What does Biden’s Climate Plan mean for Wisconsin?

By Hillary V.

Newly-inaugurated President Joe Biden promised a lot in his first 100 days – including a comprehensive, aggressive and exciting climate plan. But what does that mean for us midwesterners? What will actually impact us? What differences will we see? Here are a few key points from Biden’s climate plan and how they may play out here in Wisconsin.

• Civilian Climate Corps (“CCC”) Initiative. Biden has proposed a new civilian corps, this time focused on climate. The goal for the CCC is to create jobs restoring ecosystems and leveraging agriculture’s carbon sequestration potential. While it is unclear where exactly the CCC will be deployed, Wisconsin and the midwest are ripe for these opportunities.
• Agriculture. Biden’s climate plan directs the Secretary of Agriculture to conduct a stakeholder process to identify opportunities for climate-smart agriculture. This will certainly be a space to watch for Wisconsin farmers.
• Clean energy. President Biden established a goal of moving the collective U.S. economy to go carbon neutral by 2050. In particular, he has directed the power sector to eliminate carbon emission by 2035. Wisconsin traditionally relied upon coal for energy power, but major players in the energy sector have already made major moves away from fossil fuels in recent months.
  • Wisconsin’s largest utility company, the Wisconsin Energy Corporation (“WEC”) recently announced it would retire its South Oak Creek coal plant outside of Milwaukee as part of a plan to retire 1,800 megawatts of fossil fuel generation. WEC has committed to investing $2 billion in renewable resources in the next five years.  
  • Alliant Energy, a Madison-based energy company, which serves nearly 1 million customers, plans to eliminate all coal from its electricity generation by 2040, which is about 10 years sooner than its previous goal. Alliant also announced in May that it planned to shutter its Edgewater coal plant in Sheboygan by the end of 2022. The Columbia Energy Center in Pardeeville, the last remaining coal-generating station that Alliant co-owns with Wisconsin Public Service and Madison Gas and Electric just announced its closure by the end of 2024. 
• Public Transportation. Biden set a goal of providing every American city containing 100,000 or more residents with high-quality, zero-emissions public transportation options by 2030—including rail transit, expanded bus service, and bike/pedestrian infrastructure. 
• Fuel Standards. Biden also committed to increasing fuel economy standards, which will support electric vehicles. Here in the Midwest we can expect the cost of electric and hybrid vehicle costs to go down and for electric vehicle charging stations to be more widely available. 

Much remains up in the air about how Biden’s climate plan will play out. But here in the Midwest, we can look forward to exciting developments in the agriculture, energy and transportation sectors.