Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin’s praise for the Congressional Republicans’ “infrastructure” plan, in Manchin’s appearance on CNN’s Sunday “State of the Union” talk show April 25, is a sign that “infrastructure” will likely be split away from Biden’s $2.2 trillion so-called American Rescue Plan; and it will be paltry.
Biden’s $2.2 trillion package contains infrastructure spending over 8-9 years not much greater than the $568 billion negotiating plan for roads, bridges, ports, broadband, drinking water infrastructure, etc. the Congressional Republicans put up against it on April 22. And the GOP plan does not include subsidies for millions of electric vehicles and chargers as “infrastructure,” which they most certainly are not, no more than weatherizing homes and office buildings is building “infrastructure.” Manchin told Biden in an April 20 letter that he wants to include nuclear power research and development and subsidies for existing nuclear plants, which is in neither party’s plan.
The main building in Biden’s plan is throwback-technology wind and solar parks, and that is government subsidies for the financial mega-firms and multinationals that are building the junk in anticipation of carbon taxes, fossil fuel shutdowns and big electricity price hikes. Some $200 billion/year is already being invested in unreliable solar- and wind-power infrastructure, and that is now supposed to accelerate through subsidies under Biden’s plan. As already the case in Germany, Denmark and the U.K., these installations will quickly double or triple the price of electricity.
Wind and solar have added 3,779 MW of new power to the U.S. grid in first two months of 2021; no other electric power infrastructure has been built. Projected wind and solar power additions to the grid in the next three years are 60,000 MW. This is 20-30,000 wind turbines, each 600 or more feet tall, which in 15-20 years will lose even their intermittent functioning and be torn down into unrecyclable junk. Or, millions and millions of solar panels replacing farms and woodlands.
