A New Dawn

A statement by RMI calling for the United States to adopt a robust industrial policy and public-private partnerships to regain global competitiveness in the clean energy transition following the inauguration of the Biden-Harris Administration.

• The United States requires a coordinated industrial policy that prioritizes new clean technologies over high-carbon ones to accelerate the energy transition. Such a policy is framed as a means to create millions of jobs, improve health, enhance security, and drive economic competitiveness.
• RMI advocates for a public-private partnership model, suggesting the Biden administration use a green stimulus package for COVID recovery to drive industrial transformation. The document cites the 1988 creation of Sematec as a successful historical example where a consortium of 14 chip manufacturers, including Intel and Texas Instruments, reduced R&D costs and compressed miniaturization cycles from three years to two with federal support.
• The US has lost leadership in solar and battery industries despite spending billions on R&D because federal policy failed to prioritize retaining manufacturing or upgrading critical infrastructure like transmission systems. Consequently, China now dominates lithium-ion battery and solar manufacturing, while Europe leads in offshore wind through the Offshore Wind Accelerator (OWA), which includes partners such as Ørsted, Shell, and the Netherlands Enterprise Agency.
• The document argues that the US has been hindered by an ideological commitment to a "technologically neutral" "all of the above" energy policy and the use of import tariffs that increased solar costs rather than nurturing domestic manufacturing.
• To achieve a sustainable energy future, the US must agree on a vision that accepts the shift from fossil fuels to clean, electric solutions, move past ideology, and ensure a just transition that distributes benefits like lower energy costs and better jobs across all communities.

APA

RMI (2021). A New Dawn. https://rmi.org/resources/a-new-dawn/

Chicago

RMI. A New Dawn. 2021. https://rmi.org/resources/a-new-dawn/.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |author=RMI |title=A New Dawn |date=20 January 2021 |url=https://rmi.org/resources/a-new-dawn/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{rmi2021new, author = {{RMI}}, title = {{A New Dawn}}, publisher = {RMI}, year = {2021}, month = jan, url = {https://rmi.org/resources/a-new-dawn/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }