The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Biden announces $7B in federal solar power grants
WASHINGTON >> President Joe Biden was marking Earth Day by announcing $7 billion in federal grants for residential solar projects serving 900,000-plus households in low- and middle-income communities. He also planned to expand his New Dealstyle American Climate Corps green jobs training program.
The grants are being awarded by the Environmental Protection Agency, which unveiled the 60 recipients on Monday. The projects are expected to eventually reduce emissions by the equivalent of 30 million metric tons of carbon dioxide and save households $350 million annually, according to senior administration officials.
Biden’s latest environmental announcements come as he is working to energize young voters for his reelection campaign. Young people were a key part of a broad but potentially fragile coalition that helped him defeat then-President Donald Trump in 2020.
Some have joined protests around the country of the administration’s handling of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.
Senior administration officials said young Americans are keenly invested in the Biden climate agenda and want to actually help enact it. The Climate Corps initiative is a way for them to do that, the officials said.
Solar is gaining traction as a key renewable energy source that could reduce the nation’s reliance on fossil fuels, which emit planet-warming greenhouse gases. Not only is it clean, but solar energy can also boost the reliability of the electric grid.
But solar energy can have high costs for initial installation, making it inaccessible for many Americans — and potentially meaning a mingling of environmental policy with election-year politics.
Forty-nine of the new grants are state-level awards, six serve Native American tribes and five are multi-state awards. They can be used for investments such as rooftop solar and community solar gardens.
Pa. grant
Pennsylvania is getting $156.12 million. According to a press release:
“The Pennsylvania SFA Program will deploy and enable deployment of residential-serving solar, storage, and enabling upgrades in low-income and disadvantaged communities across Pennsylvania. The program will deliver meaningful benefits, such as household savings, quality jobs, and community ownership to rural, urban, and suburban communities; energy communities; and persistent poverty counties in Pennsylvania. It will also stimulate deployment of solar by strengthening the overall market for residential serving solar through an intentional balance of financial subsidies, program design, and project deployment services, such as community outreach and workforce development.
N.J. grant
New Jersey is getting $156.12 million. According to a press release:
“New Jersey, through the Board of Public Utilities (NJBPU), has designed a SFA program (NJ SFA) that tackles the major barriers that have prevented the adoption of solar energy by low-income and disadvantaged households. As a result of crossagency collaboration, the state has determined four key pillars for this federal funding opportunity: residential solar, multi-family housing solar and storage, residential-serving community solar, and technical assistance and workforce development. The State’s proposed use of funds across the four NJ SFA pillars is anticipated to serve tens of thousands of households in low-income and disadvantaged communities. Combined with the NJBPU’s extensive experience in managing successful solar deployment programs, along with the State’s significant demand for more solar energy, New Jersey is confident in its NJ SFA design to accelerate the clean energy transition in underserved communities.”
Biden is making the announcement at northern Virginia’s Prince William Forest Park, about 30 miles southwest of Washington. It was established in 1936 as a summer camp for underprivileged youth from Washington, part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps to help create jobs during the Great Depression.
Biden used executive action last year to create the American Climate Corps modeled on Roosevelt’s New Deal. He was announcing Monday that nearly 2,000 corps positions are being offered across 36 states, including jobs offered in partnership with the North American Building Trades Unions.
Biden has often used Earth Day as a backdrop to further his administration’s climate initiatives. Last year, he signed an executive order creating the White House Office of Environmental Justice, meant to help ensure that poverty, race and ethnic status do not lead to worse exposure to pollution and environmental harm.
He has tried to draw a contrast with GOP congressional leaders, who have called for less regulation of oil production to lower energy prices. Biden officials counter that GOP policies benefit highly profitable oil companies and could ultimately undermine U.S. efforts to compete with the Chinese in the renewable energy sector.
‘Climate crisis’
Biden was to use his Virginia visit to discuss how “a climate crisis fully manifest to the American people in communities all across the country, is also an opportunity for us to come together,” said White House National Climate Adviser Ali Zaidi.
He said the programs can “unlock economic opportunity to create pathways to middle-class-supporting careers, to save people money and improve their quality of life.”
The awards came from the Solar for All program, part of the $27 billion “green bank” created as part of a sweeping climate law passed in 2022. The bank is intended to reduce climate and air pollution and send money to neighborhoods most in need, especially disadvantaged and low-income communities disproportionately impacted by climate change.
EPA Deputy Administrator Janet McCabe said she was “looking forward to these funds getting out into the community, giving people skills, putting them to work in their local communities, and allowing people to save on their energy bills so that they can put those dollars to other needs.”
Among those receiving grants are state projects to provide solar-equipped roofs for homes, college residences and residential-serving community solar projects in West Virginia, a nonprofit operating Mississippi solar lease program and solar workforce training initiatives in South Carolina.
The taxpayer-funded green bank has faced Republican opposition and concerns over accountability for how the money gets used. EPA previously disbursed the other $20 billion of the bank’s funds to nonprofits and community development banks for clean energy projects such as residential heat pumps, additional energy-efficient home improvements and larger-scale projects like electric vehicle charging stations and community cooling centers.