The Biden administration announced Wednesday that it would be launching $4.6 billion in competitive grants to fund state, local, and tribal programs aimed at cutting at climate pollution.
The Climate Pollution Reduction Grants Program, which is spearheaded by the Environmental Protection Agency, is a $5 billion program created under the Inflation Reduction Act. The latest announcement releases a second round of funding from the program to help states fund proposals for a wide range of programs billed as leading to lower carbon pollution. The EPA made $250 million available to states earlier this year to help them develop these climate action plans.
“This program … gives states, tribes, territories, and cities a unique opportunity to think big and to think creatively about how they want to act on climate,” John Podesta, a senior White House advisor on clean energy innovation and implementation, said on a call with reporters. “It lets them design clean energy and pollution reduction programs that make sense for their local economies, and will benefit low income and disadvantaged communities.”
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The program, Podesta noted, is intentionally broad to give states the flexibility on how they want to tackle climate pollution – but, in order to qualify for the money, the EPA will prioritize measures that will cut the greatest amount of greenhouse gas emissions, along with bringing economic and health benefits to historically disadvantaged communities.
The money could be put to an extremely wide range of uses. In documentation for applying for the grants, the agency provided examples of proposals, such as programs to encourage electric vehicle use, to introduce congestion fees to cut down on traffic, to build bike storage facilities, to boost energy-efficient appliances, to restore brownfield sites, and to implement "cap-and-trade" or other methods of reducing emissions from the power sector.
Four states – Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, and South Dakota – turned down the first round of grants from the EPA, which restricts them from applying for the larger batch of money. But cities and counties in those states that received the planning grants are eligible for the second round of funding, according to EPA administrator Michael Regan.
“Some of the states that are not participating also emphasized to us that they felt that the cities in the metropolitan areas were better positioned to apply for these resources,” Regan said during the call. “So we believe we've designed this program in a very strategic way, that tribal nations, municipalities, metropolitan areas, and states and territories will have a shot at this.”
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There will be two competitions – one general and one specifically for tribes and territories. The EPA said it expects awarding approximately 30 to 115 grants ranging between $2 million and $500 million under the general competition, and approximately 25 to 100 grants ranging between $1 million and $25 million under the Tribes and territories competition.
The EPA said it expects that the general grants are expected to be awarded in the fall of next year, while the tribal grants will be awarded either between the winter of 2024-2025.