Will Biden's green jobs policies help him win votes?

The former 'carpet capital of the world' is undergoing a multibillion-dollar makeover.

Here in the rural Georgian town of Dalton, once known for its fabric floor coverings, a Korean company called Qcells is spending $2.5 billion to expand its solar panel factory, with another factory in the works.

It's a bold initiative that will create 2,500 quality jobs over the next 12 months, in an area where the average household income is around 27% below the national average. The hope is that the project will revive a corner of the US whose glory days seemed to be over.

And that is in no small part due to someone many residents of this Republican district would rather not acknowledge: Joe Biden.

The President's Milestone 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) – his signature green legislation – offered hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks, credits and loans to boost U.S. clean energy production.

The most ambitious climate legislation in US history has created a tsunami of private sector investment, with major consequences for the rest of the world. And Georgia — a state that President Biden hopes will play a role in this year's presidential election — has been a major beneficiary.

But with four months to go before the president takes on Donald Trump head-to-head, billions of dollars in new investment in this key state appears to have done little to boost support for the incumbent.

President Biden's pitch is that solving the climate problem is also good for jobs. Since the law was passed, more than 300,000 clean energy jobs have been created in the US, according to the advocacy organization Climate Power.

And there's no doubt it creates opportunities in places like Dalton. Here you see Bidenomics in action: foreign and government money is used to fight climate change and build an economy from the middle.

Scott Moskowitz, chief market strategy officer at Qcells, says Georgia has been a great home since 2019, but the IRA has been an “accelerator.” Without it, he muses, the current expansion might not have happened at all.

“What our industry has seen since the IRA was passed is more investment in solar and clean energy production in the last two years than in the previous 20 years,” he said.

And yet that message is not getting through or is simply not resonating with the local population – not even with local Democrats.

Jan Pourquoi, spokesman for the local Whitfield County Democratic Party, tells me, “There is resentment in the business community against that company. [Qcells].”

Mr Pourquoi, a Belgian expat, should know. He owns one of the city’s small carpet companies. We spoke in his office, overlooking the factory floor where floor scraps are processed into small rugs.

“The business community is outraged that a company from South Korea is coming to this area with government subsidies, while they themselves receive nothing from the government,” said Pourquoi, who identified as a Republican before leaving after Trump's election in 2016 switched parties. .

He tells me that local voters know little about the IRA law. “Nobody cares about clean energy, not around here. That’s the kind of thing the ‘latte liberals’ care about in the big city.”

Well, at least one person does, and that's Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican congressional representative for the district. She has touted Qcells' expansion despite voting against the law that made it possible.

It creates an uncomfortable dynamic for Republicans. The IRA is in Donald Trump's crosshairs.

If Republican lawmakers win a major victory in the Congressional elections also on November 5, parts of President Biden's key climate law could be repealed. That would jeopardize the clean energy revival in their U.S. communities.

I went for coffee with Kasey Carpenter, Dalton's Republican member of the Georgia House of Representatives. We met at Oakwood Café, the bustling eatery he owns along with a number of other local businesses, including a pizzeria and a boutique hotel.

Mr. Carpenter downplayed the potential impact on Qcells of rolling back manufacturing tax breaks, saying he doesn’t think it would jeopardize solar investment in his district.

But he adds that if investments in clean energy are at risk, “I'm confident we will talk to Trump's team.”

Our conversation ends with the comment that it would be an extra feather in Dalton's cap if this carpet city could also lay claim to the title of “solar panel capital of the world”.

But that's owned by China, which controls 80% of the world's solar panel supply chain.

China has been investing heavily in renewable energy for years and is expected to spend as much as $675 billion by 2024. according to a report from the International Energy Agency (IEA).

To compete, governments around the world are investing hundreds of billions in the green industries of the future.

According to the IEA, clean energy investment in the EU is expected to increase to $370 billion by 2024. The forecast figure for the US is $315 billion.

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said last year that she hoped increased U.S. spending on renewable energy would help address the problems “significant distortion” in the global economy caused by China.

The aim is also to deny China even more access to the US renewable energy market.

And these enormous green investments are being very deliberately channeled by the Biden White House to so-called red states – the states that usually vote Republican. The hope is to achieve a revival in production before the presidential elections in November.

For those who work at the Qcells factory, this opportunity has been life-changing.

Robots patrol the factory floor where solar cells are packaged into panels. There I meet Alan Rodriguez, dressed in a black polo shirt with the Qcells logo on it.

He traded work at a Dalton carpet factory for Qcells shortly after the solar panel manufacturer opened its first location in 2019. Mr. Rodriguez started at an entry-level position before learning advanced skills and progressing to a position on the engineering team.

When he worked in the flooring industry, he never dreamed he would progress so quickly.

“For me it's been great,” Mr. Rodriguez says as he walks along the production line. “The courts are much better, the environment. It's a clean facility.”

President Biden is counting on people like Alan Rodriguez to help him swing red states his way in November.