JACKSON, Wyo. — Jackson Hole is famously home to both stunning natural beauty and occupants of the highest tax brackets.
The New York Times (NYT) ran an article last week about those wealthy residents being courted to put their money toward green tech innovations designed to protect that natural beauty.
The piece spotlights Jackson Hole Center for Global Affairs President Nathan Wendt and his efforts to aim residents’ abundance at green incentives backed by the Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
“The elite enclave nestled next to Grand Teton National Park boasts the highest-income county in the United States by some measures,” NYT said. “And, Mr. Wendt reasons, many of its millionaires and billionaires work in financial markets but decamped from big coastal cities because they loved the natural beauty that Wyoming has to offer. They might, he figures, have both the money and the motivation to make local climate investment a reality.”
The report suggests that investing in climate-friendly technology could prove to be lucrative for those who can afford the buy-in.
“The Congressional Budget Office had at one point forecast that energy and climate outlays tied to the law would total about $391 billion from 2022 to 2031, with more than 60 percent of that coming from claims for various tax credits,” NYT said. “But Goldman Sachs analysts have estimated that the total could be three times that amount, as people and businesses make much heavier use of the incentives than the government expected. That could mean that some $3 trillion pours into green energy investment over the coming decade — $1.2 trillion from the government in the form of tax credits and other incentives, matched by even more in capital from private companies.”
NYT posits that Wyoming could end up outperforming the rest of the U.S. in per capita investments related to the IRA, pointing to hydrogen development and carbon sequestration tax credits.
Read the full article here.
