After a year of contentious political wrangling and maneuvering, President Biden’s Build Back Better initiatives morphed into the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The IRA, signed into law on August 16th, 2022, now sets a new highwater mark for America’s transition to a greener economy. To the frustration of hardline ecologists, the IRA stripped many climate initiatives from the original framework. The more ambitious proposals were removed, in part, as a matter of legislative due course but mainly because of concessions to Democratic dissent in the Senate and runaway inflation taking center stage. Those initiatives were ambitious indeed – one provision included a comprehensive energy program called the Clean Energy Performance Program (CEPP). The CEPP incentivized utility companies to expand solar, wind, and other renewable energy sources. One problem with the CEPP? That program would create almost 8M new jobs. That sounds great, but the proposal clashes with 2022’s economic reality as the Federal Reserve executes its unspoken […]