The recently passed Inflation Reduction Act is the largest piece of climate legislation in the history of the USA…by a factor of something like 10x. There are a ton of important features – and my employer and team played an instrumental role in getting the legislation passed. We’ve been supporting modeling and analysis behind the scenes for over a year throughout the ups and downs of Build Back Better, Manchin on his yacht after killing the bill, and then the Inflation Reduction Act. By some accounts, we even named the legislation – it started as a joke that was thought to be the “real name” and it was picked up by some important players and got support. I personally played no part in this effort of supporting the legislation, but my broader team did – just to be clear.
Some folks from our broader team went to Washington DC to celebrate the passage at the White House. My big project has been wanting to have an in-person gathering, so we doubled up the usage of the trip to DC for those that contributed to the legislation to have that gathering during a busy week in DC. It was an amazing accelerative use of time and moved our project forward.
On the project team are about 7 folks. 4 of us are runners, 3 vegans. We had fun running every morning before work – one morning even running as a big group to the White House – a fun joke as none of us got invited to the official celebration, so felt like storming the lawn ;). In our project we’re focused on how to use our amazing, unique data to influence investments – and therefore influence emissions reductions. One application of this is to support the an important, but underlooked part of Inflation Reduction Act. More to come as details get ironed out.
While my time in DC was great – the travel part of it was less than stellar. Our airport, Fort Myers (RSW) doesn’t have the direct flights to anywhere of Chicago O’Hare – so most places require a connection. For me, this was a connection through Charlotte. Getting to DC was uneventful, but coming home was a major ordeal. I was scheduled to fly from DC to Charlotte at 7pm. But airline/pilot staff shortages were showing up – and get worse as the day progresses. Due to staff shortages, our flight didn’t get in the air until 8:30pm – about the time we should have landed in Charlotte. The 2nd leg of my trip was supposed to leave at 10:20pm. So I was supposed to have about 90 minutes to sit around Charlotte, eat some food, and get on board. But because of staffing shortages, I had to fight my way off of the plane, sprint to the gate, and board in a rush/late to make it home. The next available flight to RSW wasn’t until 11am – so I would have been stranded in Charlotte for the night. The whole thing was a big stressor – the lack of direct flights is annoying and the staffing shortages at the airlines without the corresponding decrease in flights makes for a no-win setup all around. I made it home, exhausted from the late night and stress, and slept in.
While I was away, the kids had a great week with Mommy. They kept the house clean, read Holes and watched the corresponding part in the movie, and seemed to have a good time.
Our weekend was pretty normal. A playdate, a sleepover, some grocery shopping. It’ll be nice to be home again for a spell before a busy October.
