6 ways the Inflation Reduction Act changed America and the world in 1 year [View all]

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6 ways the Inflation Reduction Act changed America and the world in 1 year
Biden's massive green energy and industrialization law has accomplished a lot in a short time, but its future is up in the air

PETER WEBER
AUGUST 12, 2023

https://theweek.com/in-depth/1025685/6-ways-the-inflation-reduction-act-changed-america-and-the-world-in-1-year

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The law has capped insulin prices and out-of-pocket drug expenses for Medicare beneficiaries and beefed up corporate and high-income tax compliance, but the IRA's biggest goal is "to spur clean energy buildout on a scale that will bend the arc of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions," using components made in America, The Associated Press reported. "In less than a year it has prompted investment in a massive buildout of battery and EV manufacturing across the states."

"The green energy portion of the bill" — already slated to be "the most aggressive effort to decarbonize the U.S. economy ever" — is "turning out to be even bigger than analysts thought at the time," Rick Newman wrote at Yahoo Finance. In fact, "the laughably misnamed and poorly understood Inflation Reduction Act" may end up being "the biggest sleeper event of the Biden presidency." Here are some ways the IRA has changed America, and the world, after one year.

1. Cut carbon emissions
The U.S. pledged in the 2015 Paris Agreement to slash greenhouse gas emissions by half of 2005 levels before 2030. Former President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the agreement two years later, and by the start of the Biden administration, analysts at Rhodium Group, an independent analytics firm, forecast that the U.S. would, at best, cut emissions by about a quarter.

Thanks largely to the IRA, Rhodium said in its July 2023 report, the U.S. is on track to cut emissions by as much as 42% by 2030 and by 32% to 51% by 2035. That's "a meaningful departure from previous years' expectations for the U.S. emissions trajectory," Rhodium analysts wrote.

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