New Climate Dollars Get Cheers, Shrugs From States

everyone sounds better to you. The tax breaks in the bill, especially for electric vehicles, got a lot of the headlines, but there was also a lot of money for things less glamorous than a shiny new tesla, things like efficiency in buildings and air pollution reduction. And a big chunk of that money is going directly to states. But what about the states that don't really think climate change is a big priority? How are they going to spend this?

Are they going to spend this? We're gonna get into that today with Zach Bright, a Bloomberg Law reporter who just wrote a story about what legislators in Annapolis, Olympia and St. Paul want to do with their new climate bucks. Zexas. Climate hawks and democratic leading states are pretty thrilled with this infusion of cash, even if they have some misgivings about how I wrote. Ultimately turned out, and he started off by outlining exactly what type of funding is in

this bill for states? Yeah, well, there's definitely a lot of stuff in this bill overall. Um, the things that I focused on in my article where I looked at how state legislators might levy some of that money and what they're most interested in. Um, one of the things that stuck out were to four point three billion dollar programs to kind of electrified buildings, retrofit buildings, and then there was also an additional billion dollars for building code upgrades.

And then, uh, some other pots of money that they were interested in were five billion dollars for states, municipalities, tribes, air resources boards like they have in California to develop emission reduction plans and to implement them. And then seven billion dollars for UM low income and underserved communities to actually implement technologies that reduce carbon emiss. Something that caught my ear just now is electrifying buildings. Uh what does

that mean? I mean, I know it doesn't mean giving buildings electricity because most buildings have electricity, but what, um, you know, does that mean removing you know, fossil fuel burning heating systems and buildings and replacing them with electric Is that what we're talking about. Yeah, yeah, that's definitely part of it. A lot of buildings still, you know, don't have heat pumps, and heat pumps are more energy efficient way of heating a building. UM. So that's part

of what they want to do. And watherizing buildings can also be helpful to prevent you know, heat from going out on cold days and the cold from going out on hot days. Um. And that helps towards that energy efficiency. The whole idea is if you you know, make a building run on electricity and then you clean up the source and you have all that power coming from clean energy,

then you don't really have any emissions. Yeah, that makes sense. Um. And you also spoke with the state lawmakers who are looking at this money and sort of already making designs for what they want to do with it. Can you tell me about who you talked to and sort of

what they want to do? Yeah, definitely. So I talked specifically with three state legislators UM Maryland Delegate Lord Chercotian, Minnesota Representative Fuli, and then UM Washington State Senator Christine Rolfus, and UM, it was really great to talk to all three to get these different perspectives UM on like how exactly they'd implement the IRA. But I mean, overall, one caveat that's important is that this is very much in

the beginning stages. The law was signed very recently. When I talked to these state legislators, you know, they were very excited overall, I would say, but at the same time, they weren't exactly sure what they were going to do. But there was definitely some talk about possibilities and some of those possibilities UM. You know, when I spoke with the Delegate Sharkutian, she had said that, UM, maybe it

could mean bigger offshore wind goals for Maryland. UM or you know, representatively had talked about UM really benefiting the low and UM middle income families, often people color, he said in his Minneapolis district. Senator Rolfus from Washington has had that that could really you know, tie in well with the state's already existing UM cap and invest program. That makes sense. And or I should say in the interest of full disclosure, Delegate Arcudian is, uh, my delegate.

She represents me, so I am her constituent. UM. But I want to focus on what delicately said about sort of focusing on low income residents. You know, this is a concept known as as climate justice. UM. Do you think that a lot of this money will go toward that, towards sort of helping people who are from disadvantaged communities

weather climate change. Yeah, I think there's definitely like an intentionality within the bill, and these um state legislators as well seem to have like a very you know, UM strong recognition that when these climate investments are actually put into action, they need to act really benefit low and middle income communities because oftentimes those are the ones who um don't really get the benefits and who are even

overburdened by pollution. You know, for example, with the whole vehicle electrification movement, the idea that you know, we we

need more electric vehicles and less gas powered ones. You know, one of the big pushes there is to kind of allow your everyday family to buy into that market, because right now it's it's it's very difficult if you wanted to get an electric vehicle to do that, and the i RA does include provisions to do that, and that that would be individual rebates for citizens, so that wouldn't even have to go through the state. That's kind of something that is implemented UM directly from the top down.

That makes sense because you know, there has been a lot of talk about this provision in the bill that would make it easier to get tax breaks for electric vehicles, but you know, a lot of these vehicles are out of reach for many many people. UM, it sounds like there are also provisions in the bill to make sure that you know, that's not the only kind of thing that uh, you know it is going to be happening with this money, right. Yeah, there's definitely other UM investments

as well. Like I mentioned earlier, there's a billion dollar investment UM towards building cold upgrades, and then more specifically, there's seven billion dollars dedicated toward low income UM communities to make sure that they can actually harness all these different technologies. That includes electric vehicles, but then also that includes you know, building retrofits and just everyday needs that

really focus on reducing carbon emissions. So you spoke to UM lawmakers from Washington, Maryland, in Minnesota, which were all pretty blue states or in some cases, you know, very

very blue states. Uh. And you know these are all Democratic politicians, and the interesting dynamic that you had in your story is that they were all pretty excited about, you know, potentially using this money for climate goals and for environmental goals, but they also were a little bit ambivalent about the bill itself because you know, as we actually talked about in our last episode, it also gives

a lot of concessions to the fossil fuel industry. Can you tell me a little bit about the ambivalence there? I mean there it sounds like they're happy but not happy. Yeah, that's exactly what Delegate Shercodian said. You know, she's happy with the bill, um, and she's celebrating that. But at the same time, um, you know she mentioned, and then the other lawmakers had mentioned, you know, there there are

things in this bill that could be better. First of all, you know, Senator Role has mentioned that it might be better to have like a national pollution framework. She talked about how in Washington they have a Captain invest program. It's similar to California's cap and Trade program, and all the West coast states Washington, Oregon, and California have programs like that, but they're isn't one at the national level. She was saying, maybe something like that could be considered

as a regulatory framework. There's a lot of carrots in the bill, but maybe there could be more sticks and then UM in terms of like the oil and gas leasing as well. You know, that can have really big impacts for frontline communities that Delgo. Sharcutian and UM representatively

had both pointed out. You know, yeah, that's just something that they have to bear in mind, and they definitely understand the political necessity of getting this bill forward, but at the same time, you know, they think it could have been better. So finally, this is something that I really want to dig deep into. UM Again, as we mentioned, you know, this is what lawmakers in blue states are wanting to do. What about in red states? You know, this is uh. You know, there are some states where

Republicans are control and climate measures. Climate mitigation is not really their top priority or any priority. Are they going to be using this money or are they going to leave it on the table, or are gonna be using the money for something that the Bill didn't intend them to do. I'm really interested to hear what is going on there. Yeah, I think that's a really interesting question. And that's actually something I kind of pursued and further

reporting that wasn't part of this story. UM. I talked with a couple of mayors, and I'm going to continue talking with some mayors who are really interested in climate action UM. But the catches is that they're from states

where the legislatures and the governor's mansions are controlled by Republicans. So, for example, I spoke with UM mayor Satia Rhodes Conway from Madison, and she's in Wisconsin, where you know, there's a Democratic governor, but the Republicans controlled the legislature, and she was saying, you know, it actually turns out that there was some foresight to a degree, UM in that kind of situation. You know, what comes to mind for me is when UM states received the option to expand

medicaid and so I just chose not to. And you know, that kind of implement implementation problem is certainly possible with some things, but in general, UM, the way to circumvent is to either a UM make those benefits flow directly to people so things like the electric vehicle tax rebates, for example, those don't have to go through the legislature. And then also UM things can be implemented directly by federal agencies and then they wouldn't have to go through

the legislature. But that's not to say that there's nothing that state legislatures might prevent. So one instance that UM Mayor wrote Conway had subsided was that and Madison. If they wanted to, for example, make building codes UH stronger than the state standards and make them more efficient to reduce carbon emissions, they couldn't do that at all because the state UM has law on the books that says you can't UM exceed our state standards. That's really interesting.

So it sounds like when Democrats and the President were crafting the bill they anticipated that there would be some states that wouldn't be on board, and they inserted measures into it. Yeah. Yeah, that's definitely the case UM. And in blue states like in Maryland, for example, they've asked a climate law back in April, and this money pairs

really well with that UM. So for states that are willing to act on climate, this is going to be a huge help to reaching those goals and make things actually achievable for the states that might not be interested in climate might I think climate is not an issue at all for those UM legislators and UM executive officeholders. You know that there are still things that can be done, just maybe not everything, maybe not every tool in the

tool kit, but you and that you know. You contrasted this with the infrastructure bill that was passed last year and how almost all of the money from that bill did go to to states, whereas in this case it's you know, a lot more varied. I think was that that sounds like it was intentional? Yeah, I think, um there was some intention there. I can't speak to you know totally, like, um, who exactly created those designs and the butt us actually something I'm trying to UM find out.

What I can say is the Infrastructure bill a really interesting comparison because UM that the Infrastructure law gave states a lot of money, and at the time, a lot of state legislators thought, well, this is all we kind of have to combat climate. You know, we have to tailor this, you know, spoon into a fork and use

it to eat. And now they have a fork which is the I ra A. So I don't know if that's maybe the best analogy, but they have a tool that's very precise, and those funds have to be for climate so I don't think I think it's less likely you would see a situation now where UM state legislators might take this money and use it for priorities that aren't based on climate change, because they kind of have to if they want to use it. That makes sense, all right, Spoons Forks and Zach bright Uh here talking

about the new i R A Inflation Reduction Act. Thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, thanks for having me, David, And that'll do it for today's episode of Parts for Billion. If you want more environmental news, check out on Twitter. We use the handle at environment just that at Environment. Today's episode of Parts for Billion is produced by myself, David Schultz. Parts for Billion was created by Jessica Combs and Rachel Dagle and is edited by Zach Sherwood and

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