White House to unveil multi-pronged approach to reduce emissions in the manufacturing sector

By Donald Judd, CNN

The White House will unveil new efforts to reduce emissions in the manufacturing sector Tuesday, including nearly $10 billion in Department of Energy funding from President Joe Biden’s signature infrastructure law aimed at “clean hydrogen” manufacturing.

The announcement also includes the launch of a new “Buy Clean Task Force,” which promotes the use of low-carbon and carbon-neutral materials, boosting federal procurement of clean construction materials and building on efforts already underway at the General Services Administration (GSA), which manages a nationwide federal real estate portfolio and oversees approximately $75 billion in annual contracts.

In addition, the Council on Environmental Quality will issue Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Sequestration (CCUS) guidance outlining how agencies should plan on using $12 billion in funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to store carbon emissions from smokestacks and existing emissions, in service of moving towards a net-zero economy.

“These actions and continued implementation of the bipartisan infrastructure law will reduce climate pollution from industrial facilities, while growing the economy and creating jobs in producing clean materials, which customers around the world are increasingly demanding,” the White House wrote in a fact sheet shared with reporters Monday.

“With a strong foundation in place from today’s announcements, the President’s Build Back Better agenda will further boost clean manufacturing and American competitiveness for decades to come, by supporting low-carbon processes across our industrial base; driving long-term investment in our clean steel, cement, and aluminum industries; and increasing domestic production of electric vehicles, wind turbines, solar panels, and more.”

On a call with reporters Monday, a senior administration official said successful passage of the administration’s infrastructure package made most of Tuesday’s announcements possible.

“Fortunately, the hard work that the President did along with the Congress over the last year … we’ve got a bunch more tools that we can bring to bear in seizing this opportunity,” the official said.

But Tuesday’s efforts to reduce emissions aren’t restricted solely to domestic production — Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, US Trade Representative Katherine Tai and senior White House officials will further American policies on reducing emissions in steel and aluminum production abroad, building on an agreement with the European Union “to restrict access to their markets for dirty steel and limit access to countries that dump steel in both markets, contributing to worldwide over-supply.”

All told, the official told reporters Monday, Tuesday’s announcement reflect the Biden administration’s “whole of government approach,” to reducing emissions, including a “sector by sector” effort.

“And it’s really important to recognize where we are in this moment, because until this administration, I think folks referred regularly to the industrial sector as hard to decarbonize. And that wasn’t the beginning of the conversation, it ended up being the end of the conversation,” the official said, adding that in contrast, the Biden administration is focused on “throwing the weight of the government behind every single sector, and making sure that we were leaving no tons of abatement potential behind in this sector.”

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