Secretary Janet Yellen Gives Remarks at Cypress Creek Renewables in North Carolina

I met you earlier. North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, right there. Mayor Elaine O'Neill and Mayor Pam Hemminger. Thank you all for taking the time out of your busy schedules to be here today at this fantastic North Carolina solar farm. Cypress Creek, Cypress Creek Renewables. We are developer, owner, operator, and financier of solar power plants across the country. We have two permanent offices here in North Carolina. Our state-of-the-art control center, which we visited earlier today, and we have an office in Asheville. We are deeply committed to this beautiful state. Our company owns 145 sites across North Carolina, and we operate 100 more for our customers for a total of 245 sites that we operate here in North Carolina. And as the most experienced developer in the state, we put our money where our mouth is to benefit North Carolinians. This year, Cypress Creek will pay more than $3 million in taxes to the municipalities where we operate, and that's just this year. Our facilities last 40 years, and we pay our property taxes year in and year out. These tax dollars are used to fix roads, improve schools, provide emergency services, and so much more. Overall, we've invested more than $2.3 billion in North Carolina. Each solar farm we build creates dozens of local construction jobs with family-sustaining wages. Really important point. Our fleet powers more than 143,000 homes in the state of North Carolina, and of our 360 employees full-time for Cypress Creek, 150 of them live here in the state. Last year, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper signed into law HB 951, landmark legislation that brought the power of law to the state's ambitious goals to reduce carbon emissions by 70% by 2030 and achieve net zero by 2050. We are honored to help achieve this goal. This small site alone has offset 1,148 metric tons of carbon dioxide already this year. That's the equivalent of planting more than 53,000 trees. It's almost 5,000 barrels of oil avoided and 87,000 gallons of gas never burned. With this solar farm and others like it, we are building, others like it that we are building across the country, we are, as we like to say at Cypress, our mission statement, we are powering a sustainable future one project at a time. Earlier this year, Congress and President Biden made it clear that they are also committed to this mission for the future by signing into law the largest investment in American climate action to date, the Historic Inflation Reduction Act, the IRA. To us, this act means lower energy costs for families across the nation. It means an increase in steady, good paying and family supporting jobs in the clean energy industry. It means safety and security through American energy independence. For North Carolina, the Inflation Reduction Act should further empower the North Carolina Utilities Commission to lean into achieving the state's carbon reduction goals by making the acceleration of near-term deployment of renewable energy and energy storage even more cost effective. The deployment of utility scale solar, currently the lowest cost to install of any type of energy is paramount in achieving the goals set forth by North Carolina and by the Biden administration. As we face the potentially worsening impacts of climate change, war abroad and the pains of inflation at home, legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act has never been more important. It means a more sustainable, brighter future for all of us. We're honored today to have with us a great leader who's helping to usher in our clean energy future propelled by this legislation and a leader who understands how important an investment of this magnitude is in climate solutions for our country. Please join me in welcoming the United States Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen. Thank you so much, Sarah, and hello everyone. It's a pleasure to be at Cypress Creek Renewables. Solar projects like the ones developed here exemplify the promise of our clean energy future. I wanna thank Congressman Deborah Ross, Congresswoman Deborah Ross and Congressman David Price for being here and for their support of the Inflation Reduction Act. Thanks to State Senator Mike Woodard and Attorney General Josh Stein, to Mayor Elaine O'Neill and Mayor Pam Henninger. I really appreciate your being here today as well. Earlier this month in Michigan, I laid out the President's economic plan, how it will strengthen our economy for decades to come. In particular, I explained how the plan will make our economy more productive and resilient and advance economic fairness for all Americans. Today, I wanna focus on a key component of the President's economic blueprint, undertaking historic investments to fight climate change. I gave my first speech warning about the economic dangers of a warming planet almost 25 years ago. That was during the Clinton administration. At the time, there was an established scientific consensus around the threat posed by climate change, but among the public and policy makers, an understanding of its threats, as well as the economic opportunities from a clean energy transition was much lower than it is today. I'm happy to report today that President Biden's economic plan represents the most aggressive action we have ever taken to address the climate crisis. The President has tackled the crisis head on by securing over $430 billion to modernize our energy system. These investments will accelerate the transition to our green energy future and lower energy costs for American households and businesses. They will secure our energy supply against global price shocks, and they will provide good-paying, high-quality jobs across America, particularly in non-coastal communities that have suffered from disinvestment. So first, let me touch on the risks of climate change to our economy. Of course, unmitigated climate change is an existential threat to everyone on our planet, but short of that, it poses meaningful risks to our economy. One way that economists measure the impact of warming is as a reduction in potential output. That is, climate change decreases how much our economy can produce. In a world that continues to warm, regions that are prosperous today may eventually become unsuited for productive economic activity. In many regions, human mortality is projected to rise, and labor productivity to fall, with the size of the impacts depending on the degree of warming. Quantitative estimates of climate change impact on GDP vary widely, and that's in part due to the difficulty of modeling the tail risk of crossing irreversible climate tipping points. We do know that the harms of climate change are likely to be borne disproportionately by the most vulnerable populations. These are those who lack the resources to deal with the impacts, and this is true both within the United States and globally. Many low-income countries are likely to be among the most severely impacted. The simple truth is that the disparate impacts of climate change raise the likely toll of human suffering. In addition to its chronic impacts, climate change can manifest itself through an increase in weather-related supply shocks. These are near-term sharp reductions in capacity that can raise prices. The reality is that shocks that were unthinkable even a few decades ago are now presenting with alarming frequency. There's been at least a five-fold increase in the annual number of billion-dollar disasters over the past five years compared to the 1980s, even after adjusting for inflation. Here in North Carolina, you remember well the devastating toll of Hurricane Florence. That disaster killed 22 Americans. It led to $24 billion in damage and left a million North Carolinians without power. And over the past week, we have seen Hurricane Fiona's horrific impact on Puerto Rico. I know our administration is working hard with the Puerto Rican government to get aid to those who need it. These shocks are occurring around the world, and they often have global ramifications. As an example, severe droughts and floods across the globe have hurt grain yields, contributing to the growing food security crisis. In Pakistan, devastating floods have killed over 1,000 people and displaced another 33 million, while also wiping out hundreds of thousands of hectares of farmland. Climate change is also exacerbating energy shortages in Europe. Abnormally hot and dry conditions have reduced nuclear and hydropower electricity production in a number of countries while driving up the demand for energy. Viewed through the lens of supply shocks, climate change can have a worrying effect on macroeconomic stability. Supply chain disruptions like the ones experienced during the pandemic, they may become commonplace. Businesses will likely increasingly need to invest in expensive climate change adaptation strategies, and households, too, will likely need to increasingly devote resources to everything from higher food bills to flood insurance, while potentially dealing with diminished health and higher mortality. And climate change presents a notable challenge for governments as well. Persistent frequent shocks will place more strain on the need for fiscal relief. It will also limit our ability to address it by shrinking our national resources. State and local governments may increasingly be forced to devote scarce resources to disaster mitigation, and that potentially at the expense of investments in areas like education and worker training. And the bulk of the evidence suggests that these disasters have long-lasting negative effects on economic growth, with many economies failing to fully recover. In sum, climate change poses a great risk to the productive capacity of our economy, while also impacting its stability. To tackle these risks, we need to accelerate our transition to a clean energy economy. By doing so, we will also realize significant economic opportunities in high-growth industries, while building economic resilience and creating good-paying jobs across the country. The President has called the 2020s the decisive decade to address climate change and avoid its worst impacts. To do our part, the United States is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least half from 2005 levels by the end of the decade. We've made significant progress, and further powered by the Inflation Reduction Act, our plan puts us on a strong course to achieve that goal. A cornerstone of the Biden administration's approach on climate change rests on harnessing the engagement of the private sector. Specifically, the government must provide the basic foundations and the long-term certainty that businesses need to invest at scale and drive the transition toward a clean energy future. Our government has long provided incentives to mobilize private capital toward compelling economic and public policy objectives. Decades of government research investment spurred the creation of the internet. Commercial and medical technologies that we take for granted, like MRIs and advanced prosthetics, they were supported by government throughout their development. And this approach extends to clean energy. In large part due to concerted government investment, costs for key renewable energy technologies have already seen declines upwards of 75% over the past decade. But this administration understood that our existing system of programs and incentives were not sufficiently strong to help transition the economy at the pace that's needed to meet our climate goals, nor at the pace that's required to ensure that American industries and workers benefit from the transition to the maximum extent possible. Investors lacked long-term certainty because tax credits were subject to congressional renewal at short intervals. In the case of the tax credit for electric vehicles, it began to phase out once a manufacturer had sold 200,000 cars. There was also little, if any, support for new technologies that could help transition harder to abate sectors, such as hydrogen and sustainable aviation fuel. The result, the United States was at risk of being left behind in the global competition for leadership of these low-carbon technologies and industries of the future. Like a large ship, the US economy requires a clear course to steer in the right direction. This means coupling long-term incentives for private investment with regulation across key sectors in order to accelerate innovation and expand the productive capacity of the economy. And that's what the Biden plan delivers. The cornerstone of the plan, the Inflation Reduction Act, extends and expands the current system of clean energy tax credits. These reforms will provide greater long-term certainty for businesses on their returns on investment. The credits will also have greater reach. For the first time, non-profits and state and local governments will be able to benefit directly from them. For emerging technologies, such as clean hydrogen and carbon capture, the Inflation Reduction Act will jumpstart innovation and growth. For more established zero-emissions technologies, like the solar energy projects operated here at Cypress Creek, the law will sustain and accelerate progress that's been made. We also expect to see lower energy costs for families. The administration has launched a website to help Americans take advantage of a wide range of consumer tax credits. There are tax credits to lower costs for home energy efficiency improvements. Such as better insulation and heat pumps. As well as new tax incentives for buying and installing energy efficient air conditioners and furnaces in homes. But there's more. Beyond the consumer tax credits, we expect a significant mobilization of private investment into the clean energy sector. Combined with the business tax credits, this investment is expected to further push down the costs of clean energy production. And this in turn is expected to help bring down retail electricity rates at the same time as the law electrifies a greater share of the American economy. Modernizing our energy system means modernizing our infrastructure as well. To accommodate new clean energy production and usage, the bipartisan infrastructure law is laying the groundwork for improvements and expansions of transmission lines. This work anticipates the potential need to triple the size of our electricity transmission systems by 2050. The infrastructure law also funds the first national EV charging system. It will make 500,000 chargers available across the country. Well, what does all this mean for our economy? Through these investments, we're positioning the United States to capitalize on the growing demand for low carbon products around the world. We're establishing and expanding our country's leadership in key industrial and technology sectors. We're attracting investments in companies and workers here at home. And we're creating high quality, good paying jobs across America. In the meantime, these investments boost our global effort to directly combat climate change and avoid its worst economic, social and health fallouts. I'm proud that the Treasury Department will be at the forefront of implementing our economic and climate plan. I'm also proud that as we push the ambitions of other countries to do more, I can represent the United States as a world leader in tackling the climate crisis with greater credibility than ever before. I also wanna discuss two further impacts of these laws, increased resilience and greater economic inclusion. Over the past two years in particular, we've seen the direct consequences of our continued dependence on fossil fuels. Not only do we continue to contribute and subject ourselves to a rapidly warming climate, but we expose ourselves to the type of energy market volatility we've experienced in the wake of Russia's brutal war on Ukraine. No country controls the wind and the sun. And countries that can harness those sources of energy will make their economies more resilient and secure. And that is exactly what we're doing with the Inflation Reduction Act. We're shifting our dependence to clean sources and away from the volatility of fossil fuels and the autocratic regimes that often control them. The law also incentivizes investment here at home in solar panels, batteries, and other key components of the energy supply chain. And this helps secure critical inputs needed to deliver on our clean energy future. Our plan also dedicates $50 billion to strengthen the resilience of our infrastructure against the increasing number and severity of extreme weather events. These investments will help protect America's farm owners, farmers, homeowners, and communities against drought, floods, and extreme heat. And finally, our sustainable future must be fair and inclusive. Within days of taking office, the President established the Justice40 Initiative, which aims to deliver 40% of the overall benefits of federal climate and environmental remediation investment to disadvantaged communities. In line with that commitment, our plan provides funds to help clean up hazardous waste and pollution in local communities that have been most harmed by them. And this will lift a barrier that's held back health and economic outcomes in these communities. At the same time, our plan will spur new economic opportunities for cities, towns, and rural areas that have been overlooked. For too long, economic activity, economic opportunity has been disproportionately concentrated on the coasts. But clean energy creates opportunities across the country. This includes non-coastal areas and communities that have been historically dependent on fossil fuel extraction. In fact, the Inflation Reduction Act provides additional tax incentives for businesses to invest in low-income and historic energy communities with strong labor standards as a key requirement. These new opportunities will add to the billions in federal investments that the Biden administration is already making in communities hard hit by coal mine and power plant closures. So in sum, the transition to a clean economy has massive economic stakes for the United States and the world. We need to mitigate against the risks and capitalize on the economic opportunities. But there's a personal imperative to act too. It's often said that how well we tackle this crisis is a test of whether we can come together to preserve the planet for our children. But from what I've seen over the past few years, with the growing severity of the disasters that have struck the United States, this is no longer just about our children. Frankly, this is about us as well. The volatility of the planet that we live in right now and in the months and years to come. Treasury, the IRS, and other agencies across the administration are already hard at work to implement the Biden economic plan. In the coming weeks, Treasury will engage a broad spectrum of stakeholders on key provisions. My team and I will host a series of roundtable discussions to help inform our efficient and effective implementation of the tax credits. And we're working expeditiously to provide clarity and certainty so the law's climate and economic benefits can be felt as quickly as possible while providing effective guardrails to ensure that the benefits are delivered as intended. For decades, the world has been too slow to act. But strong action by the federal government is finally here. Where there's much more to do, I believe we now have a clear and robust plan forward. And I'm confident about the direction of the sustainable future that we're building together. So thank you very much. Look forward to be part of all of this with all of you. Thank you.