] 8,500-megawatt-hour facility — enough to power about 57,000 homes — that will hold a battery to store excess electricity and discharge it if needed for 100 straight hours.”
Such battery storage, one of several such projects in Maine, is key to maintaining stability for the grid, as we face rising energy demand, and as we phase out fossil fuel and phase in solar and wind power, which need a backup because they are intermittent. The project would also benefit from the tax credits which the House budget would eviscerate.
The Lincoln project is one of over 90 clean energy projects in Maine depending on the tax credits, including solar, wind and biomass, totaling nearly $6 billion. In combination with other grants and programs funded by the Inflation Reduction Act, these projects would create over the next decade about 39,000 full-time equivalent jobs in transportation, manufacturing, power generation, building electrification and efficiency, and other sectors. But 81 percent of the clean energy projects are either not yet operational or not yet under construction, and will likely be threatened by the elimination of the tax credits.
Also at risk are consumer tax credits for the purchase of electric vehicles, home energy efficiency, and rooftop solar and heat pump installations.
If the clean energy tax credits are effectively eliminated, Mainers will not only lose jobs, and fall behind in our climate mitigation and adaptation goals, we can also expect a nearly 5 percent rise in our energy bills by 2029.
Now is the time to urge senators, especially Sen. Collins, to oppose the budget bill passed by the House, and to reinstate the clean energy tax credits. There are other ways to balance the budget than by cutting investments that we need to tackle the climate emergency, and that give taxpayers a four-fold return on investment.
We could start by raising taxes on the wealthy — who are also among the country’s, and the world’s, highest emitters of greenhouse gases. Research on optimal taxation suggests that top tax rates on upper income earners, now at 37 percent but in the 1950s and 1960s as high as 91 percent, could be raised substantially without harm to the economy, and with environmental, economic, and other benefits.
