On Friday, United States Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm will travel to the Hanford nuclear reserve for the very first time.
During her confirmation hearing in January 2021, U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from Edmonds, will accompany her.
Cantwell is the person who pressed the Biden nominee for a commitment to fully fund cleanup efforts. Cantwell will be travelling with her.
To the information provided by the Department of Energy, Granholm is scheduled to arrive in Richland on Thursday to tour the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. This will be followed by a visit to the Hanford site on August 12.
Granholm will pay a visit to the Sequim office of PNNL on Wednesday and go on a tour of a hydroelectric dam first thing in the morning on Thursday before travelling to the Tri-Cities. There have been no announcements made regarding any public activities.
Granholm used the word “urgent” to describe the necessity of cleaning up the environment on the Hanford property at her confirmation hearing in the Senate.
Cantwell questioned her, and she gave an assurance that she would submit a proposal for a greater budget for that task than what had been made available during the time that Trump was in office.
According to a report that was just released by the DOE, the total cost of cleaning up Hanford may range anywhere from $300 billion to $640 billion.
Granholm, a former governor of Michigan, has announced that the purpose of her trip to Washington, D.C. this week will be to advance the deployment of clean energy following the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 in the Senate.
The Department of Energy asserts that the Act highlights President Joe Biden’s commitment to combating climate change, lowering the costs of energy and transportation for American households, and revitalising the domestic industry.
Cantwell participated in the vote to pass the Act, which ultimately resulted in a tie that was broken by Vice President Kamala Harris.
The vote was 51-50. Because of concerns that the $430 billion expenditure on climate, tax, and healthcare would drive up existing inflation and impose additional tax burdens on American families and businesses, no Republican in the Senate supported the legislation. Republicans cited these concerns as the reason for their opposition.
The bill is currently being considered by the House of Representatives.
Cantwell stated about the legislation will “bring down energy costs by introducing cheaper and more efficient energy solutions,” which will be the result of the measure.
She stated that the Act will provide financing opportunities that will be beneficial to the state of Washington.
She mentioned that historic “investments” had been made in various forms of renewable energy.
For instance, the measure allots more than $65 billion to extend tax credits already in place for various forms of renewable energy, such as wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, hydropower, municipal waste, and projects using marine and hydrokinetic energy.
In addition, there is a new tax credit of thirty per cent available for projects that store energy, such as pumped hydro facilities like those that are proposed for the state of Washington.
Two billion dollars will be made available in the form of direct loans for the construction of new electric transmission lines, and an additional seven hundred and sixty million dollars will be made available in the form of grants to help expedite transmission siting.
According to Cantwell, the act does not only increase the number of opportunities for alternate forms of energy, but it will also cut the amount of money a family spends on energy by an estimated $1,025 by the year 2023.
She explained that this will be accomplished by direct consumer incentives to purchase energy-efficient appliances, install solar panels on rooftops, and limit the amount of energy that is required in houses.
The measure allocates $22 billion to finance the extension of consumer tax credits for the installation of energy-efficient heat pumps, water heaters, insulation, windows, and other home equipment for ten years.
Rebates of up to $14,000 are available for energy efficiency upgrades for low-income households. All consumers can receive credits of up to $2,000 for the installation of heat pumps, and up to $1,200 per year is available for rebates on other home efficiency upgrades.
The Inflation Reduction Act has been described as “the slimmed-down version of the enormous Build Back Better tax-and-spend blow-out package” by the Washington Policy Center, which is a think tank that advocates for free markets.
This legislation, which is a watered-down version of the BBB, is now euphemistically known as the Inflation Reduction Act “a senior fellow at the WPC’s Center for Health Care who goes by the name Roger Stark wrote.
“You can refer to an animal as a dog, but the fact of the matter is that it is still a pig even if you name it that. According to projections made by the Penn Wharton Budget Model, the effect of the bill on inflation will be basically null.
The United States of America is currently experiencing the worst inflation in decades, but any potential effect on inflation wouldn’t be seen for years, so this won’t help the situation.
He continued by saying, “Funding for the Act comes from basically two areas — new or unpaid taxes and prescription savings in Medicare. These are the two primary sources.”
A new tax on capital will be implemented in the form of a levy that is applied to one per cent of firm stock buybacks. To imagine that the 1% won’t be raised at some point in the future is either naive or, worse, foolish.
In addition to this, a new minimum tax of 15% will be imposed on corporations of a bigger size. That tax will, as is customary, be passed on to the company’s customers and owners.
In addition, the Internal Revenue Service is going to hire thousands of more agents to collect every last penny of tax revenue from individual taxpayers.
Additionally, Stark issued a cautionary note regarding the long-term effects of the legislation.
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“The American public did not give the Democrats any kind of mandate to push through this catastrophe “he had written.
“The legislation is completely partisan, will do nothing to lower inflation, will stifle the development of new drugs, will spend billions of dollars on green energy that will have virtually zero effect on climate change, will raise everyone’s cost of living, and ultimately will force more government intrusion into the lives of every American.
“The legislation is completely partisan, will do nothing to lower inflation, will stifle the development of new drugs, will spend billions of dollars on green energy that will have virtually zero effect on climate
