(Washington) With the adoption by the US Congress of his vast budgetary bill, President Climatosceptique Donald Trump returns as he had promised on several measures taken by his predecessor Joe Biden to combat global warming and accelerate the energy transition.
Here is a point on the expected measures and consequences of this text, which the Republican has nicknamed the “great and beautiful law”.
Renewable energies
In 2022, Mr. Biden, a democratic president of the time, had passed a large plan named inflation ACT (IRA) providing new investments in the energy transition. Among them: approximately $ 370 billion in tax credits dedicated to renewable energy projects or the purchase of energy efficient devices, which will now be deleted.
According to the new rules, the remaining credits can only benefit from the energy projects put into service before 2027 or whose construction began within 12 months the promulgation of the text.
Incitations with energy renovation work will also be shortened, while tax credits for nuclear, geothermal technologies or the carbon capture will continue.
With the abolition of a large part of these “enormous motivation tools”, “renewable energy projects are all at risk of failing completely”, alerts Jean Su from the NGO Center for Biological Diversity. And this while demand for electricity in the United States explodes in the face of the growing needs of artificial intelligence.
“Deleting tax incentives for clean energy means that all this new energy request will be entrusted to the fossil fuels industry”, predicts Mme Su, worrying about an upcoming increase in polluting emissions, in particular greenhouse gas.
Donald Trump, whose presidential campaign was abundantly financed by the actors of the hydrocarbon sector promised to “drill all-vacation” and multiplied the measures against the renewable energies sector and in particular wind and solar.
His “beautiful law” also initially contained a new tax which would have been devastating for these areas, but which ended up being withdrawn.
Electric cars
Electric vehicles are also among the most severely affected. Financial incentives for the purchase of so -called “clean” (electric or hydrogen) second -hand vehicles will be shortened and will end in 2025, while those related to the installation of load stations will expire at the end of June 2026.
For Albert Gore of the Lobby Zero Transportation Association Transportation, the budgetary law will bury the objective “to make the United States competitive on a global scale in the production markets of minerals, batteries and vehicles of the future”, thus giving in China.
The text will also make it possible to reduce the fines incurred by car manufacturers which would not apply the fuel economy standards. However, “If you tell a child before a check that there will be no penalty if he cheats, what do you think he will do? », Identify, sarcastic, Dan Becker of the Center for Biological Diversity.
Coal and methane
Other IRA provisions, beneficial to companies in fossil fuels, such as billions of subsidies and drilling authorizations, will last.
The text also provides an advantageous tax system for coal used in the manufacture of steel and puts an end to a program intended to help the hydrocarbon industry to reduce its very polluting methane waste and emissions.
It also opens the way to the exploitation of forests and resources in hydrocarbons and minerals of many public lands, including in a very wild area of Alaska.
