The Biden administration has made some big investments into infrastructure and clean energy initiatives within the US. However, two years into the push to transition the country to clean energy, the government is still behind its goal of reaching a net zero economy by 2050.
US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm joins Yahoo Finance to discuss the efforts put forth by the Biden administration so far on clean energy and what is needed to accelerate initiatives to make them successful.
Secretary Granholm stresses the historical context of the situation and why investing in these initiatives are so important: "We have not been in this battle before as a country. We haven't had the federal government partner with the private sector before in the way that it is doing now to level the playing field and make America really the irresistible nation to invest in for this clean energy revolution. The global market for clean energy products is going to be about $23 trillion and these products can be made anywhere, but what the president has said is we want them made in the United States, and that's why the public-private partnerships happening all across the country, fueled by the Invest in America agenda is so important."
Graphite is one of the critical minerals that China has had export controls on that we can't even access. So this is one example. There are 500 manufacturing facilities that have announced they are coming or expanding in the United States as a result of the president's Invest in America agenda just on the clean energy side.
So it is super important that we have identified the gaps in the supply chains. We are funding responses to those gaps, meaning inviting investment for the private sector to come and fill those gaps. It is really exciting because these factories are growing up in every pocket of America. And here in Moses Lake, Washington, this is one of those pockets.
AKIKO FUJITA: You certainly taken a two-track approach here. One of it is about the transition to clean energy. It's also about bringing more manufacturing back to the US. You certainly have companies out there that are competing in this space who say, look, it is great to really focus on countries of origin making sure that the components are for friendly countries.
But, at the same time they're going up against competition from China where they are competing at a much lower cost. How does the administration support some of these companies as they say, look, we want to be a part of this transition, but we don't know if we can compete at this cost?
JENNIFER GRANHOLM: Yeah, that's exactly why the president's agenda was so well thought through. First is the bipartisan infrastructure law gives grants. And this particular facility that I'm in right now got $100 million grant from the bipartisan infrastructure law. But in addition to that, the Inflation Reduction Act also provides tax credits for manufacturing these components in the United States.
What that does is bring down the or starts to level the playing field from the other countries who are also providing incentives for their companies to stay there. So we're in a battle. We have not been in this battle before as a country, meaning we haven't had the federal government partner with the private sector before in the way that it is doing now to level the playing field and make America really the irresistible nation to invest in for this clean energy revolution.
This global market for clean energy products is going to be about $23 trillion, and these products can be made anywhere. But what the president has said is, we want them made in the United States. And that's why this public-private partnerships happening all across the country fueled by the Invest in America agenda is so important.
AKIKO FUJITA: The adoption of EVs, of course, a critical part of this transition to a green future. Last year, we're coming off of record numbers of new EVs sold. But we're starting to see increasing caution from drivers who are saying, I'm not sure I want to take the leap considering number one, the cost, and then the lack of infrastructure that's in place. The administration has said you want 50% of new cars sold in the US to be EVs by 2030. When you consider the rate of growth right now, can you still meet those targets?
JENNIFER GRANHOLM: Yeah, we can. I mean, really the EVs are really growing very fast. I mean, it was double last year what it was the year before. We're projecting that same kind of uptake this year. But here's what the administration is doing to address the two concerns that you raised. One is there are tax credits for electric vehicles made in the United States for buyers. So you can get a $7,500 tax credit off at the dealership if the car is made in the United States.
You can also get a $4,000 tax credit at the dealer if you buy a used car. So that's an important thing to reduce the price up front. There's a lot of new models that are coming on from our domestic manufacturers that are much lower price as well. But in addition, we want to make sure that people don't have what is known as range anxiety. That they can find a place to charge no matter where they are.
First of all, a lot of people don't even realize that you can plug in an electric vehicle in your garage if you have a garage, but not everybody has a garage. And you can charge it up that way. And it is so much cheaper to operate an electric vehicle, meaning that you don't have to fill it up at the gas tank. It is much-- it saves you hundreds of dollars every month depending on how quickly you fill up.
But we want to put charging stations everywhere. And so that's why under the bipartisan infrastructure law, again, part of the president's agenda, there was a $7.5 billion investment to put charging stations all across America. 500,000 charging stations are starting to pop up.
All the money has gone out to the states. They are starting to install all those charging stations. We're putting them every 50 miles along transportation corridors, and we're putting them in rural areas and in places where the private sector has not put in those charging stations to fill in the gaps.
So you're going to start to see a lot of that construction happening this year as well. And the charging stations we're seeing are made in America now too. So all of that is feeding on one another, and we're trying to do as much as we can to address all of those concerns at once.
AKIKO FUJITA: Finally, let me ask you about the LNG export policy. I know you've gotten a lot of pushback on the back of the announcement. You've said, that look, this does not undermine confidence in US LNG. I wonder as you think about how to evaluate these individual projects, how is that evaluation process shifted as a result of the impact of climate change? Does that factor in bigger now that we're looking at what the fallout is?
JENNIFER GRANHOLM: Yeah, it's a really important question, and this is why the pause is simply to do a study to assess-- one of the reasons is to assess the question that you just asked, what is the impact of demand for fossil fuel energy globally when all of these countries, for example, have said that they are going to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels?
And more countries are doing that and have enacted policies to do that. What is the impact on our national security, meaning we want to supply our allies with natural gas, and we are doing that. And this pause doesn't affect any of those authorizations. But into the future, shouldn't we be looking at where the global trends are going and what our allies need.
And also, what is the impact on greenhouse gas emissions overall? And importantly, what's the impact on prices at home if we are exporting half of our natural gas, which is the amount we've authorized, what does that do for prices for who those who use natural gas at home? Those are the kinds of things that we are looking at, the economics, the national security, the climate impacts, the impacts on the people who live in the surrounding these liquefied natural gas terminals as well is something we are looking at.
All of that data is being taken into account by our National Labs. And so they're doing a modeling evaluation based upon those factors, and that's required under the Natural Gas Act. We are not allowed to approve terminals unless it is in the public interest. And so we have to evaluate what does that mean to be in the public interest, and that's exactly what we're looking at.
AKIKO FUJITA: The president's senior advisor Amos Hochstein was recently quoted saying he thinks the pause will take anywhere from 10 to 14 months. Is that the timeline you're looking at right now?
JENNIFER GRANHOLM: I know it will take some months. We haven't said that exactly, but it's the National Labs that will be doing that, and they've got a whole array of modeling capabilities. It doesn't happen overnight, but it will take some months to do it.
AKIKO FUJITA: And that was Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm. Our thanks to her for joining us from Moses Lake, Washington.