Strategies to Broaden Employment Opportunities in the Green Energy Economy: Estimated Job and Public Health Impacts of the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law

Abstract

This report evaluates the recent Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in terms of their estimated green energy economy impacts, focusing in particular on the expected investment volume, the potential employment impact, projected greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions, and available public health benefits. The research effort identifies prominent trends in the United States energy sector regarding the balance between renewable energy and traditional, fossil energy sources. We find that the BIL-IRA policy package will likely accelerate the historical trend of coal phase-out and rapidly grow the market share of sustainable energy technology solu-tions. This impact will influence the balance of employment conditions across the various com-ponents of the U.S. energy sector. Here, we find that the BIL-IRA policy package could, using a job multiplier range, achieve over five million green energy economy jobs nationwide. We also include a brief discussion of the impact of the BIL-IRA policy package for the state of Delaware. Overall, the BIL-IRA policy package represents an urgent challenge for planning and policy in that the challenges associated with the expected ‘mid-transition’ process – where phase-out of tra-ditional asset classes like coal energy accelerates and sustainable energy technologies rapidly phase-in – will need to be considered and resolved.

Keywords: Mid-transition, Inflation Reduction Act, Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, job multipliers, green energy economy, renewable energy, sustainable energy utility, green jobs