With Millions Still Out of Work, We Need Biden’s American Jobs Plan
Originally published on the NRDC Expert Blog.
By Mitchell Bernard
Today’s unemployment numbers out of Washington affirm what the country’s experiencing on Main Street: a grinding climb from a devastating pandemic that’s taking a continuing toll on the economic security of our people. It’s great news that unemployment is falling. But 9.3 million Americans remain out of work.
President Biden has proposed the right remedy — the American Jobs Plan, a comprehensive package of strategic public investment that weds climate action to equitable recovery and puts people back to work in every community.
This is a bold vision for strong, lasting, and broad-based recovery. It sets the table for a generation of prosperity and progress. It means cleaner, healthier communities, both urban and rural. As the plan makes its way through Congress, it’s time for all of us to rally around it.
The American Jobs Plan is a stirring vote of confidence in the nation’s future. It’s built on the belief that U.S. workers can out-compete anyone in the world when given a fighting chance. That’s what this plan does.
It sets us on the path to 100 percent clean electricity by 2035 — wiping out nearly a third of the dangerous carbon pollution that’s driving the climate crisis — by helping to clean up the nation’s power sector.
It speeds the transition to electric cars and trucks with zero tailpipe emissions, expands sustainable transit options for those who need them most, and reconnects urban neighborhoods divided for decades by misguided highway routes.
It protects our communities from the risks and toxic pollution from more than 3.1 million abandoned oil and gas wells and coal mines, by capping and cleaning up these idled fossil fuel sites as we shift to cleaner, smarter ways to power our future.
And it ends the ongoing and unacceptable exposure to hazardous drinking water in as many as 10 million American homes, by replacing lead pipes and service lines with safe and modern alternatives, while upgrading wastewater, drinking water, and stormwater systems nationwide.
These are essential national priorities. Cleaning up our dirty cars, trucks, and power plants. Capping abandoned wells and mines. Getting the lead out of our drinking water.
Combined with other vital work, such as rebuilding aging bridges, roads, and ports, this investment will create or sustain 15 million jobs over the coming decade, a Georgetown University analysis shows, including 8 million for workers that require only a high school education or less.
These are good-paying jobs for welders, carpenters, truck drivers, electricians, steelworkers, and others, including those who want the collective bargaining opportunities that come from belonging to a union.
The clean energy sector offers multiple advantages: It pays 25 percent more than the average job for some 3 million workers who help to make our homes, cars, and workplaces more efficient; it builds electric and low-emission cars, trucks, and parts; it gets more clean power from the wind and sun; and it modernizes the grid and storage system we depend on for reliable power.
That’s core work in the American Jobs Plan. It’s how we roll up our sleeves and make good on Biden’s pledge to cut the U.S. carbon footprint in half by 2030, so we can stop adding carbon pollution to the atmosphere altogether by 2050.
That’s what the science tells us must happen — at home and abroad — if we’re to avert the worst of a climate crisis that last year alone inflicted more than $95 billion in damage nationwide, while combining with fossil fuel pollution to impose another $820 billion in health-care costs on our people.
Confronting this costly crisis will be the economic play of our lifetime, with clean energy investments set to attract more than $11 trillion in global capital in the space of this generation alone.
The American Jobs Plan will help make the United States a clean energy superpower — and make U.S. companies and workers the winners in the global clean energy sweepstakes.
The plan includes investments to plus-up research and investment in critical new technologies; support innovation to make U.S. factories more efficient; strengthen the domestic supply chain for the next generation of wind, solar, and battery technology; and expand training for workers looking to transition out of fading industries like fossil fuels and into more promising opportunities elsewhere.
Strengthening our economy. Putting our people back to work. Cleaning up toxic pollution that threatens our health. Standing up to the mounting costs and growing dangers of climate change.
These are the pillars of the American Jobs Plan — strategic investment that’s paid for by asking fossil fuel companies, other corporations, and those earning more than $400,000 a year to pay their fair share to support the kind of progress that’s enabled them to thrive. Investing in efficiency, meanwhile, will enable us to do more with less waste in our homes, workplaces and cars, cutting energy costs for our families and businesses.
Small wonder, then, that the plan is supported by nearly two-thirds of the country.
The American Jobs Plan accomplishes one thing more: It addresses what the pandemic has made all the more urgent.
A modern plague that has killed 600,000 people across the United States alone, the coronavirus pandemic has upended the lives of us all. No one is surprised to learn who’s suffered most: primarily the same low-income communities and people of color for whom the pandemic has only worsened long-festering inequities in education and employment opportunities, housing, and health care.
The American Jobs Plan is designed to address those inequities head-on. It’s tailored to deliver 40 percent of the economic, environmental, and health benefits of this strategic climate and clean energy investment to the same historically disadvantaged communities that bear a disproportionate share of the burden of environmental hazard and harm.
The American Jobs Plan is the grand strategy the country needs — and we need it now. The 2022 federal budget Biden proposed last week includes a down payment on this eight-year investment plan, with early investment to jump-start the progress it’s meant to ensure.
Now, it’s our turn to rally around this hopeful vision of a cleaner, healthier, more prosperous future for a nation united behind the climate action that can power a strong, just, and equitable recovery for every family, in every community, across this land.
Over the weekend, Tesla began offering many Cybertruck trade-in estimated values above the original purchase price, apparently due to a glitch in its system.
Tesla offers online trade-in estimates for individuals considering purchasing a vehicle from them.
Over the last few days, Cybertruck owners who submitted their vehicles through the system were surprised to see Tesla offering extremely high valuations on the vehicle, often above what they originally paid for the electric truck.
Here are a few examples:
- $79,200 for a 2025 Cybertruck AWD with 18,000 miles. Since this is a 2025 model year, it was eligible for the tax credit and Tesla is offering the same price as new without incentive.
- Here Tesla offered $118,800 for a 2024 Cybertruck ‘Cyberbeast’ tri-motor with 21,000 miles.
- In this example, Tesla offers $11,000 more than the owner originally paid for a 2024 Cybertruck.
The trade-in estimates made no sense. Tesla has been known to offer more attractive estimates online and then come lower with the official final offer, but this is on a whole different level.
Some speculated that Tesla’s trade-in estimate system was malfunctioning, while others thought Tesla was indirectly recalling early Cybertrucks.
It appears to be the former.
Some Tesla Cybertruck owners who tried to go through a new order with their Cybertruck as a trade-in were told by Tesla advisors that the system was “glitching” and they would not be honoring those prices.
Tesla told buyers that it would be refunding its usually “non-refundable” order fee.
Electrek’s Take
That’s a weird glitch. I assume that it was trying to change how the trade-in value would be estimated and the new math didn’t work for the Cybertruck for whatever reason.
It’s the only thing that makes sense to me.
The Cybertruck’s value is already quite weird due to the fact that Tesla still has new vehicles made in 2024, which are not eligible for the tax credit incentive, while the new ones made in 2025 are eligible.
There’s also the Foundation Series, which bundles many features for a $20,000 higher price.
All these things affect the value and can make it hard to compare with new Cybertrucks offered with 0% interest.
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![At $28,000 off, is the Jeep Wagoneer S the best EV deal going? [update]](https://i0.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2025/06/jeep_wagoneer_deals.jpg?resize=1200,628&quality=82&strip=all&ssl=1)
Like a 90s “gifted” kid that was supposed to be a lot of things, the electric Jeep Wagoneer S never really found its place — but when dealers started discounting the Jeep brands forward-looking flagship by nearly $25,000 back in June, I wrote that it might be time to give the go-fast Wagoneer S a second look.
This month, the discounts are even better.
UPDATE 23AUG25: I found you some even better EV deals!
Whether we’re talking about Mercedes-Benz, Cerberus, Fiat, or even Enzo Ferrari, outsiders have labeled Jeep as a potentially premium brand that could, “if managed properly,” command luxury-level prices all over the globe. That hasn’t happened, and Stellantis is just the latest in a long line of companies to sink massive capital into the brand only to realize that people will not, in fact, spend Mercedes money on a Jeep.
That said, the Jeep Wagoneer S is not a bad car (and neither is its totally different, hideously massive, ICE-powered Wagoneer sibling, frankly). Built on the same Stellantis STLA Large vehicle platform that underpins the sporty Charger Daytona EVs, the confusingly-named Wagoneer S packs dual electric motors putting out almost 600 hp. That’s good enough to scoot the ‘ute 0 to 60 mph in a stomach-turning 3.5 seconds and enough, on paper, to convince Stellantis executives that they had developed a real, market-ready alternative to the Tesla Model Y.
With the wrong name and a sky-high starting price of $66,995 (not including the $1,795 destination fee), however, that demand didn’t materialize, leaving the Wagoneer S languishing on dealer lots across the country.
That could be about to change, however, thanks to big discounts on Wagoneer S being reported at CDJR dealers in several states:
- Jeff Belzer’s in Minnesota has a 2025 Wagoneer S Limited with a $67,790 MSRP for $39,758 ($28,032 off)
- Troncalli CDJR in Georgia has a 2025 Wagoneer S Limited with a $67,590 MSRP for $42,697 ($24,893 off)
- Whitewater CDJR in Minnesota has a 2025 Wagoneer S Limited with a $67,790 MSRP for $43,846 ($23,944 off)
- Antioch CDJR in Illinois has a 2025 Wagoneer S Limited with a $67,790 MSRP for $44,540 ($23,250 off)
“Stellantis bet big on electric versions of iconic American brands like Jeep and Dodge, but consumers aren’t buying the premise,” writes CDG’s Marcus Amick. “(Stellantis’ dealer body) is now stuck with expensive EVs that need huge discounts to move, eating into already thin margins while competitors focus on [more] profitable gas-powered vehicles.”
All of which is to say: if you’ve found yourself drawn to the Jeep Wagoneer S, but couldn’t quite stomach the $70,000+ window stickers, you might want to check in with your local Jeep dealer and see how you feel about it at a JCPenneys-like 30% off!
Jeep Wagoneer S gallery
Original content from Electrek; images via Stellantis.
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Multinational equipment brand SANY just launched a clever new 50-ton reach stacker that pairs gravity and an F1-style KERS system to generate electricity, improve operating efficiency, and reduce costs. The best part: they’re putting that smart tech to work by helping clean up (and shore up) the grid.
Short for Kinetic Energy Recovery System, KERS was a staple of Formula 1 in the late aught and 2010s. Essentially an advanced form of regenerative braking, KERS captured the kinetic energy of a car at speed that would normally be lost as heat when the brake pads pressed against the brake discs. Instead of heat, KERS converted that energy into electricity (storing it in a battery or flywheel), to be deployed later.
Sebastian Vettel explains KERS
In practice, KERS gave drivers an extra boost of horsepower at the push of a button, enabling them to attack or defend their position on track and adding a fresh strategic element to the sport. In SANY’s case, that stored power is fed back into the reach stacker’s electric hydraulic system, reducing pressure loss across the high-pressure setup by 50%, and lowering the machine’s overall energy consumption by more than 60%.
Energy recovery is a key feature. The potential energy of the boom, lifting gear and energy storage cabinets during the boom’s descent can be recovered efficiently with an overall recovery efficiency of over 65%. That means every 1 kWh of consumption in lifting can be recovered by 0.4 kWh during descent.
The 50t reach stacker is available with a 512 kWh swappable battery pack that’s compatible with other SANY heavy equipment assets, and supports both DC fast charging when swapping isn’t practical or (for whatever reason) desirable.
On a single charge and backed by the onboard KERS, that’s good enough for the machine can lift and move containers for more than 7 continuous hours, which SANY claims significantly reducing downtime for charging compared to other, similar equipment assets.
The new SANY reach stacker can stack six 50-ton containers, greatly enhancing a site’s container and battery storage density within a limited space. The first units will reach unnamed customers building out a utility-scale energy storage project by the end of this month.
Electrek’s Take
All the great stuff I was saying about the new 65-tonne XCMG still holds true for the SANY (especially when they take the wraps off their own 65t BESS-specific unit later this year), but the SANY adds smart battery swap tech and what seems to be more efficient operations, too.
Regardless of which one you choose, it seems like the available options for reach stacker operators are just getting better and better!
SOURCE | IMAGES: SANY.
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