Inflation Reduction Act of 2022

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      ¿Biden ha cumplido con las promesas que hizo en su campaña de 2020?

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      Detener la construcción del muro fronterizo, permitir que Medicare negocie el precio de los medicamentos y acabar con la pena de muerte fueron algunos de sus compromisos para llegar a la Casa Blanca.En plena campaña de reelección del presidente Joe Biden, los demócratas han proclamado una serie de logros durante su mandato. En ocasiones, Biden ha recordado que su predecesor, Donald Trump, no cumplió del todo sus promesas.Pero, como todos los políticos, se ha enfrentado a la realidad de que hacer campaña y gobernar son dos cosas muy distintas, sobre todo en un gobierno dividido. Aunque Biden ha cumplido algunas de las promesas que hizo en 2020, no todas se han materializado a tres años de su elección.Por un lado, Biden ratificó el compromiso de Estados Unidos con el Acuerdo de París, un pacto internacional destinado a reducir las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero; revocó el permiso para el oleoducto Keystone XL, que habría transportado petróleo de Canadá a Nebraska, y aumentó los subsidios federales para las personas que compran planes conforme a la Ley de Atención Médica Accesible. Por otra parte, ha sido incapaz de impulsar en el Congreso estadounidense una legislación sobre el derecho al voto o la prohibición de las armas de asalto y su ambicioso plan de condonar la deuda a los estudiantes fue rechazado por completo por la Corte Suprema.A continuación, una muestra de algunos de los compromisos de la campaña presidencial de Biden de 2020 y en qué punto se encuentran.Algunas de las promesas de Biden en 2020:InmigraciónImpuestosAtención médicaEducaciónCambio climáticoJusticia penalPolítica exteriorInmigraciónLO QUE SE DIJO“No se construirá ni un metro más de muro en mi gobierno”.—En una entrevista de 2020 en NPRAl postularse a la presidencia, Biden hizo del muro fronterizo de Trump una parte central de su campaña. En su primer día en el cargo, anunció que ponía fin a la declaración de emergencia nacional que se había utilizado para destinar recursos a la construcción del muro.Pero en las últimas semanas, el gobierno de Biden ha manejado con ligereza una serie de leyes para permitir la construcción de nuevas barreras en Texas, a lo largo de la frontera suroeste. La medida se produce en el contexto de un aumento en el número de migrantes que cruzan la frontera sin autorización, lo que altera de manera drástica las presiones políticas sobre Biden.Biden ha sostenido la postura de que un muro fronterizo es ineficaz. Pero declaró que el financiamiento se consignó para el muro fronterizo en 2019 y que el Congreso no reasignaría esos fondos —a pesar de los pedidos públicos del gobierno para que lo hiciera— lo cual quiere decir que el financiamiento tenía que usarse para ese propósito. Una ley de 1974 obliga al presidente a gastar el dinero según las instrucciones del Congreso, y los funcionarios de la Casa Blanca han dicho que la única manera de evitarlo era presentar una demanda, algo que el gobierno de Biden decidió no hacer.Antes del anuncio reciente, el gobierno autorizó que se completen algunas brechas pequeñas en el muro.LO QUE SE DIJO“Poner fin a las políticas de asilo perjudiciales de Trump”.—Sitio web de la campaña de 2020.Durante su campaña de 2020, Biden criticó en público la estrategia migratoria del gobierno de Trump y argumentó que había desafiado la tradición estadounidense al tratar de “restringir drásticamente el acceso al asilo en Estados Unidos”. Pero su gobierno también ha intentado limitar el proceso de asilo para disminuir la migración no autorizada.En mayo, el gobierno promulgó una norma que presume que la mayoría de los migrantes que cruzan ilegalmente la frontera desde México entre los puertos de entrada no son elegibles para el asilo. La norma descalifica a la mayoría de los solicitantes si entraron a Estados Unidos sin cita previa en un punto de entrada oficial o no pueden demostrar que buscaron protección legal en otro país por el que cruzaron.Al igual que el gobierno de Trump, Biden ha tratado de limitar el proceso de asilo para desalentar la migración no autorizada.Verónica G. Cárdenas para The New York TimesLa norma tiene sus excepciones: no aplica a los menores no acompañados ni a migrantes que puedan demostrar que su vida estaba en peligro inminente, por ejemplo, pero los críticos dicen que el criterio es similar al de Trump.Respecto a la cuestión de la inmigración en general, los aliados de Biden en el Congreso propusieron un proyecto de ley en 2021 que habría transformado el sistema migratorio, pero en última instancia fracasó. Hasta principios de este año, también se mantuvo en vigor el Título 42, una regla sanitaria de la época de la pandemia que promulgó el gobierno de Trump para expulsar con rapidez a los inmigrantes que cruzaran ilegalmente al país.ImpuestosLO QUE SE DIJO“Les garantizo, palabra de un Biden, que ninguna persona que gane menos de 400.000 dólares pagará un solo centavo de impuestos. Ni un centavo”.—Durante un mitin de campaña en octubre de 2020Biden no les ha aumentado los impuestos a los contribuyentes dentro de ese umbral, como prometió. Pero sí se ha centrado en aumentar los impuestos a las empresas y a quienes ganan más de 400.000 dólares. Por ejemplo, el presupuesto que propuso para el año fiscal 2024, incluye un aumento a la tasa de impuesto para Medicare del 3,8 al 5 por ciento para los ingresos superiores a 400.000 dólares.No obstante, esa “no es la historia completa”, afirmó William McBride, vicepresidente de política fiscal federal de la Tax Foundation, un laboratorio de ideas derechista.McBride señaló que algunos análisis estiman que los aumentos de impuestos a las empresas podrían tener un efecto indirecto en toda la escala de ingresos, ya que la carga suele repercutir, al menos en parte, en los consumidores y los trabajadores, por ejemplo, a través de salarios o valores bursátiles más bajos. Aunque los cálculos difieren, un análisis de la Tax Foundation de 2022 llegó a la conclusión de que, a largo plazo, la Ley de Reducción de la Inflación podría reducir los ingresos después de impuestos en torno a un 0,2 por ciento para la mayoría de los grupos de ingresos, incluidos los que ganan menos de 400.000 dólares.Atención médicaLO QUE SE DIJO“El plan de Biden derogará la legislación existente que le prohíbe de manera explícita a Medicare negociar precios más bajos con las corporaciones farmacéuticas”.—Sitio web de la campaña de 2020Como presidente, Biden sí promulgó una ley que autorizaba al gobierno federal a negociar precios más bajos de algunos medicamentos para los beneficiarios de Medicare, pero sin derogar la ley vigente, sino añadiendo una excepción.Esa medida formaba parte de la Ley de Reducción de la Inflación aprobada en 2022. La Oficina Presupuestaria del Congreso ha calculado que el programa podría ahorrarle al gobierno unos 100.000 millones de dólares en una década. Los fabricantes de medicamentos han presentado múltiples demandas en un intento por detener el programa de fijación de precios de medicamentos.LO QUE SE DIJO“Lo que voy a hacer es aprobar Obamacare con una opción pública, para convertirla en Bidencare”.—Durante un debate de octubre de 2020Desde que asumió el cargo, Biden no ha tomado medidas formales para hacer realidad esta propuesta. De hecho, desde entonces, ha mencionado muy pocas veces su promesa de una opción pública, lo cual le daría a los estadounidenses la posibilidad de inscribirse a un plan de salud administrado por el gobierno.“Es justo decir que el presidente Biden no ha impulsado con fuerza la idea de una opción pública desde que llegó al cargo”, comentó Larry Levitt, vicepresidente ejecutivo de política sanitaria de KFF, un grupo sin fines de lucro centrado en política sanitaria.La primera propuesta presupuestaria de Biden, para el año fiscal 2022, abordaba su deseo de una opción pública, aunque con pocos detalles. Conseguir que el Congreso apruebe una opción pública sería, como sucede con algunas otras propuestas de campaña, un gran desafío.EducaciónLO QUE SE DIJO“Invertir en nuestras escuelas para eliminar la brecha de financiamiento entre distritos blancos y no blancos, y distritos ricos y pobres”.—Sitio web de la campaña de 2020Para lograr este objetivo, Biden propuso triplicar la financiación del Título I, que proporciona ayuda a las escuelas locales para beneficiar a los estudiantes de bajos ingresos. Durante la presidencia de Biden, el financiamiento de las subvenciones del Título I ha aumentado, pero de manera más modesta: en torno a un 11 por ciento, aunque sus defensores afirman que el impulso se ha visto atenuado por la inflación y el aumento de las inscripciones. Las propuestas del gobierno de aumentos mucho mayores han fracasado en el Congreso.Dado el tamaño del programa Título I —18.400 millones de dólares en el año fiscal 2023— triplicar el financiamiento en tres años mediante el proceso de asignaciones “no es realista”, dijo Sarah Abernathy, directora ejecutiva de Committee for Education Funding.Mientras que la Casa Blanca ha propuesto un aumento adicional en la financiación del Título I, un plan de los republicanos de la Cámara de Representantes ha pedido recortes severos.Biden propuso triplicar la financiación del Título I, que proporciona ayuda a las escuelas locales para beneficiar a los estudiantes de bajos ingresos.Logan R. Cyrus para The New York TimesEn su promesa de subsanar las diferencias entre los distritos, la campaña de Biden para 2020 citó a un grupo educativo ya desaparecido, que había evaluado las discrepancias en ese momento. Los expertos no conocían ningún análisis actual que ofreciera una comparación directa.Pero la financiación del Título I por sí sola no puede resolver estas carencias, porque los distritos escolares se financian mayoritariamente a nivel estatal y local, según Noelle Ellerson Ng, directora ejecutiva adjunta de defensa y gobernanza de AASA, la Asociación de Superintendentes de Distritos Escolares.LO QUE SE DIJO“Como presidente, Biden tratará de avanzar en este tema con la promulgación de leyes que garanticen que todas las personas trabajadoras, incluidos los que asisten a la escuela medio tiempo y los ‘dreamers’ (los adultos jóvenes que llegaron a Estados Unidos en la infancia), puedan ir a la universidad comunitaria durante un máximo de dos años de manera gratuita”.“Hacer que los colegios y las universidades públicas sean gratuitas para todas las familias cuyos ingresos son inferiores a 125.000 dólares anuales”, sitio web de la campaña de 2020El gobierno de Biden no ha conseguido hacer realidad estas promesas, aunque sí ha propuesto dedicarles fondos.Por ejemplo, en su plan de presupuesto para el año fiscal 2024, el gobierno solicitó 90.000 millones de dólares a lo largo de 10 años para que los dos primeros años de la universidad comunitaria fueran gratuitos.Además, el gobierno pidió dos años de “matrícula subsidiada” para los estudiantes de familias con ingresos inferiores a 125.000 dólares y, en específico, para los estudiantes que asisten a universidades históricamente negras u otras universidades que reciben a estudiantes de minorías.Cambio climáticoLO QUE SE DIJO“Ya no se perforarán las tierras federales, punto”.—Durante febrero de 2020 en un evento municipalContrario al compromiso de Biden en campaña, su gobierno aprobó formalmente en marzo un proyecto de perforación petrolera en Alaska conocido como Willow. El gobierno hizo hincapié en que limitó el proyecto, ya que rechazó dos de los cinco lugares de perforación propuestos e hizo que la empresa que lo promovía devolviera al gobierno unas 27.518 hectáreas de arrendamientos existentes.Desde entonces, Biden anunció una prohibición a la perforación de más de 5 millones de hectáreas de zonas naturales en la Reserva Nacional de Petróleo de Alaska y canceló los arrendamientos de perforación en el Refugio Nacional de Vida Silvestre del Ártico.En cuanto a otras medidas relacionadas con el cambio climático, la Ley de Reducción de la Inflación supuso una gran inversión en energías limpias, incluso mediante lucrativos incentivos fiscales que, según algunos datos, contribuyeron a estimular la inversión privada. Y el gobierno propuso normativas para limitar la contaminación de gases de efecto invernadero de las centrales eléctricas existentes.LO QUE SE DIJO“Como presidente, Biden trabajará con los gobernadores y alcaldes del país para apoyar el despliegue de más de 500.000 nuevos puntos de recarga públicos para finales de 2030”.—Sitio web de la campaña de 2020Con determinación, Biden ha presionado para ayudar a acelerar el cambio del país al uso de vehículos eléctricos, incluso mediante la propuesta de normas ambientales. También firmó leyes para invertir en estaciones de carga. Las leyes bipartidistas de infraestructura del 2021 incluyeron 7500 millones de dólares para construir esas estaciones.La Casa Blanca ha declarado que Estados Unidos está en vías de alcanzar 500.000 cargadores para 2030, aunque no especificó si esa estimación se refiere al total de cargadores públicos o a nuevos cargadores públicos, como decía el objetivo de la campaña.Con determinación, Biden ha presionado para ayudar a acelerar el cambio del país a los vehículos eléctricos.Gabby Jones para The New York TimesAlgunos expertos afirmaron que incluso alcanzar la meta de 500.000 estaciones de carga públicas será un desafío, aunque no imposible. “Es técnicamente factible alcanzar el objetivo, pero no será fácil”, comentó Kenneth Gillingham, profesor de Economía Medioambiental y Energética de la Universidad de Yale.Sin embargo, según algunas estimaciones, alcanzar los 500.000 cargadores públicos en 2030 no es suficiente. Un informe reciente de Alliance for Automotive Innovation, un grupo comercial, afirma que hoy se necesitan más de 530.000 cargadores, antes de que se produzca el aumento previsto en la adopción de vehículos eléctricos.Justicia penalLO QUE SE DIJO“Como no podemos tener la certeza que decidamos correctamente siempre en estos casos, debemos eliminar la pena de muerte”.—En X, plataforma antes conocida como Twitter, en julio de 2019Biden no ha eliminado la pena de muerte, para lo cual sería necesaria una ley. Su gobierno ha tomado algunas medidas para reducir el uso de la pena capital, pero algunos que se oponen a ella han dicho que Biden no ha actuado con suficiente agresividad.En 2021, el procurador general Merrick Garland impuso una moratoria a las ejecuciones federales después de que el gobierno de Trump reanudó la práctica tras un lapso de casi dos décadas sin ejecuciones. Durante la gestión de Garland, el Departamento de Justicia no ha solicitado la pena de muerte en nuevos casos.Dicho esto, los fiscales federales también se negaron a cambiar de rumbo en un caso iniciado en el gobierno de Trump que buscaba la pena de muerte para un hombre que mató a ocho personas en un ataque con camión en Manhattan en 2017. El sospechoso, Sayfullo Saipov, fue finalmente sentenciado este año a cadena perpetua después de que un jurado no se pusiera de acuerdo sobre si imponer la pena de muerte.El departamento también ha trabajado para mantener las penas de muerte existentes, como la impuesta a Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, condenado a muerte por su participación en los atentados del maratón de Boston de 2013.LO QUE SE DIJO“Usar el poder de clemencia del presidente para asegurar la liberación de individuos que enfrentan sentencias indebidamente largas por ciertos delitos no violentos y de drogas”, sitio web de la campaña de 2020Biden ha cumplido este compromiso, utilizando por primera vez el poder de clemencia en 2022, ya que conmutó las penas de 75 infractores por delitos de drogas y concedió tres indultos. Meses después, indultó a miles de personas condenadas por posesión de marihuana, según la ley federal.Política exteriorLO QUE SE DIJO“Regresaré a los soldados de combate en Afganistán a casa durante mi primer mandato”.—En respuesta a un cuestionario de 2020 de The New York TimesBiden cumplió este compromiso, ya que retiró a Estados Unidos de Afganistán en agosto de 2021 y dio por concluida la guerra más larga de la historia estadounidense, aunque el final fue caótico y mortal. La retirada ya se estaba gestando desde el gobierno de Trump.LO QUE SE DIJO“Si Teherán regresa al cumplimiento del acuerdo, el presidente Biden volverá a ratificar el acuerdo y utilizará una diplomacia dura y el apoyo de nuestros aliados para fortalecerlo y ampliarlo, al tiempo que presionaría con mayor eficacia contra las otras actividades desestabilizadoras de Irán”, sitio web de la campaña de 2020Biden se refería al acuerdo nuclear iraní de 2015, un acuerdo destinado a limitar el programa nuclear de Irán a cambio de la reducción de las sanciones. El gobierno de Trump se retiró del acuerdo en 2018. A pesar de más de un año de negociaciones tras la elección de Biden, Estados Unidos e Irán no lograron reincorporarse al acuerdo.Hace poco, el gobierno de Biden anunció nuevas sanciones contra Irán. La decisión se produjo al expirar una medida de las Naciones Unidas asociada al acuerdo nuclear, y también tras el ataque sorpresa del 7 de octubre contra Israel por parte de Hamás, que recibe apoyo de Irán. More

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      Union Victories May Lift Biden, as U.A.W. Targets Tesla and Others

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      President Biden’s support for autoworkers helped them make big wage gains, and labor organizers are looking to bring about similar gains elsewhere as carmakers transition to electric vehicles.The United Automobile Workers’ big wins with Detroit’s Big Three automakers could also prove to be a significant political victory for President Biden, who openly sided with striking workers to pressure the companies, General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, to produce generous concessions.But the U.A.W.’s turn now toward nonunionized automakers like Tesla, Hyundai, BMW and Mercedes will test whether Mr. Biden’s support, as well as measures that he signed into law, will produce the expansion of organized labor that he has long promised.For unionized autoworkers, many of them in the swing state of Michigan, the tentative contracts, which are awaiting rank-and-file ratification, would bring substantial wage gains, “another piece of good economic news,” Mr. Biden said on Monday. The tentative contracts would lift the top U.A.W. wage to more than $40 per hour over four and a half years, from $32 an hour. Stellantis, maker of Chryslers, Jeeps and Ram trucks, agreed to reopen its assembly plant in Belvidere, Ill., near the border of Wisconsin, another crucial swing state.“The impact of Biden’s public support can’t be overstated,” said Steve Smith, a spokesman for the umbrella A.F.L.-C.I.O., which includes the autoworkers’ union. “There’s a lot of upside here for Biden. The contracts set a new standard for the industry that clearly show the benefit of collective bargaining.”Beyond that, G.M. agreed to bring its electric vehicle battery joint venture, Ultium, under the national contract, a boon for Ultium workers but also a pressure point for unions as they seek to organize battery plants sprouting up around the country. Such plants are using generous subsidies from Mr. Biden’s signature legislative achievements — especially the climate change provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act — as the administration pushes to speed the country’s transition to electric vehicles.“This historic contract is a testament to the power of unions and collective bargaining to build strong middle-class jobs while helping our most iconic American companies thrive,” Mr. Biden said Monday evening.Jason Walsh, the executive director of the BlueGreen Alliance, which has brought together labor and environmental groups to marshal support for the clean energy transition, said the contracts, if ratified by U.A.W. workers, would be a watershed moment for the economy — and possibly the planet.“The legislative intent behind the industrial policy in the Inflation Reduction Act was an implicit deal: We as a nation are going to invest in the sectors of the economy that are important to the country and the planet in the long run, but in return we want the companies that receive those benefits to maximize returns to workers, communities and the environment,” Mr. Walsh said. To that end, the contract settlement is “huge,” he added. “It highlights the lie peddled by Donald Trump and at times the Big Three that the E.V. transition means lower-quality jobs in a nonunion work force.”The U.A.W. actions took on strikingly political meaning. In May, the autoworkers’ union opted to withhold an endorsement of Mr. Biden’s re-election, openly expressing “our concerns with the electric vehicle transition” that the president was pushing through legislation and regulation.Last month, Mr. Biden became the first sitting U.S. president to join a picket line. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, castigated striking workers, saying “they want more money working fewer hours. They want more benefits working fewer days.”Mr. Trump, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, visited a nonunion parts plant in Michigan to rail against electric vehicles and to demand that Shawn Fain, the new and aggressive U.A.W. president, endorse him for another term in the White House.Mr. Fain said he would never do that, and supporters of the president pointed to provisions in federal laws championed by Mr. Biden that may have helped secure the deals. Subsidies for electric vehicle production will go only to domestic manufacturing plants, meaning Detroit management could not credibly threaten to move new auto plants overseas in search of cheaper labor.But union officials did not say on Monday what their intentions were for a presidential endorsement. Mr. Fain did make clear over the weekend that he was not resting on his laurels with the gains achieved with its escalating wave of strikes against the Big Three. The union plans to target Tesla, the nonunion automaker that dominates the domestic electric vehicle market, as well as foreign automakers with factories in the Southeast, where unions have struggled to gain a foothold. Some of the biggest new plants are under construction in Georgia, a critical swing state for 2024, including a Hyundai electric vehicle plant that will be the state’s biggest economic development project ever.Organizers will be able to lean on provisions of the three big laws that Mr. Biden signed — a $1 trillion infrastructure bill, a $280 billion measure to rekindle a domestic semiconductor industry and the Inflation Reduction Act, which included $370 billion for clean energy to combat climate change — to push their case.Tucked into all of those laws were measures to give unions the power to effectively tell employers that accept rich federal tax incentives this: You must pay union-scale wages and use union apprenticeship and training programs, so you might as well hire union workers.How electric vehicle and battery makers respond to the U.A.W.’s next push will go a long way toward determining whether Mr. Biden can make good on his promise that his effort to curtail climate change and wean the nation off fossil fuels will indeed produce “good union jobs.” More

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      Biden Will Get $80 Million Ad Boost From Climate Group

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      Climate Power says the lack of awareness and understanding of the president’s record on environmental issues is hurting him in the polls.Climate Power, a liberal advocacy group, plans to spend $80 million on advertising to lift President Biden’s standing on environmental issues and inform voters about the impact of legislation he signed last year.Polls show few voters are aware of the president’s record on climate issues, and there is a broad dissatisfaction with his stewardship of the issue, a dynamic that mirrors voters’ discontent with his handling of the economy and other concerns.This new effort also adds to the constellation of outside groups working to solve one of the Democratic Party’s most vexing problems: how to make a president widely seen by his own party as too old to seek re-election just popular enough to win a likely rematch with former President Donald J. Trump.Climate Power’s solution is to feed voters a steady stream of television and digital advertising highlighting Mr. Biden’s legislative accomplishments to protect the environment and contrasting them Mr. Trump, who mocked climate science, rolled back regulations aimed at cutting emissions and has promised to be a booster for the oil, gas and coal industries. “There is a huge swath of people who just don’t know anything. There’s also a segment of people that want him to do more. There’s also a swath that thinks he’s gone too far,” Lori Lodes, the executive director of Climate Power, said in an interview last week. “We need to make sure that the Biden coalition, the folks who got him into office in 2020, sees that he’s delivered on his promises. And he has.”As with so much of Mr. Biden’s agenda, his climate policies tend to poll well on their own but do worse when associated with the president. A Washington Post poll from July found that 70 percent of Americans, including 51 percent of Republicans, would like the next president be someone who favors government action to address climate change. And Climate Power’s own research showed that 67 percent of voters believe climate to be a “kitchen table issue.”Yet even though Democratic majorities in Congress last year passed, and Mr. Biden signed, the Inflation Reduction Act — legislation that invests $370 billion in spending and tax credits in zero-emission forms of energy to fight climate change — there is little evidence that he has earned the political benefits from voters who share his climate goals.Last month, The Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research at the University of Chicago found Mr. Biden’s approval on handling climate change was 42 percent, similar to his overall approval rating of 40 percent, and better than the 33 percent who approved of his handling of the economy.That poll found Mr. Biden’s climate approval ratings had dropped from 52 percent in September 2021, before he signed his landmark climate legislation, and 49 percent in September of 2022, weeks after her signed it.The 30-second advertisements Climate Power has run this year, which were paid for with help from Future Forward, the independent expenditure organization blessed by the Biden campaign, have focused on efforts to lower household energy costs and create jobs in factories manufacturing renewable energy products. The ads trumpet gains “thanks to Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.”The planned $80 million will come from so-called dark money, the donors of which are not required to be disclosed under federal law, Ms. Lodes said. An affiliated Climate Power super PAC, which can also accept unlimited contributions but is required to report its donors to the Federal Election Commission, is expected to advertise on Mr. Biden’s behalf next year.The Climate Power campaign also has the praise of Mr. Biden’s top aides at the White House.“President Biden has delivered on the most ambitious agenda to fight climate change, including signing into law the largest climate investment ever,” said Jen O’Malley Dillon, the White House deputy chief of staff. “Climate Power is a critical partner to continue demonstrating to the American people that the president is building a clean energy economy that benefits all Americans.”Part of the challenge in selling Mr. Biden’s strides on climate is that young voters, who polls suggest care the most about the issue, tend to be the most skeptical of his record on it. There has been significant anger over Mr. Biden’s approval of Willow, an $8 billion oil drilling project on pristine federal land in Alaska, and a pipeline that would carry natural gas from West Virginia to Virginia that has been opposed by environmentalists.Ms. Lodes dismissed left-wing anger over Mr. Biden’s climate record and said that Climate Power would seek to appeal to a broader group of voters critical to his 2024 coalition.“There are activists and then there are voters,” she said. “Climate activists are going to push and push. And you know what? The Biden campaign, the Biden administration need to be pushed to do more and to go further. But at the end of the day, the reality is that he has done more than any other president in American history on climate.”Lisa Friedman More

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      The Climate Fight Will Be Won in the Appliance Aisle

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      More than a year after its passage, much about President Biden’s climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, is working.America is putting in more solar panels than ever before, with installations expected to be up 52 percent compared with last year. The law has helped lock in America’s transition to electric vehicles. Companies have announced more than $60 billion in E.V. manufacturing investments since the I.R.A. passed, and Hyundai is rushing to finish its new E.V. factory in Georgia because the law’s incentives are so good. Across the country, investment in all forms of clean-energy manufacturing has ramped up, with spending this spring five times the level of two years ago, according to a new tracker from M.I.T. and the Rhodium Group, a research firm.The law is supposed to do more than transform the economy, though. It’s also supposed to change how and even where Americans live. The I.R.A. contains nearly $9 billion in rebates meant to help people upgrade and decarbonize their homes — for example, install an induction stove, a heat pump or a new electrical or insulation system. Since the climate law passed last year, Mr. Biden and Democrats in Congress have hyped the savings on energy that these policies will bring to consumers; that is, after all, the inflation that the law is meant to be reducing.But I have grown worried about these efforts — and about the next phase of the I.R.A.’s implementation more broadly. The building sector accounts for about 13 percent of America’s climate pollution, so the success of these programs is essential to the country’s decarbonization efforts. Yet more important, the execution of these programs poses a political risk for the Biden administration. These rebate and tax credit programs are some of the law’s most visible provisions. Other than the law’s electric vehicle subsidies, these home-focused policies will be most Americans’ best opportunity to get I.R.A. money in their pockets.If the programs fail, they could seriously mar the I.R.A.’s public image. And right now, they are faltering.Perhaps the biggest problem is inherent to their design. The most successful federal programs are simple, straightforward and easy to use. Think of the U.S. Postal Service sending free at-home Covid tests to all Americans or the relative ease of signing up for and receiving Social Security benefits. These new home-upgrade programs, meanwhile, seem likely to be especially persnickety, complicated and onerous for many Americans.That’s because, first, there are a lot of programs in play. Although the I.R.A. streamlined some of the most important existing climate tax credits (for example, for greening the grid), it included four home-focused programs. Two of these programs are tax credits meant to give Americans a tax discount when they install a new rooftop solar system, a geothermal-powered heater, a heat pump or another technology that reduces demand for carbon-emitting fossil fuels. Unlike other tax credits in the law, these programs have no income cap, so they can be used by wealthy Americans who can presumably afford to pay upfront to install residential equipment like a water heater. But like other new tax credits in the law, they require Americans to have some federal tax liability in the first place. If you owe nothing on your taxes, then you can’t get a discount.These credits are likely to be generous in aggregate, but in some cases they will be too small to spur a serious change of behavior. Installing a whole-home heat-pump system, for instance, can cost tens of thousands of dollars, but the I.R.A.’s new tax credit will cover only $2,000 of that in one calendar year.That’s when another set of programs is supposed to come in. The I.R.A. introduced a pair of rebate programs meant to help working- and middle-class Americans afford to upgrade appliances and other features of their homes. These two programs, known as HOMES and HEEHRA, are important. When it’s finally put in place, HEEHRA will lower the cost of heat pumps and other climate-friendly appliances at the point of sale, making them more affordable to consumers, including those who are not even aware of the policy. More than perhaps any other programs in the law, these rebates are meant to allow low-income Americans to reduce their monthly energy costs. And because they involve direct cash grants, using the rebates will not require oweing any taxes to the federal government. That is huge for retirees and Social Security recipients, many of whom have no earned income and little to no federal tax liability.Regardless of how consumers are reimbursed, the programs are exceedingly — perhaps even fatally — complicated. The reason they have yet to take effect is that although these programs will be overseen by the Department of Energy, they will be administered separately by each state’s energy office. The department is still finalizing the last few rules that will govern how these programs work. When it finishes that process, then states will apply for their share of the money. Only then — after states receive their funding and set up their programs — will they be able to start disbursing it to their residents.So far, very few state offices have received any funds from the programs — not even the preliminary funds meant to help them hire more staff members and manage administration costs. This could directly hurt the programs’ chances of success in the next year. State energy offices employ anywhere from a handful of people to more than 100, and they have now been tasked with overseeing complicated, high-stakes federal programs.The experts and business leaders I’ve talked to think that these problems will push any serious efforts to carry out the programs well into next year. Montana has said that it doesn’t expect to make rebates available until the first half of 2024. Georgia’s energy office recently estimated that rebates would become available by Sept. 30, 2024, at the latest — barely a month before the presidential election.Even then, major questions remain about how the programs will work. Democratic lawmakers have called on the Energy Department to consider allowing the rebates to be used retroactively — meaning that someone who bought, say, a heat pump in late 2022 could get free money for it under the law. But that would sharply increase the program’s complexity, and it would more quickly deplete the limited funds allocated to the rebates. The programs draw from fixed pools of funding — about $250 million per state — and when that money runs out at the state level, the rebates will lapse in most cases.This is not the only place where the I.R.A.’s implementation is mired in confusion. The initial rules of the home energy rebates have left state officials unsure of whether they can use someone’s eligibility for other social welfare programs, such as food stamps, to gauge whether they qualify for a rebate. (The Energy Department has published guidelines about this, but they are not comprehensive.) That may force states to set up expensive processes that will duplicate work that’s already been done and make it even more burdensome for people to use these programs. It’s also unclear whether households can use several Energy Department programs at once — such as the new HOMES rebates and the longstanding weatherization-assistance program — to reduce the cost of a major project.Unless the Biden administration acts now, these consumer-facing programs could be a big mess by next fall. They will have confusing criteria, work differently in each state and may require applicants to go through time-sucking paperwork before receiving any funds. They will not showcase the nimble, modern government, fighting for working people, that Mr. Biden hopes to sell to voters.The I.R.A. is going to change people’s lives — I have little doubt of that. But only eventually. And for the next year, many of the law’s benefits for average Americans will remain largely theoretical. The M.I.T. and Rhodium tracker says that of the $137 billion in announced clean-energy investment, only $37 billion — just 27 percent — has started to flow. There is a growing risk that as the presidential election arrives, the law’s most world-changing programs to stimulate clean electricity and E.V.s will have yet to show their impact, and its smaller programs will be mired in public operation headaches.There is recent precedent for such a failure. Although most Americans now approve of the Affordable Care Act, the law was blamed for Democrats’ losses in the 2010 midterms, and it remained desperately unpopular for much of the following decade. Even when Donald Trump was elected, most independents still disapproved of the law and wanted to see it rolled back. Only in 2017, when Republicans repeatedly tried to repeal the law, did popular opinion swing in its favor. It has remained popular ever since.The I.R.A., like the Affordable Care Act, aims for a higher purpose than being politically popular. But the law’s survival depends on its — and Mr. Biden’s — ability to win a literal popularity contest next year. Mr. Trump and other Republicans are already cultivating a hatred of the clean-energy transition among voters; failing consumer-facing rebate programs would be a gift to them. And if Mr. Trump wins next year, his team will have plenty of opportunities to undermine the I.R.A.’s emission-cutting policies, even without repealing the whole law.The aspirations of 30 years of climate policies ride on the I.R.A. If this one law is successful, it will open up other ways of making policy for the environment and economy; if it fails, then lawmakers will shy away from tackling climate change for years. The law’s home-rebate programs will not be large enough to fully decarbonize America’s millions of buildings. But if they are successful, then they will allow the creation of future policy that is.The I.R.A., I believe, is still on track to be a success. But voters won’t see the new E.V. factories that it’s building or the sparkling new manufacturing hubs. They will see what’s at Home Depot or in the back of their contractor’s pickup truck. And if people have to fill out 20 pages of paperwork just to save less money on a heat pump than they initially hoped for, that’s what they’ll always remember about the I.R.A.The climate fight might be waged in the streets. But it will be won in the appliance aisle.Robinson Meyer is a contributing Opinion writer and the founding executive editor of Heatmap, a media company focused on climate change.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      If Biden Wins Election, Industry Pollution Will Be a Target for Climate Policies

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      If the president wins re-election, his climate team is likely to try to cut greenhouse gases from steel, cement and other hard-to-clean-up manufacturing.If President Biden wins a second term, his climate policies would take aim at steel and cement plants, factories and oil refineries — heavily polluting industries that have never before had to rein in their heat-trapping greenhouse gases.New controls on industrial facilities, which his advisers have begun to map out and described in recent interviews, could combine with actions taken on power plants and vehicles during his first term to help meet the president’s goal of eliminating fossil fuel pollution by 2050, analysts said. Industrialized nations must hit that target if the world has any hope to avoid the most catastrophic impacts from climate change, according to scientists.“If people look at what this administration has done on climate and say ‘This is enough,’ this country is not going to get to our goals,” said John Larsen, a partner at Rhodium Group, a nonpartisan energy research firm whose analyses are regularly consulted by the White House.But talking about more regulations at the start of what promises to be a bruising election cycle is perilous, strategists said. In particular, the prospect of new mandates from Washington regarding steel and cement, the bedrock materials of American construction, could sour the swing-state union workers courted by Mr. Biden.“If you are seen as imposing debilitating regulations on heavy industry that employs large numbers of people, you’re not only going to get a backlash from manufacturing, but labor as well,” said David Axelrod, the Democratic strategist who ran former President Barack Obama’s campaigns. “How to do that without looking like you are stabbing these industries in the back, or in the front for that matter, is a real political challenge.”Still, the urgency of global warming requires action, Mr. Larsen said. “Most other problems in America aren’t going to be 10 times worse in 10 years if we don’t do something right now,” he said. “Climate’s not like that. If this year has shown us anything, with the extreme weather and fires, it’s that it won’t just stay at this level — it’s going to break all the records we’ve just broken.”President Biden during a visit to Lahaina on Maui, which was devastated by wildfires, last month.Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesRepublicans are eager to seize on the suggestion of additional regulations at a time when many Americans think the economy is in a downturn.“Apparently skyrocketing gas and energy prices weren’t enough for Biden, he wants to raise the prices on building and infrastructure costs and put hard working Americans further into debt,” said Emma Vaughn, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee. “Biden will not be elected to a second term — American families can’t afford it.”But Collin O’Mara, chief executive of the National Wildlife Federation, and others believe that after Americans have sweltered through a summer of the hottest temperatures in recorded history, watched the nation’s deadliest wildfire in over a century decimate a Hawaiian island, inhaled wildfire smoke from Detroit to Atlanta, and experienced hot-tub ocean temperatures off the Florida coast, at least some voters will be ready to embrace more climate action.Solar panel installation at a home in Norman, Okla.Mason Trinca for The New York TimesA second-term Biden climate agenda would come after the president has already delivered transformative policies to reduce greenhouse gases generated by the United States, the country that has pumped the most carbon dioxide into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution.Last year, Mr. Biden signed into law the Inflation Reduction Act, a landmark climate law, which will provide at least $370 billion over the next decade for incentives to ramp up sales of electric vehicles and expand wind, solar and other renewable energy. Under Mr. Biden, the Environmental Protection Agency has proposed regulations, expected to be finalized next year, designed to compel the phaseout of gasoline-powered cars and coal-fired power plants.Together, those policies could help cut the nation’s emissions nearly in half over the next decade, analysts say.And yet, it’s not enough.The United States and nearly 200 other countries agreed in 2015 to try to limit the rise in average global temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100, compared with preindustrial levels. Beyond that point, scientists say, the effects of deadly heat waves, flooding, drought, crop failures and species extinction would become significantly harder for humanity to handle. But the planet has already warmed by an average of about 1.2 degrees Celsius and the United States and other nations are far from meeting their goals.As emissions in the United States decline from energy and transportation, the country’s two biggest sources of greenhouse gases, industry would become the most polluting sector of the economy. That makes businesses like steel and cement manufacturing — among the most difficult to clean up — the obvious target for the next round of climate regulation.At the White House, Mr. Biden’s climate team has already envisioned a multi-step plan to cut industrial pollution if he wins re-election.The first step would use carrots, steering incentives from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act toward nascent technologies to help factories to reduce their carbon footprint.For example, green hydrogen, a fuel produced by using wind and solar power, is muscular enough to run a steel mill but emits only water vapor as a byproduct. And cement production involves heating limestone and releasing large amounts of carbon dioxide, but several companies have been developing cement that does not emit carbon and may even absorb it.Damage to Horseshoe Beach, Fla., after Hurricane Idalia last month.Paul Ratje for The New York TimesThe second step would be to try to compel global competitors to clean up their operations through a “carbon tariff” — a fee added to imported goods like steel, cement and aluminum based on their carbon emissions.Congress would need to approve such a tax, which has support from Democrats and some Republicans. The European Union imposed a similar carbon border tax earlier this year.To justify a carbon tariff to the World Trade Organization, the United States would likely have to impose the same type of taxes on industrial pollution at home. While efforts to impose a carbon tax have long been seen as dead on arrival in Congress, the administration could instead use its executive authority to impose new top-down regulations on industrial pollution by using the 1970 Clean Air Act, which formed the basis for its proposed regulations on cars and power plants.But those policies are already under fire.Candidates seeking the Republican presidential nomination have argued that Mr. Biden’s promotion of electric vehicles and solar energy makes the United States more reliant on its chief economic rival, China, for necessary components and that cutting emissions at home does not matter when other countries continue to pollute.“If you want to go and really change the environment, then we need to start telling China and India that they have to lower their emissions,” said former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley at the first Republican debate last month.Mr. O’ Mara, an informal adviser to the Biden re-election campaign, said that the United States needs to push other nations to act before Mr. Biden can build support for new domestic climate measures.“If we don’t hold polluters in India and China accountable first, the politics are almost impossible,” Mr. O’Mara said.Perhaps even worse for Mr. Biden, unionized autoworkers are uneasy about his regulations designed to pivot the American market away from gasoline-powered cars and toward electric vehicles. Concerned that electric vehicles require fewer workers and a transition could cost jobs, the United Auto Workers has so far declined to endorse Mr. Biden. The union went on strike Thursday against the nation’s largest carmakers, in part over demands that workers at electric vehicle battery factories be covered by the U.A.W. contract.That discontent could spread to workers in the steel and cement industries if new regulations mean fewer jobs.Sean O’Neill the senior vice president of government affairs at the Portland Cement Association, which represents the majority of the nation’s 20 cement manufacturers, said his industry would welcome federal help to decarbonize and would consider supporting some form of a carbon tariff, under certain circumstances. But it would oppose regulations that could limit the availability of materials to build and repair buildings and bridges, he said.“Any policy that could hamper the domestic production of cement could be problematic to the downstream industries — concrete, construction,” he said.At the Biden campaign headquarters in Wilmington, the messaging strategy steers away from regulations and instead highlights the impacts of extreme weather and climate denial on the part of Republicans.Mr. Biden leaned into those themes at a Sept. 10 news conference, saying, “The only existential threat humanity faces even more frightening nuclear war is global warming going above 1.5 degrees in the next 20 — 10 years. That’d be real trouble. There’s no way back from that.”Recent surveys show that Americans are concerned about climate change and think the government and large corporations should do more to fight it, but opinion is mixed when it comes to specific policies.Representative Maxwell Frost of Florida. “Climate is paramount across the South, especially here in Florida where we are on the front lines of the climate crisis,” he said.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesIn surveys by the Pew Research Center this year, 66 percent of adults said the government should encourage wind and solar energy while just 31 percent want the country to phase out fossil fuels. Respondents were divided on the question of whether the government should encourage the use of electric vehicles, with 43 percent saying it should, 14 percent saying it should not and 43 percent saying it should neither encourage or discourage.While 54 percent of adults polled by Pew said climate change was a major threat to the country’s well-being, respondents ranked it 17th out of 21 national issues in a January survey. “Even for Democrats, who say it’s important, it’s not the top issue,” said Alec Tyson, a researcher who helped conduct the survey.The Biden campaign is betting that the real-time damage from weather disasters made worse by climate change will turn out one demographic the president especially needs — young voters in high numbers.“Climate is one of the biggest issues for us — and as we get older it will continue to be,” said Representative Maxwell Frost, 26, Democrat of Florida, who serves on the Biden campaign’s advisory board and is the only member of Congress from Generation Z.“Climate is paramount across the South, especially here in Florida where we are on the front lines of the climate crisis, with hot-tub temperatures in the surrounding ocean,” said Mr. Frost, speaking by telephone from his Orlando district soon after it was flooded by Hurricane Idalia. “The ocean water, the record heat post-hurricane, the record temperatures in the water — these are things we know and feel.” More

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      UAW Standoff Poses Risk for Biden’s Electric Vehicle Commitment

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      A looming auto industry strike could test the president’s commitment to making electric vehicles a source of well-paying union jobs.President Biden has been highly attuned to the politics of electric vehicles, helping to enact billions in subsidies to create new manufacturing jobs and going out of his way to court the United Automobile Workers union.But as the union and the big U.S. automakers — General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis, which owns Chrysler, Jeep and Ram — hurtle toward a strike deadline set for Thursday night, the political challenge posed by the industry’s transition to electric cars may be only beginning.The union, under its new president, Shawn Fain, wants workers who make electric vehicle components like batteries to benefit from the better pay and labor standards that the roughly 150,000 U.A.W. members enjoy at the three automakers. Most battery plants are not unionized.The Detroit automakers counter that these workers are typically employed in joint ventures with foreign manufacturers that the U.S. automakers don’t wholly control. The companies say that even if they could raise wages for battery workers to the rate set under their national U.A.W. contract, doing so could make them uncompetitive with nonunion rivals, like Tesla.And then there is former President Donald J. Trump, who is running to unseat Mr. Biden and has said the president’s clean energy policies are costing American jobs and raising prices for consumers.White House officials say Mr. Biden will still be able to deliver on his promise of high-quality jobs and a strong domestic electric vehicle industry.The head of the United Automobile Workers, Shawn Fain, center, wants his union’s wages and labor standards to apply to nonunion workers who make electric vehicle components.Brittany Greeson for The New York Times“The president’s policies have always been geared toward ensuring not only that our electric vehicle future was made in America with American jobs,” said Gene Sperling, Mr. Biden’s liaison to the U.A.W. and the auto industry, “but that it would promote good union jobs and a just transition” for current autoworkers whose jobs are threatened.But in public at least, the president has so far spoken only in vague terms about wages. Last month, he said that the transition to electric vehicles should enable workers to “make good wages and benefits to support their families” and that when union jobs were replaced with new jobs, they should go to union members and pay a “commensurate” wage. He is encouraging the companies and the union to keep bargaining and reach an agreement, one of Mr. Biden’s economic advisers, Jared Bernstein, told reporters on Wednesday.A strike could force Mr. Biden to be more explicit and choose between his commitment to workers and the need to broker a compromise that averts a costly long-term shutdown.“Battery workers need to be paid the same amount as U.A.W. workers at the current Big Three,” said Representative Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California who has promoted government investments in new technologies.Mr. Khanna added, “It’s how we contrast with Trump: We’re for creating good-paying manufacturing jobs across the Midwest.”At the heart of the debate is whether the shift to electric vehicles, which have fewer parts and generally require less labor to assemble than gas-powered cars, will accelerate the decline of unionized work in the industry.Foreign and domestic automakers have announced tens of thousands of new U.S.-based electric vehicle and battery jobs in response to the subsidies that Mr. Biden helped enact. But most of those jobs are not unionized, and many are in the South or West, where the U.A.W. has struggled to win over autoworkers. The union has tried and failed to organize workers at Tesla’s factory in Fremont, Calif., and Southern plants owned by Volkswagen and Nissan.A Ford Lightning plant in Dearborn, Mich. The U.A.W. worries that letting battery makers pay lower wages will allow G.M., Ford and Stellantis to replace much of their current U.S. work force with cheaper labor.Brittany Greeson for The New York TimesAs a result, the union has focused its efforts on battery workers employed directly or indirectly by G.M., Ford and Stellantis. The going wage for this work tends to be far below the roughly $32 an hour that veteran U.A.W. members make under their existing contracts with three companies.Legally, employees of the three manufacturers can’t strike over the pay of battery workers employed by joint ventures. But many U.A.W. members worry that letting battery manufacturers pay far lower wages will allow G.M., Ford and Stellantis to replace much of their current U.S. work force with cheaper labor, so they are seeking a large wage increase for those workers.“What we want is for the E.V. jobs to be U.A.W. jobs under our master agreements,” said Scott Houldieson, chairperson of Unite All Workers for Democracy, a group within the union that helped propel Mr. Fain to the presidency.The union’s officials have pressed the auto companies to address their concerns about battery workers before its members vote on a new contract. They say the companies can afford to pay more because they collectively earned about $250 billion in North America over the past decade, according to union estimates.But the auto companies, while acknowledging that they have been profitable in recent years, point out that the transition to electric vehicles is very expensive. Industry executives have suggested that it is hard to know how quickly consumers will embrace electric vehicles and that companies needed flexibility to adjust.Even if labor costs were not an issue, said Corey Cantor, an electric vehicle analyst at the energy research firm BloombergNEF, it could take the Big Three several years to catch up to Tesla, which makes about 60 percent of fully electric vehicles sold in the United States.A strike could force Mr. Biden to choose between his commitment to workers and the need to avert a costly shutdown of the U.S. auto industry.Bill Pugliano/Getty ImagesData from BloombergNEF show that G.M., Ford and Stellantis together sold fewer than 100,000 battery electric vehicles in the United States last year; in 2017, Tesla alone sold 50,000. It took Tesla another five years to top half a million U.S. sales. (The Big Three also sold nearly 80,000 plug-in hybrids last year.)The three established automakers had hoped to use the transition to electric cars to bring their costs more in line with their competitors, said Sam Fiorani, vice president of global vehicle forecasting at AutoForecast Solutions, a research firm. If they can’t, he added, they will have to look for savings elsewhere.In a statement, Stellantis said its battery joint venture “intends to offer very competitive wages and benefits while making the health and safety of its work force a top priority.”Estimates shared by Ford put hourly labor costs, including benefits, for the three automakers in the mid-$60s, versus the mid-$50s for foreign automakers in the United States and the mid-$40s for Tesla.Ford’s chief executive, Jim Farley, said in a statement last month that the company’s offer to raise pay in the next contract was “significantly better” than what Tesla and foreign automakers paid U.S. workers. He added that Ford “will not make a deal that endangers our ability to invest, grow and share profits with our employees.”Mr. Biden and Democratic lawmakers had sought to offset this labor-cost disadvantage by providing an additional $4,500 subsidy for each electric vehicle assembled at a unionized U.S. plant, above other incentives available to electric cars. But the Senate removed that provision from the Inflation Reduction Act.Such setbacks have frustrated the U.A.W., an early backer of Mr. Biden’s clean energy plans. In May, the union, which normally supports Democratic presidential candidates, withheld its endorsement of Mr. Biden’s re-election.“The E.V. transition is at serious risk of becoming a race to the bottom,” Mr. Fain said in an internal memo. “We want to see national leadership have our back on this before we make any commitments.”The next month, Mr. Fain chided the Biden administration for awarding Ford a $9.2 billion loan to build three battery factories in Tennessee and Kentucky with no inducement for the jobs to be unionized.A BMW battery plant in South Carolina. The U.A.W. has struggled to unionize autoworkers in the South.Juan Diego Reyes for The New York TimesMr. Biden tapped Mr. Sperling, a Michigan native, to serve as the White House point person on issues related to the union and the auto industry around the same time. By late August, the Energy Department announced that it was making $12 billion in grants and loans available for investments in electric vehicles, with a priority on automakers that create or maintain good jobs in areas with a union presence.Mr. Sperling speaks regularly with both sides in the labor dispute, seeking to defuse misunderstandings before they escalate, and said the recent Energy Department funding reflected Mr. Biden’s commitment to jump-start the industry while creating good jobs.Complicating the picture for Mr. Biden is the growing chorus of Democratic politicians and liberal groups that have backed the autoworkers’ demands, even as they hail the president’s success in improving pay and labor standards in other green industries, like wind and solar.Nearly 30 Democratic senators signed a letter to auto executives this summer urging them to bring battery workers into the union’s national contract. Dozens of labor and environmental groups have signed a letter echoing the demand.The groups argue that the change would have only a modest impact on automakers’ profits because labor accounts for a relatively small portion of overall costs, a claim that some independent experts back.Yen Chen, principal economist of the Center for Automotive Research, a nonprofit group in Ann Arbor, Mich., said labor accounted for only about 5 percent of the cost of final assembly for a midsize domestic sedan based on an analysis the group ran 10 years ago. Mr. Chen said that figure was likely to be lower today, and lower still for battery assembly, which is highly automated.Beyond the economic case, however, Mr. Biden’s allies say allowing electric vehicles to drive down auto wages would be a catastrophic political mistake. Workers at the three companies are concentrated in Midwestern states that could decide the next presidential election — and, as a result, the fate of the transition to clean energy, said Jason Walsh, the executive director of the BlueGreen Alliance, a coalition of unions and environmental groups.“The economic effects of doing that are enormously harmful,” he said. “The political consequences would be disastrous.” More

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      Biden Makes Lower Drug Prices a Centerpiece of His 2024 Campaign

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      President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act allows Medicare to negotiate some drug prices, a change that the pharmaceutical industry and Republicans have opposed for decades.As he heads toward a re-election campaign next year, President Biden is betting that his success in pushing for policies intended to lower health care costs for millions of Americans will be rewarded by voters at the ballot box.In speech after speech, Mr. Biden talks about capping the cost of insulin at $35, putting new limits on medical expenses for seniors, making some vaccines free and pushing to lower the prices of some of the most expensive drugs in the world.At the White House, Mr. Biden and his advisers have already begun to elevate the issue as a centerpiece of his agenda. And at his campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Del., aides are preparing television ads, talking points and speeches arguing that Mr. Biden’s push for lower health care costs is a stark contrast with his Republican opponents.“The president will have a very strong case to make,” said Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, a member of the president’s national campaign advisory board. “Not only will people want to keep the benefits they have seen, they are going to want to get the benefits that are coming their way.”On Tuesday, the White House announced that the Biden administration will negotiate on behalf of Medicare recipients for lower prices on 10 popular — and expensive — drugs that are used to treat diabetes, heart disease and other chronic illnesses.The move was made possible by passage last year of Mr. Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which for the first time allows Medicare to negotiate drug prices for older adults, a change that has been opposed by the pharmaceutical industry for decades.Republicans also generally oppose giving the government the right to negotiate drug prices. But the candidates for the Republican presidential nomination have said little about the cost of medication, focusing instead on abortion, transgender medical issues and Covid lockdowns.In his speeches, Mr. Biden rails against the industry and his Republican adversaries in Congress, all of whom voted against the law that included the prescription drug provisions. Aides say it is an effective message.“Today is the start of a new deal for patients where Big Pharma doesn’t just get a blank check at your expense,” the president said at a White House event celebrating the change.Since signing the law a year ago, Mr. Biden has repeatedly called it one of his proudest legislative victories. But his approval numbers have hardly budged. And while polls show that the new policy is widely popular among Americans who know about it, they also suggest that far fewer people are even aware that the change was made.That is most likely because prices on just the first handful of drugs are not scheduled to actually drop until 2026 at the earliest, assuming Mr. Biden’s program survives legal challenges. Drug companies have filed numerous lawsuits against the administration that claim the law is unconstitutional. Court cases could drag on for years.In its lawsuit against the administration, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, an industry trade group, called the plan for negotiated prices “a government mandate disguised as negotiation.”Even if Mr. Biden’s plan goes into effect, older adults who have made the choice to ration their drugs will have to continue doing so until more than a year after the 2024 presidential election.Danny Cottrell, 67, a pharmacist who owns his retail pharmacy group in Brewton, Ala., said he regularly advised his Medicare patients on the ins and outs of the government’s prescription program. He welcomed Mr. Biden’s changes, but said it would be up to people like him to explain the complicated process.“I got to remind them, this doesn’t start till 2026,” Mr. Cottrell said. “And then also remind them this thing will change several times between now and then.”Neera Tanden, Mr. Biden’s top domestic policy adviser, said the White House was confident that the plan would survive the legal challenges.“It is absurd to argue that negotiation is unconstitutional,” she said in an interview. “There’s nothing in the Constitution that says Medicare negotiating drug prices is unconstitutional.”But more broadly, Ms. Tanden said that she and the president’s other advisers in the West Wing were determined to make the push for lower health care costs a central part of Mr. Biden’s message to Americans.And next September, just weeks before Election Day, the administration will announce the results of the yearlong negotiations over the first 10 drugs.“We plan to work extensively, to really remind folks of this issue,” Ms. Tanden said.For the people leading Mr. Biden’s re-election campaign, the political benefits of focusing on lower health care costs are clear.Some polls show that 80 percent of Americans support giving the government the ability to negotiate lower prices for Medicare, much the way it already does for veterans and members of the military.Campaign aides said talking about lower costs of drugs or limits on out-of-pocket medical expenses is one way to help Mr. Biden win support among seniors, who traditionally have voted for Republicans in greater numbers. That is especially important in battleground states like Michigan, Arizona, Georgia and Ohio, where increasing support among older adults will be critical in close contests.The campaign’s early television ads have included numerous references to the president’s efforts to lower health care costs. A spokesman for the campaign said the issue of health care would be a central feature of a $25 million ad blitz focusing on what the president has done to lower costs overall and make economic progress.Kate Bedingfield, who served as Mr. Biden’s communications director for the first two years of his presidency, said the issue had political benefits even when it came to appealing to people who do not benefit directly from the specific cost reductions.“It draws a really clear contrast with the Republicans, who have stood in the way and continue to stand in the way of getting more done on this,” she said.Representative Michael C. Burgess, Republican of Texas and a doctor, said Mr. Biden’s drug price negotiations were akin to government-imposed price controls that would lead to drug shortages.“This administration’s approach goes beyond ‘negotiation,’” he said in a statement. “Instead, it holds pharmaceutical companies hostage, jeopardizing their future innovation and the well-being of American patients.”Mr. Biden’s campaign aides said a debate with Republicans about the cost of medical care was one they were eager to have.“MAGA Republicans running for president want to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, which would deliver a massive win for Big Pharma and increase costs for the American people,” said Julie Chávez Rodríguez, the president’s campaign manager, referring to Republicans loyal to former President Donald J. Trump.She said the choice in the election was between Mr. Biden and “a slate of candidates focused on extreme policies that put their wealthy donors first.”Robert Jimison More

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      in Elections

      Biden Pitches Manufacturing Boom on Southwest Tour

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      During a stop in New Mexico, the president highlighted how one of his signature pieces of legislation will benefit blue-collar workers.President Biden on Wednesday entered a wind tower manufacturing plant surrounded by desert boasting of declining unemployment, waning inflation and a manufacturing boom — all metrics that should make his three-state Southwest tour a victory lap.“Our plan is working,” Mr. Biden said, referring to his economic agenda. “When I think climate, I think jobs.”But hours before he entered Belen, the president reflected on the challenge hanging over the White House during his tour of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. Even as he traverses the country to promote his economic policies, many voters are still skeptical of — or unclear on — Mr. Biden’s legislative record.He addressed the issue of voter sentiment during a fund-raiser at a private residence shortly after arriving in Albuquerque on Tuesday night.Noting recent infrastructure projects funded by his policies, Mr. Biden said: “They’re beginning to realize what we actually passed is having an impact. It’s just going to take a little while.”White House officials are hoping tours around the nation like Mr. Biden is doing this week can change that. As extreme weather rages across the country, the White House has framed one of its signature pieces of legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act, as both a means to improve environmental justice and a source of manufacturing jobs for wind and solar.A day after seeking to galvanize environmental activists by designating a fifth national monument near the Grand Canyon on Tuesday, Mr. Biden traded talk of conservation for remarks focused on “renewable manufacturing” that can provide “high-paying jobs and dignity to the people who have long been waiting for that.”Mr. Biden talking to Ed Keable, the superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park, on Tuesday.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesThe president pointed to the company hosting him, Arcosa Wind Towers Inc., which received $1.1 billion of new orders for wind tower equipment after the signing of the Inflation Reduction Act, according to the White House.The message most likely resonated with people in New Mexico, where many rural communities are still focused more on job growth rooted in energy production than the fight against climate change, according to Brian Sanderoff, the president of New Mexico-based Research & Polling Inc. But it has not broken through to the nation at large, according to recent surveys.Mr. Biden remains broadly unpopular among a voting public that is pessimistic about the country’s future, and his approval rating is just 39 percent, according to a recent New York Times/Siena College poll. That survey found him in a neck-and-neck tie with former President Donald J. Trump.The poll did find that more Americans think the economy is in excellent or good shape: 20 percent, compared with 10 percent a year ago.On Wednesday, the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, defended the administration’s messaging strategy, saying on CNN that “polls don’t tell the entire story.” She then indicated that the public would see more trips like Mr. Biden’s current swing through the Southwest.The president will be “talking directly to the American people about how wages are actually going up, about how inflation is going down over a long, extended period of time,” Ms. Jean-Pierre said.In the weeks ahead, however, Mr. Biden must convince Americans that they will feel the impact of provisions of his infrastructure, clean energy and semiconductor packages — even if much of the funding may not be spent for years to come.“People live through day-to-day challenges of the economy,” Mr. Sanderoff said. “You can tout big legislation, comprehensive legislation that you passed through Congress, but people are busy getting their kids through school and dealing with the cost of bread.”Matt Bennett, the executive vice president for public affairs at Third Way, a center-left think tank, said the way Mr. Trump’s criminal indictments have dominated Americans’ attention lately makes it even more important for Mr. Biden to travel to small markets and speak directly to the American people.“People have to begin to feel it in their life or understand what the president has done,” Mr. Bennett said. “That takes time.”During his visit to the wind tower facility on Wednesday, Mr. Biden appeared to agree.“I’m not here to declare victory on the economy,” he said. “We have a lot more work to do.” More