EPA unveils $20 billion to finance the fight against climate change

In today’s edition, we’ll cover why U.S. workers have few legal protections from extreme heat. But first:

The EPA is unveiling $20 billion for a national ‘green bank’

Today the Environmental Protection Agency launches two grant competitions aimed at financing clean-energy projects across the country, particularly in disadvantaged communities that have struggled to attract private investments.

The grant competitions will dole out $20 billion under the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, commonly known as a “green bank,” established by the Inflation Reduction Act. They come as the EPA races to stand up the green bank despite several obstacles, including depleted staffing levels and House Republicans intent on repealing the spending.

Yet in a short interview yesterday, EPA Administrator Michael Regan projected optimism the agency would rise above these challenges.

“We are very confident we have pulled together the staff to design and implement this program,” he said. “We have the staff on board; we have the expertise on board. And we feel very strongly that this is going to be successful.”

Regan will formally announce the funding during an event in Baltimore today with Vice President Harris and Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.). The senators helped draft and secure the green bank provisions in the climate law along with Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.).

The green bank is arguably one of the least understood and most impactful programs in the climate law. So before we delve into the details, let’s review how the program works.

Imagine you have a promising idea for a new clean-energy business, but you can’t get a loan from an investor to turn your idea into a reality. Potential lenders tell you they’re hesitant to support a novel green technology or a business without a track record of success.

This scenario is common, especially in low-income and minority communities that have historically struggled to attract private capital. The green bank aims to overcome this problem by making clean-energy investments seem less risky for potential investors.

About half a dozen states have already established their own green banks without waiting for the EPA, and they’ve seen some notable successes:

• Since its creation in 2014, New York’s green bank has provided low-interest loans to a community solar project. The developers of the project were able to easily repay the loans on schedule, thereby establishing creditworthiness and making the project more attractive to other investors.
• In 2011, Connecticut established the nation’s first state-level green bank. Since then, the Connecticut Green Bank has leveraged $322.4 million in public dollars to attract $1.95 billion in private investment — a ratio of $7 in private dollars for every $1 in public money.

When designing America’s first national green bank, the EPA divided the $27 billion program into three grant competitions.

Last month, the agency announced the first grant competition, the $7 billion Solar for All initiative, which will help finance community solar projects nationwide. (Such projects allow people who cannot install solar panels on their roofs, such as renters, to receive credits from nearby panels that lower their monthly utility bills.)

The EPA today detailed plans for the other two grant competitions:

• The $14 billion National Clean Investment Fund will provide grants to two or three “national clean financing institutions,” which will partner with the private sector to finance tens of thousands of clean-energy projects, the EPA said. At least 40 percent of the funds will go to low-income and disadvantaged communities.
• The $6 billion Clean Communities Investment Accelerator will provide grants to two to seven “hub nonprofit organizations” that will provide funding and technical assistance to community lenders, the agency said. All of the funds will go to low-income and disadvantaged communities.

The Republican repeal effort

House Republicans have proposed rescinding nearly $7.8 billion from the green bank in the spending bill for fiscal 2024 affecting the EPA and Interior Department.

“These reductions are necessary to right-size these agencies and take into account the excessive level of funding that these agencies received outside of the regular appropriations process,” Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), who chairs the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies, said yesterday during a markup of the bill.

Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala.) has leveled harsher and more direct criticism at the green bank, calling it a “taxpayer-funded $27 billion slush fund” that lacks accountability and oversight.

Regan brushed aside the GOP barbs, saying they would not stop the agency from standing up the program.

“Many of the things at EPA that we do are always of constant debate with our Republican colleagues,” he said. “What we do is we put our heads down and we continue to do the work.”

Regan added that the green bank will spur investments in red districts whose elected representatives did not vote for the Inflation Reduction Act — a trend playing out with the climate law and the bipartisan infrastructure law.

“We have $27 billion to design a very effective program that, by the way, will go in all districts — red, blue and independent districts,” he said. “This is about investing in America.”

Forcing people to work in deadly heat is mostly legal in the U.S.

As excessive-heat watches and warnings or heat advisories affect more than 100 million Americans, outdoor workers in the United States have barely any legal protections from extreme heat, The Washington Post’s Jacob Bogage and Eli Tan report.

President Biden in 2021 ordered the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to begin drafting heat safety rules for employers. But finalizing a new federal standard is a years-long process subject to political head winds, mostly leaving state legislatures or labor departments to issue their own workplace heat protections.

At the moment, only six states have their own regulations that guarantee laborers access to water, rest and shade — the three elements that medical professionals say can protect workers from heat-related illnesses. The uncertainty has left farmworkers, roofers, delivery drivers and other professionals to defend themselves under the scorching sun and against their bosses.

In Texas, the Republican-controlled legislature recently passed a law that blocked Dallas and Austin from setting their own workplace standards, including heat safety ordinances. GOP lawmakers argued that the cities’ requirements burdened employers that do business across the state, especially in the booming construction industry.

Between 2017 and 2022, the deaths of 121 workers on the job were attributed to heat, according to OSHA, which says that number is almost certainly an undercount because heat-related deaths are often blamed on workplace accidents or underlying health conditions.

She died fighting ‘forever chemicals.’ They still linger in her town.

Amara Strande, who died of cancer at 20 following exposure to toxic chemicals known as PFAS, testified five times before Minnesota lawmakers in support of legislation to ban a group of the chemicals. But the risks linked to the chemicals, including infertility, thyroid problems and several kinds of cancer, persist in her community months after her death, The Post’s Amudalat Ajasa reports.

Strande’s death resonated in the eastern suburbs of the Twin Cities, where 3M has its headquarters and where the firm led the world in manufacture of products containing PFAS. The company says it is working to make things right with cities such as Oakdale, where Strande went to high school, including by paying for new and expensive water treatment systems to filter the chemicals. At the same time, it is facing numerous lawsuits over its environmental practices.

State legislators passed “Amara’s Law” two weeks after her death, banning the use of PFAS in Minnesota by 2032. But decades of unmonitored waste dumping has resulted in a nearly 200-square-mile underground plume of groundwater contaminated by the chemicals. By 2004, it had tainted drinking water supplies for more than 140,000 residents, according to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.

Climate envoy spars with House Republicans before China trip

Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Oversight Subcommittee yesterday slammed climate envoy John F. Kerry for his climate diplomacy with China and at times challenged the scientific consensus on climate change, Ellen Knickmeyer reports for the Associated Press.

In one particularly heated exchange, Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) accused Kerry of drumming up a “problem that doesn’t exist” in global warming. When Kerry asked why the world’s scientists and the 195 global governments behind the Paris climate accord would make up global warming, Perry responded, “Because they’re grifting, like you are,” drawing gasps from lawmakers.

The hearing came as Kerry prepares to leave Sunday for Beijing, where he will hold the first extensive face-to-face meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Xie Zhenhua, in nearly a year. Many GOP lawmakers said yesterday it is inappropriate for the United States to be engaging in climate negotiations with China, despite the two nations being the world’s top polluters. They pointed to China’s weak commitments to reduce emissions and the country’s history of human rights abuses.

Kerry defended his climate engagement with Beijing, saying the two countries are trying to “find ways we can cooperate to actually address the crisis” and that China “is critical to our being able to solve this problem.”