Joe Biden on Tuesday will call for setting a 100% clean-electricity standard by 2035 and investing $2 trillion over four years on clean energy, three people familiar with his plan said Monday. The Democratic nominee’s new commitments mark a clear shift toward progressives’ environmental priorities and cutting the use of fossil fuels. The people briefed on his plan spoke on the condition of anonymity ahead of its formal rollout Tuesday in Wilmington, Delaware.
The $2 trillion in spending across four years is in place of the more modest $1.7 trillion over 10 years plan that Biden proposed last year while fighting for the nomination. Most of that investment in the new proposal would be one-time costs with the goal of spending the money to the maximum extent possible during those four years.
The proposals are another key element of Biden’s broader plan to pull the U.S. out of the recession touched off by the coronavirus pandemic as he builds his argument into the November election against President Donald Trump. With the energy plan, Biden will seek to both revive the economy and address deeper systemic problems that existed before the virus hit.
Yet the challenge for Biden lies in convincing progressive voters that he hasn’t left them short even as he set aside some of the more ambitious moves called for in the Green New Deal championed by left-wing Democrats including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York