EPA gives $20b in ‘green bank’ grants
When Marcus Jones and his business partner, Akunna Olumba, set out to open a pizzeria in Detroit, they spoke with banks about their green vision: solar panels on the roof, an energy-efficient tankless water heater, and a rooftop system to capture stormwater.
“The lenders thought we were crazy,” Jones said. Traditional banks were skeptical that such investments would yield a return, and few had ever issued loans for clean energy or efficiency measures. They told the restaurateurs that it simply was not done.
Instead, the pair connected with a so-called green bank, one of a growing number of entities that loan money to businesses and individuals for equipment or technology that reduce the pollution driving climate change.
The movement will get a $20 billion infusion from the Biden administration Thursday in what Vice President Kamala Harris calls “the largest investment in financing for community-based climate projects in our nation’s history.”
The Environmental Protection Agency plans to award grants ranging from $500 million to $6.9 billion to eight nonprofits. The organizations will in turn use the money to offer loans to businesses, homeowners, and others to spur clean energy across the country, particularly in low-income neighborhoods.
Loans could be for something as small as helping one family purchase an electric induction stove or as ambitious as helping to build energy-efficient low-income housing.
“We’re putting an unprecedented $20 billion to work in communities that for too long have been shut out of resources to lower costs and benefit from clean technology solutions,” Michael S. Regan, the administrator of the EPA, said in a statement.
Republicans have slammed the money as a “greendoggle” and said the EPA is not prepared to oversee such a large program.
The $20 billion comes from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, Biden’s signature climate law, which included $27 billion for a program known as the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund.