A host of measures included in draft legislation would boost domestic production and U.S. jobs in a growing clean energy economy
WASHINGTON, September 13, 2021 — National business group Advanced Energy Economy (AEE), which represents clean energy companies and large clean energy buyers, expressed support for domestic manufacturing provisions in the Build Back Better (BBB) Act put forward by the House Ways & Means and Energy & Commerce Committees, which will mark up their sections of the legislation this week.
“AEE has been championing smart, additive policies that support the development of domestic advanced energy manufacturing, which we need to build a prosperous clean energy economy,” said Harry Godfrey, AEE’s manufacturing policy lead. “We are encouraged to see that a number of those policies have made their way into the legislation currently working its way through Congress.”
AEE specifically expressed support for the following provisions related to domestic manufacturing in the Ways & Means draft:
- A 10 percent domestic content adder for projects receiving clean energy and transportation tax incentives that also meet a specific domestic content threshold
- Domestic content provisions in the legislation’s “direct pay” provisions, which make it easier for projects that use domestic content to receive 100 percent refundable tax credits, rather than having to finance through large financial institutions
- An adder to the EV tax credit that provides up to $4,500 for any vehicle that undergoes final assembly at a U.S. facility
- $25 billion for the 48C manufacturing tax credit, $4 billion of which would be specifically reserved for communities with automotive manufacturing
AEE likewise expressed support for the following provisions specifically related to domestic manufacturing in the Energy & Commerce draft:
- $10 billion for the Department of Commerce to monitor and map critical manufacturing supply chain vulnerabilities and support domestic companies and other entities to address those vulnerabilities
- $1 billion for grants to support domestic production of Zero Emission Vehicles (ZEVs)
- $3 billion for the Department of Energy’s Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM) program to provide loans to support domestic manufacturing of medium- and heavy-duty zero emission vehicles, as well as “reequipping, expanding, or establishing a manufacturing facility in the U.S. to produce” medium and heavy duty ZEVs, zero-emission trains or locomotives, maritime vessels, aircraft, and hyperloop technology.
“AEE is pleased to see a wide variety of policies proposed that would strengthen the advanced energy industry and its domestic manufacturing capacity. We urge Congress to approve this suite of policies that would create thousands of new U.S. manufacturing jobs and deliver an excellent return on investment for the U.S. economy,” said Leah Rubin Shen, Director of Federal Policy at AEE.
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