In an open letter today to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi several of the world's largest U.S. and global energy and industrial businesses pleaded with Congressional leadership to pass the Build Back Better Act.
The businesses, which included engineering companies like Black & Veatch, oil companies like BP Americas and Shell, and energy and power companies including Dominion Energy and Xcel Energy all called on Congress to pass the legislation.
"Each month of delay means an estimated $2 billion in lost economic activity," the businesses wrote in their letter. "As leaders in the clean energy industry, we stand ready to deploy tens of billions of dollars to expand our domestic manufacturing capacity and to employ American workers to build the. equipment and projects to power our clean energy transition."
While a mix of large and small technology companies, investors, and developers signed the letter, the absence of energy giants like ExxonMobil and Chevron speaks to the existing divide in the US between traditional energy companies and entrenched interests and the new energy economy that still needs to be bridged.
The passage of the Build Back Better Act (or even just its climate components) would have a massive, positive impact on an American economy that's desperately trying to bring back domestic manufacturing as a strategic and social imperative. It'd be a huge boon to the "American dynamism" that many venture investors say they're looking to support.
"The Build Back Better Act will more than double clean energy investment to $750 billion over the next ten years, supporting one million, good-paying American jobs over the same period of time," the companies wrote in their letter. "As a result, the United States will be able to reach 750 GW of wind, solar and battery storage by 2030 and cut power sector emissions by nearly 70% below 2005 levels. That is the equivalent of 175 million American homes being powered by low-cost, reliable clean energy."