A New Theory About Why Biden’s Big Climate Law Failed

About this episode

This episode discusses the limited political returns of Biden's Inflation Reduction Act with political science expert Alexander Gazmararian.

When President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law in 2022, Democrats imagined he was setting a new policy feedback loop in motion. Voters would see how the law was changing their communities — investing in new factories and solar farms — and then rally to protect it from Republicans. That didn’t happen. Last summer, Republicans in Congress repealed many of the law’s best climate policies. So what broke down? On this episode of Shift Key, Rob is joined by  Alexander Gazmararian , a political science professor at the University of Michigan and the co-author of a new paper about why the IRA had limited political returns. Rob and Alex discuss whether voters noticed the climate law, the trade-off between taking credit for policies and de-polarizing them, and why politicians’ credibility matters so much when designing economic policy. Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap News. You can find a full transcript of the episode here . Mentioned: The new paper:  Why Biden-era clean energy investment policies had limited political returns Rob’s  original article about the ‘Green Spiral’ From Heatmap:  Does More…

People in this episode

Host: Robinson Meyer

Guest: Alexander Gazmararian

Topics covered

• climate policy
• political science
• voter behavior
• economic policy
• Biden administration
• Inflation Reduction Act

Keywords

• Biden
• climate law
• Inflation Reduction Act
• political returns
• voter engagement
• economic policy
• clean energy

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: University of Michigan, Heatmap News

Books & works: Inflation Reduction Act, Why Biden-era clean energy investment policies had limited political returns, Green Spiral, Does More Renewable Energy Lead to More Political Support? Not in Texas., Inside Form Energy’s Big Google Data Center Deal

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