WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden is marking Earth’s Day by announcing $7 billion in federal subsidies for residential solar projects serving more than 900,000 families in low- and moderate-income communities. He also plans to expand his New Deal style American Climate Corps Green Jobs Training Program.
The grants are being awarded by the Environmental Protection Agency, which revealed the 60 recipients on Monday. The projects are expected to reduce emissions by the equivalent of 30 million metric tons of carbon dioxide and save families $350 million annually, according to senior administration officials.
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Biden’s latest environmental announcements come as he works to energize young voters for his re-election campaign. Young people were a key part of a broad but potentially fragile coalition that helped him defeat the then president. donald trump in 2020. Some have joined the protests across the country over the administration’s handling of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Senior administration officials said young Americans are deeply invested in Biden’s climate agenda and genuinely want to help implement it. The Climate Corps initiative is one way they can do that, officials said.
Solar is gaining strength as an important source of renewable energy that could reduce the country’s dependence on fossil fuels, which emit planet-warming greenhouse gases. In addition to being clean, solar energy can also increase the reliability of the electrical grid.
But solar power can have high costs for initial installation, making it unaffordable for many Americans — and potentially spelling a mix of environmental politics and election-year politics.
Forty-nine of the new grants are state awards, six serve Native American tribes and five are multistate awards. They can be used for investments like rooftop solar and community solar gardens.
Biden is making the announcement in Prince William Forest Park in northern Virginia, about 30 miles southwest of Washington. It was established in 1936 as a summer camp for underprivileged Washington youth, 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 inspired by Roosevelt’s New Deal. He is announcing Monday that nearly 2,000 positions are being offered in 36 states, including jobs offered in partnership with the Building Trades Unions of North America.
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Biden has frequently used Earth Day as a backdrop to promote his administration’s climate initiatives. Last year, he signed an executive order creating the White House Office of Environmental Justice, designed to help ensure that poverty, race and ethnic status do not lead to greater exposure to pollution and environmental damage.
He tried to draw a contrast with Republican Party congressional leaders, who have called for less regulation of oil production to reduce 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.
Biden will use his visit to Virginia to discuss how “a climate crisis that is manifesting itself fully to the American people in communities across the country is also an opportunity for us to come together,” said White House National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi .
He said the programs can “unlock economic opportunities to create pathways to careers that support the middle class, to save people money and improve their quality of life.”
The awards came from Solar Program for Allpart of the US$27 billion “green bank” created as part of a broad climate law approved in 2022. The bank’s goal is to reduce climate and air pollution and send money to neighborhoods most in need, especially disadvantaged and low-income communities disproportionately affected by climate change.
EPA Deputy Administrator Janet McCabe said she was “eager for these funds to reach the community, giving people skills, putting them to work in their local communities, and allowing people to save on their energy bills so that can apply those dollars to other needs.”
Among those receiving grants are state projects to provide solar-equipped roofs for homes, college residence halls, and home care community solar projects in West Virginia, a nonprofit solar leasing program in Mississippi, and solar workforce training initiatives in South Carolina.
O Taxpayer-Funded Green Bank Faced Republican Opposition and concerns about accountability for how money is used. Previously disbursed EPA the other US$20 billion from 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 such as electric vehicle charging stations and community cooling centers.
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St. John reported from Detroit.
This story originally appeared on Time.com read the full story
