On December 5, 2022, EPN submitted comments on the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF). The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) charges the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with distributing $27 billion in new GGRF grants within the next two years, a sum that is more than double EPA’s annual budget. The GGRF is intended to assist communities in reducing or avoiding greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and other forms of air pollution. We are reassured that EPA has already taken note of the importance of deploying GGRF funds in a way that builds the necessary supportive ecosystem, and we encouraged EPA to focus on the needs of low-income and disadvantaged communities. We recommended that EPA pursue a staged, iterative approach to grant-making and the timelines in the act, focusing first and foremost on what is needed to issue grants within the 180-day deadline that help seed and build the external supportive ecosystem with technical assistance grants and other support.
Read the comments.