The Biden Plan to Build a Modern, Sustainable Infrastructure and an Equitable Clean Energy Future
Okay – this plan is a mouthful, and long. Over 7,000 words long, actually. But let’s examine it a bit more closely. Once you get past the accusations of all that Trump did wrong and all the farmers’ fields he allowed to flood (presumably because levies are needing updating – which has been the case since Joe started in politics 50 years ago), and you get past all the rhetoric and really big words and phrases that sounds impressive, like, “build a clean energy economy “ with “retrained workers” in “underserved and minority” communities, you get into a little more meat – but very little detail – of what Joe and Bernie and Kamala are proposing in this plan. Also note that Joe mentions using UNION labor in virtually all initiatives below:
- General goal: Phase out old industries and retrain workers all over the US, and encourage them to unionize (just about lost me on that one), as part of an immediate $2 trillion clean energy investment.
- Rebuild road, bridges, etc.
- Rebuild the auto industry, to better compete with China by making it totally clean energy. Note: Those factories closed and moved overseas under his prior watches; Trump incented those factories to come back. Sorry – true. So, Joe will at least HAVE factories to work with.
- Start programs for zero-emissions transit for all cities over 100,000 in population. Make all buses zero-emissions by 2030.
- Move the entire power sector to carbon-free by 2025.
- Upgrade 4 million buildings and weatherize 2 million homes in 4 years. Oh – and he wants to eliminate all non-electric appliances.
- Drive construction of 1.5 million sustainable homes. It appears this point does not have the option to UNIONize. I am unclear as to why…
- Biden is going to single-handedly drive down the costs in clean energy so we can all have it and innovate it all in America.
- Create 250,000 jobs just for plugging old oil and gas wells.
- Create union middle class jobs in communities, but only expand with environmental justice in mind. This is effectively a fluffy paragraph – he doesn’t address what kind of jobs or industries. Perhaps he can use the Trump Opportunity Zone program where he’s brought industries to these communities for Joe to use?
- Accelerate R&D on batteries, and build them here with union labor. Note: Tesla and others have factories here, but also had to move some overseas due to costs. I’m sure the union conversation will further push those overseas.
- Deploy 500,000 EV charging stations. Of course, this is already happening; we’re at 100,000 now, with thousands being added monthly; we’re also expected to pass Europe by 2030, with over 2 million stations installed in homes.
- Upgrade at least 3 million government fleet vehicles to all electric, maintained by union labor only.
- Rebuild and clean renovate all the schools.
- Rebuild the freight and commuter railway system toward all electric and less diesel.
Interim conclusion: Biden wants to convert to totally clean energy, but also wants to immediately start cutting fossil fuels. I believe this is extremely wrong, and here is where there is a direct contrast to Trump: Trump’s approach was to open ALL forms of energy production, to get us energy-independent. It has worked as we are now net exporters. This has resulted in 2 things: First, we are far less driven by Middle Eastern issues as Europe and Asia are. And second, we are ALREADY investing in clean energy conversion. You need only travel between Denver and KC to see the thousands of wind generators and solar farms, and see the Vestas semis taking blades and towers to new sites every day from the Colorado factories. And look at the electric charging stations popping up everywhere – including Goodland, Kansas.
But Joe goes further:
Biden will send legislation to congress that will raise wages and protect unionized workers. Biden will ensure that women and minorities are well-represented in the new jobs he will create. But then he also says he will secure the benefits the coal miners and their families have earned – but he doesn’t say what those are? Note: We have already seen massive upticks in women and minority jobs and wages in the last 3.5 years. Maybe Joe didn’t notice.
The one I particularly was interested in was the 5G proliferation. While this is already happening via urban and rural densification (yes, I have a significant telecom background), apparently Joe is going to help localities become their own telco operators? Beyond the near $60+ billion investments being collectively made by the big 3 operators alone, and the investments happening across rural telcos across the country?
Conclusions on Joe’s plan:
Net net from all of this is that Joe isn’t proposing much that is new on infrastructure. There are dozens of plans either being executed now, or ready to be put in place should congress want to take them up. I have at least 5 separate videos of Trump almost pleading with the democrats to sit with him to launch infrastructure reform work. But they would rather have the campaign issue – which is very unfortunate. But infrastructure, clean air, safe water, modernized roads and bridges, and the electric grid are already there and have been for some time. I like what Joe is saying as a goal – we all should – but I believe that his approach is heavily and fatally flawed, and here’s why:
- The first pass he and Obama had at infrastructure was all the “shovel ready projects” they had lined up as part of the stimulus. It’s later been repeatedly found that most of those projects weren’t actually shovel-ready after all, and at least tens of billions of dollars disappeared without accountability. Note: Trump changed A LOT of that around, foreign and domestic. I am directly familiar with a couple of those where the financial accountability took a 180-degree turn when Trump came in.
- Joe is frankly hell-bent on forcing higher wages and unionization to get all of this done. He literally mentions unions 32 times. He is going to borrow trillions to hand out grants to do this. He wants this all to be made in America, and wants us to re-take the lead from China on electric vehicle production (which he squarely blames Trump for, but does not explain why). There was a time for unions – about 100 years ago. Since then they have become the vehicle for organized crime and corruption for decades; it also crippled the American workforce – and you need look no further than the auto and steel industries to see it. It is frankly a very short-sighted plan to bring unionized labor and mandated wages into a recovering economy conversation. They have never been compatible.
- Making products that are by far the most expensive (note the union conversation) compared to competition is the fastest way to depress an economy (and he’s also raising taxes). We have decades of cycles of this to look to for examples. The Japanese, then the Chinese, then the Koreans, then the other far eastern countries, all do things faster and cheaper. Joe also wants to reverse trade barriers Trump has put in place – so he’s not protecting anyone. The industries will lose, and jobs and factories will leave. There is no maybe – they will leave again.
- Timelines: He presents aggressive timelines. I don’t believe this is reasonable – for example, you don’t eliminate the coal and fossil fuels that have been around for (in coal’s case) hundreds of years in 10-15 years. You can put it on a reasonable path to reduce usage and then eliminate, however.
One point I laughed out loud at: Joe is going to negotiate fuel economy standards with workers and unions – THEN the industries that drive them. What?? Seriously?
And Joe will ensure that the union workforce is diverse. Actually, Joe, workforces are more diverse now than ever in our history, especially in the trades you are wanting to grow.
I agree with every goal Joe wants to get to – and I think we all do. I think Trump does. But his approach is not correct, and therefore it will not work. My opinion.
