It’s been two years since President Joe Biden signed a law that would invest billions of dollars nationwide toward climate action. For Oregon, those federal funds meant many of the state’s initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and programs aimed toward communities most impacted by climate change could get a significant boost.
And they are starting to arrive this year. Oregon has locked in nearly $285 million, with more funding pending in the next year.
“As soon as it was announced that it was passed by Congress, we got super excited knowing that there were going to be programs that we would be able to implement here in Oregon that would really help impact Oregonians,” Oregon Department of Energy’s Federal Grants Officer Emily Salmeri said.
The Inflation Reduction Act, a $369 billion dollar investment in clean energy and climate action, opened the door for states across the nation to use federal funds to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while transitioning toward more renewable energy. States are not the only ones that qualify for funding. The law also created tax credits for individuals or households for home energy efficient retrofits, like adding solar or electric heat pumps or purchasing an electric vehicle.
FILE - The rooftop solar array on a house in Portland, Ore., Dec. 1, 2022. The Inflation Reduction Act created tax credits for individuals or households for home energy efficient retrofits, like adding solar panels.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
It’s a landmark law that’s been dubbed “the biggest climate investment in the country’s history” by Oregon Democrat Sen. Ron Wyden and has so far helped move the renewable energy transition forward while also investing in creating more green energy jobs and helping communities hit hardest by climate change.
But Oregon was already ahead of the curve. State lawmakers passed legislation before the Inflation Reduction Act that will require electric utilities to have net-neutral carbon emissions by 2040 and a state agency is currently re-creating a program that would reduce 90% of carbon emissions from oil and gas companies by 2050. The Legislature also recently created programs aimed at installing 500,000 heat pumps by 2030, increasing electric vehicle rebates and retrofitting homes with energy-efficient appliances.
In the first two years after the passage of the IRA, federal officials wrote guidelines and rules for the different grant programs and then began accepting applications for the use of its funds.
Now, the state aims to use those federal funds to bolster Oregon’s existing climate action programs, with a focus on helping low-income, rural and communities of color adapt to climate change.
Last month, the state was awarded more than $197 million through the IRA’s Climate Pollution Reduction Grant Program. Those funds are aimed at reducing carbon emissions from buildings, transportation and waste and materials management.
In April, Oregon received nearly $86 million to boost solar adoption for low-income and rural Oregonians over the next five years.
“Those two programs also are going to flow to disadvantaged communities as well as households that are under a certain average median income,” Salmeri, with the state Department of Energy, said. “They may not reach everybody who would like a rebate, potentially, but they will impact those that need it very deeply.”
Salmeri said those federal grant programs were competitive, meaning Oregon was not guaranteed funding. That helped the state narrow down its focus during the application process.
“That term, ‘not reinventing the wheel,’ has been huge to us and it’s been sort of our mantra across all of the programs that we’ve been working on,” she said. “So, where we have successful things happening in the state, we want to just increase the funding, increase the successful ability for those programs to thrive more than they already are.”
Because Oregon had already created programs the federal government was looking to fund, the state was well positioned to receive money, University of Oregon law professor Greg Dotson said.
“That is a direct result of the fact that Oregon was future looking in its actions, and that really, really paid dividends for them,” he said.
Dotson was Democratic chief counsel for the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works during 2021 and 2022, which helped develop and pass the IRA. He said the law does much more than provide rebates and funding to fight climate change. The IRA was also designed to boost the clean energy economy nationally, by supporting the creation of more domestic manufacturing jobs in electric vehicle production, wind and solar facilities and battery production.
“I think that it has been a really important policy for not only in getting these technologies deployed in the United States, but also helping the domestic economy grow, is part of it,” he said. “So we’re not just installing things that we buy from other countries, we’re making them ourselves, we’re installing them.”
Overall, Dotson said policies like these are an important stepping stone to continue to support states, city and community efforts to act on climate change.
“They’re no longer a voice in the wilderness,” he said. “They’re now being supported by the federal government.”
The IRA also grants environmental justice funding. Last month, Lane County and United Way of Lane County received funding to create six community resilience hubs to support and house residents during extreme weather events like heat waves or wildfires.
The Nez Perce Tribe also received a $37 million award for work in Idaho and Oregon aimed at energy efficient retrofits, renewable energy infrastructure and investing in electric vehicles.
Oregon could receive more funding within the next year, ODOE’s Salmeri said.
The agency currently has four pending applications that could bring in an additional $200 million for more energy efficient retrofits and electrification programs as well as green energy job training.