Statement of Dr. Alondra Nelson on Senate Passage of the Inflation Reduction Act
Today, following the Senate’s passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy head Dr. Alondra Nelson released the following statement:
“In his first week in office, President Biden issued a directive to all Federal departments and agencies that started with this simple sentence: “It is the policy of my Administration to make evidence-based decisions guided by the best available science and data.” We committed to follow and deploy science to improve the work of government and the lives of the American people.
Today, in partnership with Congress, the Biden-Harris Administration is on course to deliver on that promise across a vast array of challenges Americans face. Each major piece of legislation headed to the President’s desk in the coming days will enable the scientific discovery that will bring us a healthier, more equitable, clean energy future. Because of these pieces of legislation, millions of Americans facing cancer and other health conditions will pay less as they receive life-saving care.
Senate passage of the Inflation Reduction Act means we are on the cusp of transformative change for the climate. It provides an extraordinary ray of hope for those most impacted by the crisis and for future generations. This bill will supercharge U.S. competitiveness and inject demand into the markets for clean energy technologies invented in America, which now will be manufactured and used in America. This bill will lower energy costs for homes, vehicles, and small businesses with technologies we already have, and make the necessary investments in technologies just over the horizon.
The bill makes important investments in sectors of the economy that are the hardest to make part of the clean energy transition, like industrial energy, and fuels for airplanes and ships. It will provide tax credits for clean fuels for the freight sector made from hydrogen, electricity, and biomass, as well as for carbon that is captured and stored underground. This pulls game-changing energy technologies to the market, and unlocks new innovations that improve technology costs and performance. OSTP and the Department of Energy made a commitment to fusion energy this year – supporting efforts to replicate how the Sun and the stars generate energy – and this bill provides more than a quarter billion dollars for fusion energy science research facility construction and major scientific equipment to enable the next fusion breakthrough.
Just days before he called for evidence and science to drive our decision-making, the President declared it the policy of this Administration to pursue a comprehensive approach to advancing equity for all. We have worked every day since to ground life-changing policies in evidence and science that benefits all of us. The Inflation Reduction Act will provide a strong foundation for those policies to broadly and more equitably ensure our health and wellbeing as a people.”
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