Vice President Kamala Harris visits North Carolina today to unveil eight recipients of $20 billion from the Biden administration's Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund intended to give lower income and disadvantaged communities access to financing for clean-energy and climate-related projects.
The first-of-its-kind financing network will provide capital for projects that cut emissions, create jobs and attract private investment, ranging from the installation of electric vehicle chargers to energy-efficiency improvements in affordable housing.
"The grantees announced today will help ensure that families, small businesses and community leaders have access to the capital they need to make climate and clean-energy projects a reality in their neighborhoods," Harris said in a prepared statement.
The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund is part of the Biden administration's signature legislation on climate change, the Inflation Reduction Act, and includes two programs intended to stand up new community-level climate financing, the National Clean Investment Fund and the Clean Communities Investment Accelerator.
Top recipients include $6.97 billion for the Climate United Fund, $5 billion for the Coalition for Green Capital, and $2 billion for Power Forward Communities.
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The White House said the groups will dedicate 70 percent of their financing toward low-income and disadvantaged communities, including on tribal lands, in rural areas and in communities of color. In a press briefing, a senior administration official said the recipients were carefully vetted in the application process and collectively have decades of experience financing community-level improvements.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the projects the fund will support will reduce or avoid up to 40 million metric tons of carbon pollution each year over the next seven years.
"Today, we're putting an unprecedented $20 billion to work in communities that for too long have been shut out of resources to lower costs and benefit from clean technology solutions," EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement.
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Adam Kent works on green financing issues for the Washington-based nonprofit environmental group the Natural Resources Defense Council. Kent said the fund is expected to attract $7 of private money for every $1 of federal money.
"The level of capital needed to meet our climate goals is immense," Kent told Newsweek. "[This] uses limited public capital smartly to crowd in private capital."
The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund has become a target for Republican critics in Congress who have proposed legislation that would claw back its funding. An administration official said the president has pledged to veto that legislation if it reaches his desk.
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