Empowering local climate leadership

Local entities, like states and cities, are often better positioned than the federal government to understand their unique challenges and craft specific climate policies. Whereas Congress and the White House face political and structural hurdles that can slow down policy implementation, subnational governments can be nimble and responsive. Their climate leadership is crucial to achieving the ambitious goal of halving U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

Announcing the EPA’s Climate Pollution Reduction Grants

This year, the White House and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced $4.6 billion in competitive Climate Pollution Reduction Grants (CPRG) for state and local governments. It’s a pivotal step toward empowering all levels of government to deploy clean energy, create economic opportunity, and advance environmental justice.

A grab bag of climate solutions just waiting to be funded

With a broad scope covering transportation, energy, buildings, and industry, the grants encourage a wide array of projects:

• 🚌 TRANSPORTATION: Initiatives to decrease reliance on fossil fuels through electric vehicles and sustainable community design.

• ⚡️ ENERGY: Efforts to adopt renewable energy and improve efficiency, especially targeting underserved communities.

• 🏠 BUILDINGS: Projects that drive energy efficiency in new and existing structures, with a focus on electrification.

• 🏭 INDUSTRY: Strategies to implement low-carbon tech and develop markets for materials with smaller carbon footprints.

The CPRG program also opens doors for initiatives outside these categories, such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions in waste management and promoting sustainable agricultural practices. Our Climate Pollution Reduction Grants Issue Briefing details more eligible projects and categories.

Local climate leadership just makes sense

The federalist governing structure of the U.S. places significant power in the hands of state and local governments, which means they often have more immediate authority over urban planning, building codes, and other areas relevant to decarbonization. Rather than imposing top-down mandates, the CPRG program incentivizes our subnational governments to set climate-smart policies, leveraging their closer relationship with constituents to generate public support.

Local governments also serve as "laboratories of democracy," piloting innovative strategies for decarbonization that, if successful, can be scaled nationally. Local-level policy experimentation and iteration carries less risk than federal policy shifts and allows for more direct community feedback.

The CPRG funds are also designed to work in tandem with a suite of other federal incentives — including programs we’ve previously advocated for, like Solar for All grants and home energy rebates — providing a robust financial toolkit for local governments to implement comprehensive climate strategies. For example, a host of virtually uncapped tax credits are now directly accessible to state and local governments. So-called “direct pay” mechanisms, layered on top of CPRGs, are expected to jumpstart previously cost-prohibitive decarbonization projects and can seriously offset the upfront costs of transit upgrades, EV charging stations, building retrofits, and more.

You guessed it… there’s a role for you ⚡️

With the clock ticking towards the April 1, 2024 deadline, we must encourage our state and local officials to swiftly develop and submit the most ambitious proposals possible. The plans should employ deep decarbonization strategies and demonstrate a clear pathway to economic opportunity, particularly for low-income and disadvantaged communities. We should also help ensure that our states and cities engage the public on the content of their proposals, both to gather feedback and to help spread public awareness of climate-friendly initiatives.

Your elected officials want to hear from you! Pick your favorite types of decarbonization projects and advocate for incorporating them into your state or city’s application. You never know what kind of response you might get.

Ready to get your hands dirty? Dive into our Climate Pollution Reduction Grants Action Plan or join an Hour of Action to do it alongside friends.

• • •

Featured photo by Avis Yang via Unsplash.

© 2023 Climate Changemakers

Enjoy this blog post? Share it with your network! Amplifying climate solutions is an essential civic action in building a better future. 

For more weekly content like this, subscribe to our newsletter. 👇