President Joe Biden suggested there will be changes to how a massive new climate and clean energy law is implemented following criticisms from European allies.
During a joint press conference Thursday with French President Emmanuel Macron, Biden said there are “obviously going to be glitches” and a “need to reconcile changes” in a law of that magnitude. The law, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, includes nearly $370 billion for climate and clean energy programs over the next decade.
“There’s tweaks that we can make,” Biden said. “It was never intended, when I wrote the legislation, it never intended to exclude folks who were cooperating with us.”
France and other European Union countries have been fuming over provisions in the climate law that favor renewable energy components that are manufactured in the United States.
“President Biden wishes to create more industrial jobs in the long run for his country and to build a strong industry and secure your supplies, and this is very much our approach as well,” Macron said Thursday. He said the two nations were working to find solutions in coordination with other European nations.
Macron said France and the United States would work to “resynchronize” their policy goals moving forward.
The French president, who is in Washington this week for the first official state visit hosted during the Biden administration, applauded the president’s broader climate policies while taking a swipe at the Trump administration for withdrawing U.S. support for an international climate deal.
“The fact that you’re back on major international challenges such as health and climate, it is really a new deal,” Macron told Biden. “We’ve been resisting for a number of years, and now we’re being able to reengage with you.”
