For now, wind energy is the source of just over 8% of total U.S. electricity generation, which lately has greatly relied on natural gas. Wind
FAN,
+1.14%
made up about 43% of electricity generation from renewable energy in 2020, the latest year for complete data, the Energy Information Administration says.
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The upcoming Northeast lease sale is projected to generate up to 7 gigawatts (GW) of clean energy, power two million homes and create thousands of jobs in manufacturing, construction, operations, maintenance and service industries in nearby communities, the Biden team pledged, adding that union labor and U.S.-manufactured materials will be part of the award process.
The White House says the sale is a record because it is the “most lease areas ever offered.”
“Working together, New York, New Jersey and the federal government will build on these new lease stipulations through a new federal-state partnership that will ensure local residents — including underserved communities — benefit from new developments,” the White House said in a release.
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As this announcement rolls out, the Biden administration and leading Democrats continue to try to push through a broad spending package, known as Build Back Better, that contains several climate-change provisions and is meant to piggy back with infrastructure spending and executive orders aimed at electrifying the government vehicle fleet and backing more conversions to solar and wind power.
The cost of that roughly $2 trillion bill and reluctance by some Democrats in traditional energy states, namely Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, has held up passage in a tightly divided Senate. Republicans, for their part, represent states with a growing wind-power presence but they generally want a diverse U.S. energy portfolio that includes natural gas
NG00,
+7.89%,
nuclear and more. They’ve also argued that renewable-energy jobs are growing but may not pay as much as traditional-energy-sector roles, although that varies by region.
Read: Clean-energy jobs split nearly equally between Republican, Democratic districts — this shows where the most jobs are
The White House on Wednesday also provided an update on other clean-energy efforts, mostly that had been funded via the infrastructure bill passed last year or pandemic-related economic relief funds.
They include: a collaboration among Interior, Agriculture, Defense, Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency to improve the efficiency of reviews of clean energy projects on public lands; Energy’s Building a Better Grid initiative meant to accelerate the deployment of new transmission lines; and help from USDA to install solar on farms in underserved areas.
