The United States just took a big step in confronting climate change with the passing and signing of the Inflation Reduction Act, arguably the largest single investment in U.S. climate policy to date. It’s historic. But the bill passed with only Democratic support. Republicans, who rejected to the use of the reconciliation process to pass the bill, were unanimously opposed. Was there a realistic pathway to securing Republican votes? And what can be expected if Republicans take one or both Houses of Congress this November? To help unpack those questions and more, New York Times climate reporter and EPIC Journalism Fellow Lisa Friedman sat down with former Republican Congressman Carlos Curbelo, who proposed a carbon tax bill and co-founded the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus while in Congress. Carlos is a policy fellow at EPIC this year.

About a year ago, President Biden laid out his climate agenda. That agenda has since been roughly split into two Congressional actions: An infrastructure bill that passed last summer with bipartisan support, and the Build Back Better Act that still sits with the Senate. Recently, EPIC Policy Fellow Heather McTeer Toney, vice president of community engagement for the Environmental Defense Fund, and EPIC Journalism Fellow, Lisa Friedman, a climate policy reporter for The New York Times, sat down to talk about where things stand with climate change in the United States. Key to the discussion was the fact that the communities on the frontlines of climate impacts—often poor and minority communities—are seeing the money trickle down from the infrastructure bill and those communities are putting that money to work in building resiliency. In their eyes, Heather McTeer Toney said, we are already “building back better.”

After half a decade of low oil prices, things have changed pretty dramatically in recent months. Global benchmark oil prices are touching $120 a barrel this week, and gasoline prices in parts of the U.S. are topping out close to $7 a gallon. High prices have become a massive headache for policymakers already worried about rising inflation as the economy tries to restart following two years of pandemic shutdowns. While it is easy to point to Russia’s war in Ukraine and the US and European embargo of Russian oil as the primary cause of high prices, the reality is that the oil market crisis is far bigger and more complex than the Russian situation alone. So how did we get here? What resolves this crisis? And ultimately, what does this mean for the transition to a green economy? To help answer those questions, EPIC’s Executive Director Sam Ori recently sat down with Jeff Currie, global head of commodities research at Goldman Sachs. At Goldman, Jeff spends much of his time researching the oil market and forecasting oil prices to help guide investment strategies. Under his leadership, the commodities research team consistently ranks number one. Jeff is a CNBC Analyst of the Year and all around commodity market guru. And, he got his PhD from the University of Chicago.