Bill Gates Offers $1.5 Billion if House Passes Biden's Infrastructure Bill
Billionaire offers massive sweetener to pass taxpayer-busting spending legislation
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Billionaire Bill Gates has offered to put up an additional $1.5 billion alongside the federal government if House lawmakers join with Democrats to pass Joe Biden's taxpayer-funded budget-busting infrastructure bill.
The $1 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act — a "bipartisan" compromise package on Democrat Biden’s $2.7 trillion American Jobs Plan - is soon to be voted on in the House of Representatives.
The huge spending bill already passed the Senate on Tuesday and Biden is expected to sign the legislation if it passes the House.
The bill spends $110 billion on roads and bridges, $73B on power infrastructure, $66B on passenger and freight rail, $65B on high-speed internet, and $39B on public transit.
$25 billion is also allocated in the bill for the Department of Energy to invest in public-private partnerships intended to address climate change.
Speaking during an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Gates announced that he would devote $1.5 billion to the plan via his Breakthrough Energy climate fund.
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“Critical for all these climate technologies is to get the costs down and to be able to scale them up to a pretty gigantic level,” the embattled Microsoft co-founder told the outlet.
“You’ll never get that scale up unless the government’s coming in with the right policies, and the right policy is exactly what’s in that infrastructure bill.”
Gates added that Breakthrough Energy would shift funding for the biggest projects to Europe and Asia if the package is not approved by the House of Representatives and signed into law by Biden.
Addressing climate change has been a core policy objective for the Biden administration.
In a recent speech, for example, United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry asked Communist China to reduce its carbon emissions.
“The climate crisis, my friends, is the test of our times,” he said.
“And while some may still believe it is unfolding in slow motion, no, this test is now as acute and as existential as any previous one.”
“As a large country, an economic leader and now the largest driver of climate change, China absolutely can help lead the world to success by peaking and starting to reduce emissions early during this critical decade of 2020 to 2030,” he added.
“The truth is there’s no alternative, because without sufficient reduction by China, together with the rest of us, the goal of 1.5 degrees is essentially impossible.”
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Months earlier, Kerry and his Chinese counterpart approved a statement vowing that both nations are “committed to cooperating with each other and with other countries to tackle the climate crisis, which must be addressed with the seriousness and urgency that it demands.”
However, China recently shirked its climate goals to double down on growing its economy.
China alone is responsible for 28% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Between 2008 and 2018 — a period of rapid economic growth for the world’s most populated nation — its carbon dioxide emissions significantly increased.
Over the same period, the United States’ emissions trended slightly downward.
