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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Now our Climate Story of the Week, which we've been doing on the show every Tuesday all this year, President-elect Donald Trump, as you may have heard, announced yesterday that he's nominating former Long Island Congressman Lee Zeldin to head the EPA. This is part of the President-elect's vow to overturn or at least roll back President Joe Biden's climate policies. Trump has called for a repeal of Biden's signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act.

That law, signed in 2022, to remind you, provides at least $390 billion in tax breaks, grants, and subsidies for green energy projects like wind and solar power, electric vehicle battery production, and more. Now, ahead of the incoming administration, Biden and his administration are racing to get that money out of the door. Yesterday, Biden's climate envoy, John Podesta, spoke at the UN Climate Change Conference, known this year as COP 29.

John Podesta: In January, we're going to inaugurate a president whose relationship to climate change is captured by the words hoax and fossil fuels. Facts are still facts. Science is still science. The fight is bigger than one election, one political cycle in one country.

Brian Lehrer: John Podesta there. Joining us now to talk about what to expect from a second Trump administration and what President Biden can do now to safeguard as many of his climate policies as he can is Matthew Daly, a reporter who covers climate, environment, and energy policy for the Associated Press. Hi, Matthew. Welcome to WNYC today.

Matthew Daly: Oh, good to be back with you, Brian. I appreciate it.

Brian Lehrer: As I said in the intro, the Inflation Reduction Act aims to provide $390 billion, but over the course of 10 years. In the two years so far, how much has been awarded, and what has it gone towards?

Matthew Daly: Well, there's some dispute about exactly how much has been awarded, but there's been tens of billions, and I would say probably well over $100 billion has been awarded. It's been for all kinds of things, for solar projects, for wind, for heat pumps. There's also tax credits that you or I could use to buy a heat pump or to buy an electric vehicle. You get $7,500 off of your electric vehicle. There's just a huge array of incentives and programs to try to push renewable energy, both at the utility level and also at the individual level.

Brian Lehrer: I see that this summer the EPA made funds from a federal green bank, as it's called. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management just approved the nation's 10th largest offshore wind farm, to name a couple of things. Can you talk to us a bit more about how the Biden administration is ramping up for these last few months?

Matthew Daly: Well, they deny that a little bit. At least they did before the election. They've said this is just the normal process. You have to remember that the climate law was approved in August of 2022. That's more than two years ago. It has taken quite a while to ramp things up. That's just the nature of government. That takes a long time. The green bank which was approved in the climate law, they finally got that money out the door just recently, in the last couple of months.

Even then, it goes to one kind of clearing house group that's going to then send it out to local groups. Just the way the government works, it takes a while to get these things going.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. That green bank, for people who haven't heard of that, that money goes to clean energy projects such as residential heat pumps, electric vehicle charging stations, and community cooling centers. There's that. Also, I see in the past month alone, the Energy Department has made six announcements, you report, of $1 billion or more, including more than $3 billion for battery manufacturing projects and a $1.5 billion loan to restart a nuclear plant in Michigan.

You reported just last week, Biden set a 10-year deadline for cities to replace their lead pipes with $2.6 billion available from the EPA to help communities comply. That one may not be climate-related, but it's obviously environment-related. How much of this does Trump, or would you say, Lee Zeldin, based on his record as a Republican in Congress, would want to roll back?

Matthew Daly: Well, I think that they're going to try to take aim at whatever they can. I think specifically on the lead pipes thing, that's a little bit different because that's been a program that's been in the works for many years and there are court orders about getting that lead out of there. I think that probably is more safe. I think some of the green bank things have already been issued, and so it'll be hard to claw them back. I think just on a more global picture, the climate law itself, I think, will not be rolled back.

One of the reasons is that many, if not most, of the projects happen to be in Republican-leaning districts. A lot of them are in the South, in Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky. In fact, a group of Republicans wrote a letter to Speaker Mike Johnson before the election and before all this was known what was going to happen, saying, "Please don't repeal this because we need it." I think it's a mix where he can, Trump will claw it back, but in many cases, he will not be able to.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, that letter is interesting. You reported it was 18 Republican lawmakers. That's not many out of the 200-plus Republicans in the House, but still, it's 18.

Matthew Daly: Well, none--

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead.

Matthew Daly: They had zero Republicans in either the House or the Senate who voted for that law, which is stunning in itself, but the fact that you have 18, none of whom voted for that law now saying, "Hey, it's great."

Brian Lehrer: Can you give an example of that? Do you happen to have one of a district somewhere in a red state or just a red congressional district?

Matthew Daly: One that they like to point out a lot and it's kind of the irony is Marjorie Taylor Greene in Georgia. There's a solar plant there. There's more projects there almost than any other district because Atlanta and Georgia are very welcoming to business. That's the case that they will make to Trump is that these are businesses that can create jobs and help the economy, and it's not just about owning the libs. It's, these are actual jobs.

I think Marjorie Taylor Greene is a perfect example where she has actually supported the projects even though she was vehement against the bill.

Brian Lehrer: Was she actually one of the signatories of that letter to the Speaker?

Matthew Daly: No, she was not. [laughs]

Brian Lehrer: She wasn't. Yes. One of the arguments--

Matthew Daly: There are a lot of districts where he goes and Biden likes to make jokes about it. When he was back, when he was in a better mood about it, he would say he didn't know that so many of his Republican friends were socialists.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, anybody want to call in on the future of the Inflation Reduction Act, which is to say the biggest Stop Climate Change bill or Adapt To Climate Change bill in US History, the potential fate of it under President-elect Trump, and the possible amping up of trying to implement it before Trump takes office? 212-433-WNYC. Anybody living in one of those Republican congressional districts, anywhere in the country that's benefiting at least the level of jobs from a green energy project that's been funded under this legislation, or anyone else for Matthew Daly from the Associated Press who covers climate, environment, and energy policy? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692 call or text.

One of the things that the Republicans do argue, I think, and could argue more, is that the success in standing up these clean energy projects in their district might be outstripping that in some more Democratic districts or blue states because the red states and the red districts tend to have less regulation and so it's easier to start a new business or even a new industry. Have you reported on that aspect of it?

Matthew Daly: Well, I don't know if I would go that far. I think one of the reasons that they're doing it, frankly, is because they have fewer unions and fewer requirements. I guess regulation is another word for that, but definitely, they're right-to-work states and so therefore, the companies that are building these prefer not having union jobs. That's a conflict because the Biden administration, Biden considers himself a very strong union man and always talks about the IBEW, the International Brotherhood of Electric Workers, and many other unions. He considers them his soulmates.

The fact that so many of these jobs in the South are not union jobs is a conflict with the professed goal of the administration. There are other ones that are like offshore wind and solar utility projects. If it's a big utility-scale project, they do require project labor agreements, which it's a long way of saying union jobs.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. Here's a Lee Zeldin-related text that came in from a listener. Listener writes, "When Lee Zeldin ran for governor, he promised to open fracking in the Southern Tier of New York." That's Upstate New York. People listening may or may not know that Governor Andrew Cuomo banned fracking for oil or natural gas statewide in New York, one of the few states to do so. Then this adds, "Suffolk County has a groundwater crisis. Example, the Brookhaven plume." Listener concludes, from their point of view, "He will be a disastrous EPA chief."

That is interesting from the standpoint of even New York State, where there is this statewide ban on fracking, and the Trump administration is coming in with the mantra, "Drill, baby, drill." Remember, one of the things that Trump said that he will be a dictator on, on day one is drill, drill, drill.

Matthew Daly: Right, drill, drill, drill, and he calls it liquid gold. On the fracking thing, it's interesting. I think there's a lot of resentment from some Republicans in New York because their neighboring state, Pennsylvania, has fracking, and they've been just getting all kinds of economic benefits. The flip side of that is there are a lot of people in Pennsylvania that complain that they have health problems and groundwater problems and other things that are caused by fracking. It's not a pure victory, but in terms of if you are an industry supporter, which Lee Zeldin certainly is, he's looking at Pennsylvania saying, "Why are they getting all the money?"

In terms of the practical effect, as the EPA chief, though, I don't think he will be able to overturn a state ban. That's a moot point on that, but symbolically and politically, it is a potent issue. Fracking is something that really resonates with people, whether you're for it or against it. It's something that really, Kamala Harris had to really contend with her views five years ago that she was going to ban fracking in Pennsylvania or try to ban it. She had to basically spend all of her time in Pennsylvania saying, "No, no, I'm not going to do that." That was difficult for her.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Politico points out just a little more context on Lee Zeldin during his unsuccessful run for New York governor in 2022. People may remember, who were in New York, that he came surprisingly close to Kathy Hochul, but he lost. It says Zeldin got a larger vote share than any Republican candidate in recent years and he ran on a plan to expand fossil fuel energy, proposing to overturn the state's ban on fracking. Zeldin said that the ban, which former governor Cuomo put into place in 2014 and state lawmakers made permanent in 2020, was harming rural parts of the state.

Again, he lost, obviously, that gubernatorial race. You're making the important point that as EPA chief, he wouldn't have the power to overturn a state policy like that. Let's take a phone call. Roger in the East Village, you're on WNYC. Hello, Roger.

Roger: Hi. Thank you so much for taking my call. I have a property in Delaware County in the Catskills, and I'm thinking of having solar panels put up on it this spring. I'm wondering if that money is going to be around to help me do that or it will be immediately shut off by Trump.

Brian Lehrer: Matt, do you know if that's even possible for it to be immediately shut off?

Matthew Daly: I think it's unlikely that it will be immediately cut off. I think that's going to be a point of contention over the next year, what tax credits they keep and how big they are. I think my short advice is to do it sooner than later if you really want to get it done. Because it's a law passed by Congress, it makes it a lot more complicated to undo it, which is what John Podesta, who's at the Climate Conference in Azerbaijan, was saying he considers it politically bulletproof, but it's not really bulletproof.

It can be cut away at the margins, but it can't be replaced wholesale unless they really get together, both the Republicans in the Senate and the House, to do that. I think we saw with Obamacare, which was a giant target for Republicans for many years, they never did repeal it. I think the climate law is going to be a similar thing where it's going to outlast some of its critics.

Brian Lehrer: Tara in Queens, you're on WNYC. Hello, Tara.

Tara: Hi. Good morning. I would like for the Democrats to call out all the Republicans that are taking credit, call them out by name because they shouldn't be taking credit for the Inflation Reduction Act. Most of them voted against it. I wish the Democrats can do that, keep calling them out for it.

Brian Lehrer: Tara, thank you very much. Actually, building on that call, we have a text message that says the Republicans in those districts do not know that the money for those projects comes from the IRA, Inflation Reduction Act. It's not reported on Fox News propaganda. At least that's what that listener asserts.

When you take those two together, it sounds like, and Matthew, tell us if your reporting backs this up, that some Republicans running for re-election to Congress in districts where there are some of these clean energy projects said, "Look, I brought all these jobs, all these new projects to our district and never gave the Inflation Reduction Act credit." Do you know that to be true?

Matthew Daly: Well, I think they are a little more subtle in the way they word it, but that is the final outcome in terms of the listener. I don't think they're necessarily directly lying about voting yes when they didn't vote yes, but they're just more celebrating the project that's there. In fact, I think we should go back a little further. It's not just the Inflation Reduction Act, which was approved in 2022, it's also the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which was approved the year before, which has a trillion with a T dollars for all kinds of projects, many of which are for clean energy.

While it is bipartisan because a few Republicans voted for it, most Republicans did not, and they are also taking credit for those projects. That's just the law of politics. Once something gets out there and it's happening, you celebrate it. You don't necessarily get into the nuance of how you voted.

Brian Lehrer: I want to ask you about Trump's relationship with electric vehicles in particular and some of the incentives, tax incentives, or other things for that. During his nomination speech back in July at the Republican convention, Trump pledged to "end the electric vehicle mandate on day one." Now, there is no electric vehicle mandate, I don't believe, but he was referring to the Biden administration's goal as a goal to convert half of all vehicle sales to EVs by 2030.

Then in a recent interview with PBS, as you note in your reporting, Trump's rhetoric on EVs seemed to soften, now that he has the public support of who? Tesla CEO, Elon Musk. Here's Trump speaking at a rally on August 3rd of this summer.

Donald Trump: I'm for electric cars. I have to be because Elon endorsed me very strongly, Elon, so I have no choice, but he knows [unintelligible 00:17:22] for a small slice.

Brian Lehrer: How do all those seemingly contradictory pieces fit together?

Matthew Daly: Well, that is Donald Trump in a nutshell. He's a contradiction in terms, but in terms of the electric vehicle mandate, let's start with that. There is no electric vehicle mandate. There is a rule that is being proposed, has been proposed rather, by the Environmental Protection Agency to tighten tailpipe emission standards. Part of that, the way they want to do that is to encourage electric vehicle sales. As you said, they want to get half of them in the next decade. First of all, that's many years in the future. Secondly, that's only half, and that's a proposal, but there is no mandate.

On the flip side of that, EVs have a problem in the sense that they're expensive. People are worried about charging stations. They're kind of running into a little bit of a speed bump in terms of the sales. They had been just growing tremendously, and they still are growing, but in a very much slower rate now. The EV makers and the EV supporters have to acknowledge that and do better about building more charging stations and maybe making the prices a little bit lower. As of right now and I think for the foreseeable, there's going to be a $7,500 credit that you, the owner, can get when you buy a new EV. There is a big incentive to do that.

Brian Lehrer: Let me get one more caller in here. It's Leslie in Manhattan. You're on WNYC. Hi, Leslie.

Leslie: Hi. I was wondering, is there anything in either bills, the IRA or the Infrastructure, that will help guarantee drinking water to citizens of the United States, to everyone in the United States? Because there's a drought in 87% of the United States, as you know.

Matthew Daly: Well, I don't know if they can guarantee, but that's what the lead pipe thing is about. It's the Infrastructure Law that is paying for that. It's $15 billion to replace lead pipes all over the country, not just in Flint, Michigan or Chicago or other cities, but all over the country. It's a surprising number of systems that still have old lead pipes. It's something that it's just going to take them a long time. Even under the new law, it's going to take many years.

I don't know that they guarantee water per se, but there definitely are grants to help water systems produce water and to make them more modern and upgraded, also, to guard against cyberattacks. That's a new thing I've written about. The water systems are the target of cyberattacks because people know that that's a good way to make people vulnerable.

Brian Lehrer: That call, Leslie, thank you, was not so much about climate, obviously, but it reminds me that when we talk about environmental policy beyond climate, what Trump does say, even as he emphasizes the importance of drilling for fossil fuels and downplays risks from climate change, he says, "Oh, I'm for absolutely pure air and crystal clear water," but he rolled back a lot of kinds of environmental policies the first time he was president. Do you have any sense yet of how he's going to try to make it look to the country like he really is for clean air and clean water?

Matthew Daly: That's a good question. He did roll back more than 100 environmental regulations, and not all of them are climate. A lot of them are just old-fashioned clean air and clean water. There's been a huge fight about the Clean Water Act. They use the interesting acronym WOTUS, meaning Waters of the United States. It's basically a law that says that any navigable water can be regulated by the federal government. Republicans have tried to argue that that really ties up farming and all kinds of problems. That case has gone to the Supreme Court a couple of times, and it's going to come back again.

Now I think that with the support of the Trump administration, it seems like they can maybe roll back that clean water protection, and that's going to be a big, big fight upcoming that I think your listeners can be expected to hear about. I think when he says he wants clean water, the facts don't really bear that out.

Brian Lehrer: Do you see Zeldin, anything in his record, or Trump for that matter, anything in his record or how his rhetoric may have changed since 2016, 2020, pursuing any pro-climate policies, or is he just going to try to not say explicitly climate change is a hoax but just push into the pipeline literally as much fossil fuel development as he can and just not have a climate policy?

Matthew Daly: Well, one thing I will say is that in studying Lee Zeldin's record, and I don't pretend to have had that name on my bingo card to be the EPA chief, I think nobody saw that coming yesterday when that was announced, that was a pure surprise and you don't get that many pure surprises in Washington, DC, but in Lee Zeldin's term as a member of Congress, he was a member of the Climate Solutions Caucus, which not that many Republicans are in that caucus. That's something.

I think he also has voted to try to have protections for PFAS chemicals, which I think you've done other shows about, which are these forever chemicals that are really in everything that we use and buy. Those are two things I think that environmental advocates can point to that maybe say he's not quite as extreme as some other Republicans. I think he was really brought in to deregulate because he's a lawyer, and that's his focus, is to deregulate. I think that's really where he's going to be going.

Brian Lehrer: Matthew Daly, reporter who covers climate, environment, and energy policy for the Associated Press, thank you so much for joining us again today and for all the reporting you've been doing on this.

Matthew Daly: Oh, no, thank you. Glad to be here.

Brian Lehrer: That's our Climate Story of the Week.

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