Full Title: Seven Ways the Executive Branch Can Turbocharge Green Industrial Policy
Author(s): Arnab Datta, Ashley George, Joel Michaels, and Todd N. Tucker
Publisher(s): Roosevelt Institute
Publication Date: August 25, 2022
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
On August 16, 2022, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The bill contains a sweeping set of green industrial policy measures that will move the US two-thirds of the way toward its Paris Agreement goals, leaving the remaining third a task for the executive branch and other entities. Luckily, the executive branch has tools at its disposal that are well-suited to this task, some of which date back to the early days of the administrative state under President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his successors. This time-tested tool kit can enable bold action by using trade, advance market commitments, and emergency declarations to create the green energy jobs of the future, all while limiting inflation. Specifically, President Biden can:
1. Launch investigations, carbon tariffs, and climate clubs under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962;
2. Create markets for green energy and industry using advance market commitments and equipment transfers under the Defense Production Act of 1950;
3. Use “Other Transaction Authority” to encourage private investment in green energy;
4. Use the Exchange Stabilization Fund to accelerate the production of commodities critical to the green energy transition;
5. Explore partnerships with government corporations as purchasing agents;
6. Invoke a climate emergency under the National Emergencies Act of 1976 to increase the availability of funds for green energy and industry; and
7. Invoke extraordinary contracting powers to make procurement commitments that exceed current budgetary limits.