In November of 2021, President Biden signed a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill that will have significant impacts on how we address the United States’ current and future infrastructure. California is probably going to get about $375 million electric vehicle charging infrastructure. This week, listen to Ken Alex, Executive Producer of Climate Break, about what this bill is and how this bill will impact the climate. For a transcript, please visit https://climatebreak.org/president-biden-has-signed-the-infrastructure-bill-what-will-happen-next/
For a transcript, please visit https://climatebreak.org/president-biden-has-signed-the-infrastructure-bill-what-will-happen-next/
Ken: California is probably going to get about $375 million electric vehicle charging infrastructure and the state and its own budget is going to add another billion.
Ethan: That's Ken Alex, Executive Producer of Climate Break, as well as the Director of Project Climate at the Center for Law, Energy and the Environment. We sat down to talk about the aftermath of the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Bill, passed by President Biden in November of 2021, to see how it will affect the climate.
Ken: One of the provisions in the infrastructure bill is a significant amount of funding for electric buses. That's really pretty great, because it's an area where the turnover rate is relatively slow. And it's hard for school districts, which are basically by these buses to turn over and get new stock and they need help. But once this starts happening, you're increasing the market. You'll have market penetration and the price will come down and there'll be new innovation there. You know, there, there are companies that are looking at how you transform. You simply replace the combustion engine and existing buses at a much lower cost, as opposed to a whole new bus. They're bus companies that are going to be all over this.
Ethan: Californians drive approximately 300 billion miles a year. Shell has just announced that it's going to start putting electric vehicle chargers in their gas stations.
Ken: And also because buses have repeating loops. They seem ideal for the type of infrastructure that you need, because you always know when you need to recharge. And then maintenance costs are lower. So over time, it's going to be a really big value for local governments and for school districts.
Ethan: To learn more about the infrastructure bill, please go to climatebreak.org, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Ethan Elkind and this was Climate Break.