A Climate Analysis of President Biden’s Build Back Better Agenda

Last Updated January 5, 2021

President Biden’s bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and H.R. 5376, the Build Back Better Act (BBBA) as passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on November 19, 2021, would collectively invest more than $600 billion in climate action, clean energy jobs, and environmental justice. Together, they constitute the largest-ever U.S. investment in climate, treating the climate crisis as the national emergency it is and envisioning a country in which climate action is woven into the fabric of our everyday lives.

While the bipartisan IIJA contains important programs to reduce emissions and clean up toxic pollution, it is not a climate bill. Investments in conventional transportation infrastructure such as bridges, roads, and ports are the principal focus of the bipartisan bill, not the decarbonization of the economy. Its passage alone cannot deliver on President Biden’s ambitious goal to reduce U.S. carbon emissions by 50 percent by 2035. The Build Back Better Act’s passage is necessary to truly unlock the vision of a 100 percent clean energy economy. The largest single investment in climate in U.S. history, the Build Back Better Act provides $555 billion in direct federal spending to buy electric vehicles, install solar panels, retrofit buildings, and manufacture wind turbines and other clean-energy equipment. 

Together, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, also known as the “Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework,” and the House-passed Build Back Better Act would cut more than a gigaton of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. This amount is 50-52 percent lower than 2005 levels, putting the U.S. on a credible path to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. Passing the Build Back Better agenda is essential to achieving President Biden’s goal of creating good-paying union jobs, conserving our natural resources, and building a healthy, more equitable clean energy future.