The actual central failing of Biden-era climate and energy policy is that having won the prioritization war and successfully convinced Democrats to put a huge sum of money into clean energy rather than deficit reduction, poverty reduction, or health care, the climate movement completely refused to actually embrace the investment-led strategy. They pocketed enormous amounts of spending, then pushed Democrats to use every regulatory means at their disposal to curtail fossil fuel use and fossil fuel production. At the same time, they refused to embrace the kind of regulatory changes that would complement the IRA’s spending priorities.

But my point is this: In the Biden Era, an investment-led approach to emissions reduction won the lion’s share of new spending, spending that could have gone to other progressive causes or been put toward tax cuts or deficit reduction to pander to the electorate.