There’s a lot of “green” to celebrate on the 54th annual Earth Day. Billions of federal dollars from the bipartisan Infrastructure and Inflation Control Act will support environmental efforts across the country.
“We haven’t seen this kind of investment in infrastructure, this kind of change, in decades,” said New England Environmental Protection Agency Regional Director David Cash. boston public radio on monday.
The EPA is working on regulations to reduce emissions and environmental pollutants such as PFAS, and funds from these bills will help those on the ground, Cash said.
One of these funding channels is the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. The money will be distributed to national and regional hubs, which Mr Cash described as “revolving loan funds”, which businesses can access to support the transition to clean energy.
For example, a public housing manager in Boston applied for a loan to fix energy inefficiencies in a building where appliances were not working and gaps under tenant doors made it difficult to control temperature. This fund helped renovate the building.
Cash said for every dollar the federal government spends through the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, the private sector will add an estimated $7. The idea is that if someone like the public housing director secures federal funding for building renovations, the loans will become more secure for private investors.
“It’s going to take the private sector off the sidelines in a fundamental way that hasn’t happened here before,” Cash said.
However, challenges remain in implementing some of the plans outlined in these laws. Notably, the rollout of electric vehicle chargers has been slow.
The Inflation Control Act includes funding to install 500,000 new EV chargers by 2030, but the Washington Post reports that only a few have been built so far. It is said that there are only 7 units.
This slow start may be due to the many stakeholders involved in installing charging systems between cities and states, and getting people to buy electric vehicles requires more than just federal and state action. , support from local governments and the private sector is also needed.
“This is a big change,” Cash said. “It’s going to take a lot of effort to make that change happen. But it’s happening.”
Cash said production is “accelerating” and he is “confident” the U.S. will reach 500,000 chargers by 2026.
