New rules for America’s green-hydrogen industry are controversial

ACURIOUS LETTERDCIRS sent on November 6th recently surfaced in Washington, . On that day, nearly a dozen American senators sent a stern note to Janet Yellen, America’s treasury secretary, Jennifer Granholm, its energy secretary, and John Podesta, the senior adviser to the White House on clean energy. It was about the legal guidance they expected from the Internal Revenue Service () on tax rules governing a generous new subsidy for “. They insisted that the rules for this clean fuel, that can replace fossil fuels in hard-to-decarbonise industrial sectors like steel and chemicals, must be “a robust and flexible incentive that will catalyse and quickly scale a domestic hydrogen economy”.That was but one heavyweight salvo in a months-long war waged by technology companies, environmental groups, energy lobbyists and business chambers over this previously obscure topic. To influence the handful of tax nerds and their political masters making this decision, millions have been spent on full-page advertisements in the and , on podcasts and—to the bewilderment of punters looking for a mindless rom-com—on mainstream streaming services like Hulu.