The Biden administration has two years left to make good on a big, bold promise to redress longstanding environmental harms suffered by poor communities of color in the United States and to help them prepare for the climate-changed era.
This is the essence of the administration’s environmental justice pledge. It acknowledges that pollution, driven by fossil fuels, has had an inequitable impact on disadvantaged communities in the United States. And it promises to widen access to public resources so that those communities can pivot to renewable energy.
With the Inflation Reduction Act, the White House has $370 billion at its disposal. How it distributes that money, and to whom, will be crucial in demonstrating the administration’s commitment to environmental justice.
“Part of this is also making sure we’ve got a level playing field,” said Heather McTeer Toney, a former mayor of Greenville, Miss., and a vice-president at the Environmental Defense Fund. “It’s a bit broader than addressing past injustices. It’s also preparing for the future.”
Who benefits?
The administration has pledged to direct 40 percent of what it calls the “benefits” of federal climate funding to disadvantaged communities. That means running a fine-toothed comb through the grants, loans and tax credits contained in the Inflation Reduction Act and determining who benefits.
“That’s a new way of thinking about how to disburse government money,” my colleague Lisa Friedman, who covers U.S. climate policy, told me.
It presents at least two challenges.
First, applications for government money can be long and time-consuming. That can place some at a huge disadvantage — for instance, a resource-stretched city mayor who really needs the money, or a community organization without the resources to hire a trained consultant to fill out the paperwork.
Second, McTeer Toney pointed out, assessing who benefits isn’t easy. Could a predominately white suburb apply for funding and make the case that 40 percent of the benefits would go to a neighboring, predominantly Black, city? You can see, she said, “why that would be super touchy.”
The first tiny bit of money is ready now.
Michael Regan, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, announced last week that the first tranche of block grants were ready to go out to community groups. It’s small change: $100 million out of a $3 billion pot of grants that will eventually become available. Community groups can use it for a variety of things, whether it’s monitoring air pollution or training people to tap into bigger grants.
Applications are due April 10.
Still to be decided: How to widen access to low-cost government loans.
The biggest pot of money in the environmental justice basket is a $27 billion fund that the E.P.A. hopes will inject capital into areas that have traditionally not attracted investments for clean energy and transportation projects. It’s called the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund.
A big question for the E.P.A. is how to divvy up that capital. Could the government create a brand-new “green bank” inside the agency? Could it channel money through existing, local green banks that traditionally finance renewable energy projects? Or through existing community development financial institutions, which traditionally offer capital for housing in low-income communities of color?
There are many demands on the agency. An alliance of Black and Latino community development financial institutions says its members are well positioned to develop renewable energy projects “in communities typically overlooked for climate investments.” A group that advocates for green banks favors a national green bank. The NDN Collective, an Indigenous-led group, has urged the E.P.A. to make funds available to private Indigenous entities and not just tribal nations.
The agency is expected to decide on how it plans to manage all this by mid-February.
That all adds up to a big political challenge. “The green bank is a real D.C. back-breaker,” said Donnel Baird, who heads Bloc Power, a Brooklyn-based company that electrifies buildings. I wrote about it in the fall.
New oil and gas projects are still being proposed. How does that square with these goals?
My colleague, Lisa, plans to keep an eye on the many proposed oil and gas drilling projects that the White House must decide on, including the largest on federal lands, called Willow, in Alaska. Among its opponents are Indigenous communities who say the project would threaten the area’s caribou and, in turn, their traditional subsistence.
Also complicated: How to assess the impact of mining operations for critical minerals for renewable energy.
At issue is whether permits should be fast-tracked for the extraction of minerals like lithium, which is essential for electric vehicles.
“We are seeing these minerals being extracted near or on Indigenous/Native lands and we need to work hard in ensuring that communities, water, and ecosystems are kept safe,” Jade Begay, policy director at the NDN Collective, told me in an email.
Essential news from The Times
A very wet year: The storms that caused havoc in California are well above the cumulative precipitation average of the last 70 years. Still, the state has seen worse.
But California is still in drought: The sudden deluge has not made up for years of ongoing drought in California.
Black communities at risk: A new study shows that a large flooding event in Southern California would disproportionately harm Black residents.
The future of air travel: Airlines are testing new technologies to reduce emissions. Whether they meet their goals or not, the efforts will very likely change the industry.
A clash in Davos: At the World Economic Forum, John Kerry, the U.S. climate envoy, defended the selection of an oil executive to head this year’s global climate talks. Activists were outraged.
Flesh-eating fungi: The oyster mushroom we can easily find in grocery stores is a carnivore. The toxin they seem to use could open the door to new types of pest control.
From outside The Times
An investigation by The Guardian and partner outlets found that over 90 percent of carbon offsets approved by the world’s biggest provider aren’t what they appear to be.
A study reported by Reuters shows that 2 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide are removed from the atmosphere each year. Trees are doing most of the heavy lifting.
From CNN: The U.N. secretary general, António Guterres, told the World Economic Forum that expansion plans by fossil fuel producers are “inconsistent with human survival.”
Before you go: Two climate leaders look to the future
We asked two leading climate activists, Bill McKibben and Xiye Bastida, to share insights on what they’ve learned and what might lie ahead for the movement. The two are separated in age by more than four decades (McKibben published his first book more than 20 years before Bastida was born) but, as climate leaders, they agree on many things.
Correction: Because of an editing error, the newsletter of Jan. 6 misidentified a British website that reported on shrinking glaciers. It is Carbon Brief, not Climate Brief.
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Manuela Andreoni, Claire O’Neill and Douglas Alteen contributed to Climate Forward. Read past editions of the newsletter here.
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