Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced in a video that he seeks to instantly terminate roughly $20 billion in clean energy grant programs. The funds are allocated by the Biden Administration’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund.
“The financial agent agreement with the bank needs to be instantly terminated,” said Zeldin. “We will review every penny that has gone out the door,” said Zeldin. “The days of irresponsibly shoveling boat loads of cash to far-left, activist groups in the name of environmental justice and climate equity are over.” The funds under review are part of the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF), designed to “mobilize financing and private capital to address the climate crisis, ensure our country’s economic competitiveness and promote energy independence while delivering lower energy costs and economic revitalization to communities that have historically been left behind.”
GGRF, created under the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, includes the $14 billion National Clean Investment Fund (NCIF), designed to extend financing for clean technology projects. Recipient organizations are partnering with private-sector investors, developers, community organizations and others to deploy projects, mobilize private capital at scale. It also includes the $6 billion Clean Communities Investment Accelerator (CCIA), which establishes hubs that provide funding and technical assistance to community lenders working in low-income and disadvantaged communities, providing an immediate pathway to deploy projects in those communities while also building capacity of hundreds of community lenders to finance projects for years.
The third bucket of grants is the $7 billion Solar For All program, which awarded funds to 60 grant recipients, including states, territories, Tribal governments, municipalities and eligible nonprofit recipients to expand the number of low-income and disadvantaged communities primed for distributed solar investment. The funds are expected to enable millions of low-income households to access affordable, resilient and clean solar energy.
Source: pv magazine
