United States: The White House officials have recently launched a scheme where the initial sum of USD 20 billion will be used by hundreds of various organizations that will have to apply powerful clean energy and polluting-reducing projects across the country.
What does the Green project state?
The “Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund,“ or GGRF, is the largest single non-tax investment contained in the 2022 climate law.
Fund with 27 billion dollars total is specifically aimed at the poor, and poor people’s communities are often overexposed to pollution, as AXIOS News reported.
In this initiative, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) funds nonprofits that function as the intermediaries responsible for fostering and stabilizing the expansion of community-based banks. Accordingly, they will offer the following financial assistance for low-cost loans and other aid as well.
Its name is sometimes “Green Bank” Initiative because it is aimed at the possibility of mobilizing amounts of private capital that exceed public finances.
As USD 14 billion of the announced USD20 billion on Thursday is allocated to low-income and rural zones, neighborhoods of color, “energy communities” (such as environments contaminated by coal mines), and more.
More about the functioning of the program
One of the schemes offered by the GGRF program is the USD 14 billion to be disbursed under the National Clean Investment Fund.
Grants EPA and the White House announced Thursday under that umbrella include:
- Almost USD 7 billion for the Climate United Fund, which includes segments like consumers, small businesses, and academies. This fund will aim to help each target group it includes.
- USD 5 billion for the already well-established Coalition for Green Capital to “leverage the existing and growing national network of green banks.”
- A third federal funding to Power Forward Communities, which focuses on Decarbonize Affordable Housing, will be given USD 2 billion.
Another pillar includes a 6-billion Clean Community Investment Accelerator to ensure access to technical expertise, loans, and grants for clean tech projects. It includes:
- The USD 2.3 billion of the five grants allotment goes to Opportunity Finance Network, a coalition of nonprofit development financing associations with hundreds of members nationally who have been in the business for years.
- Individuals who become eligible under the third GGRF pillar with the “Solar for All” program budgeting for USD 7 billion will be selected this spring, officials noted.
Criticism by the Republicans
Republicans say that the EPA has no capability to handle funds as large as this, and they have floated legislation to repeal it, as AXIOS News reported.
According to the House Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans,
the program as a taxpayer-financed “slush fund,” and the administration has ill interests in using it to help its “special interest friends to advance a radical rush-to-green agenda.”